Cast Off!

Yes, today was the day Walt got his cast off!

I was out of here by 7, dropping the older dogs off at the dog-sitter. Normally we wouldn't do that for being gone a few hours, but we had tree guys coming to chop down a tree in our back yard. Walt tried to reschedule the appointment when it conflicted with his doctor's appointment, but we had waited 3 months to get it and they couldn't tell us how much longer we had to wait, so we made arrangement for them to just come into the yard while we were out. Which meant the dogs had to go somewhere while we were gone.

They appear to really love being at Kathy and Miguel's house and Lizzie always comes home brushed, which is very nice. It's nice when the people who board your dogs are also your dog groomers!

We drove into Kaiser and the cast was cut off, then he was x-rayed and then, since were more than an hour early, we sat in the waiting from for a long time.

Finally he was called to see the doctor and was back out again very quickly, having been given the all-clear to go home. We got back next week for his first physical therapy appointment.

He's very relieved to be rid of the that heavy cast, but disappointed that his arm is so stiff and sore. He accidentally hit it against a table today and said it hurt a lot.

By the time we got home, the men were just cleaning up, having chopped up the tree. Their big truck was in our driveway, so I pulled across the street. Walt thought he was hot stuff when he was able to drive the car across the street after the men left.

I decided to do some real Christmas shopping, so left Walt here with Daisy and I took myself to lunch. It was raining and I loved the look through this archway.

I actually bought a few gifts, which means that I now have a few gifts for Christmas. Yay me!

When I got home, there was the yard to put back to rights. The tree guys had left big chunks of the tree trunk lying in big piles all over the place. We had to move the fence back to where it blocked off the side of the house so Sheila can't bark under our neighbor's bedroom window.

If you want to see a comedy of errors! It had been raining softly all day, so over on where the thick logs (about 4-10" across) were was rapidly becoming a swamp. There we were � Walt with the use of only one arm, me wearing Birkinstocks and my feet sinking in up to the tops of my feet every time I moved, both of us trying to pick up these logs and toss them off to the side so we could get the barricade back up again. If only it hadn't been raining, it would have made a good movie!

The big dogs were happy to have me show up for them, I had a nice visit with Kathy and her new foster dog, and we were home in time for dinner and Jeopardy.

Things went well in the evening until I sat on the puppy. Fortunately, she was sleeping in my squishy recliner, so I just kind of surprised her (and me!) and didn't hurt her. But it was an effective way to wake her up.

It's very strange but my December calendar is starting to look like my mother's. Normally I go for months and the only thing written in is shows I have to review, but I review a show tomorrow, have a Christmas party on Saturday, another party on Sunday, I give blood on Monday, work at helping coordinate boxes for poor people on Tuesday, take Walt to physical therapy on Thursday, go to a Christmas party on Friday, and review a show on Saturday.

Whew. My mother does this every day of every week. I don't know how she does it!

This was NOT taken right after I sat on the puppy! LOL.

How Not to be a Critic

A good tip: If you're sitting in a small theatre and you have nobody sitting between you and the only person on stage, it's never a good idea to fall asleep. The monologist met the audience out in the small lobby after the show tonight. I bundled up in my red jacket (covering up my distinctive t-shirt....as if I wasn't already conspicuous by my mere size) and slunk off in the other direction, not wanting to find out whether he noticed that I'd been dozing.

I'm not sure why I was so sleepy. True, I didn't have a pre-show nap this afternoon, but I didn't think I needed one. But maybe the fact that I was up too late last night trying one last time to get that damn BookSmartStupid program to work before I wrote the review for the show we had seen last night had something to do with it.

The review hadn't been a difficult one to write. "Noises Off" is an hilarious show and the production is just great. My biggest problem was cutting the words down to my standard 750. I wanted to make sure I had adequately reviewed everyone involved in the project--down to the people who wrote the very funny program.

In the morning Walt and I were off by 9 a.m. and on our way to Kaiser. This is becoming routine now. I dropped him off for his 9:40 x-ray appointment and I went off on an unsuccessful search for a gas station (I know there must be gas stations in Sacramento...somewhere...but just not where I was looking). I met him at Orthopedics and they took him early, since his x-rays took less time than expected. It meant we were home by about 11:30.

The doctor's report is noncommittal. I guess the x-rays must have looked OK because he is now scheduled not to return until December 6, when his cast will be taken off and then we'll see how it has all healed and how much physical therapy is going to be involved.

I was scheduled to do an interview at 1 p.m. so we had time for lunch before heading out again. The interview was great fun. It was with Paul's former boss, Bob Bowen, who, 30 years ago, had this crazy idea, thanks to an article he read in Women's Day magazine, to put on a children's version of The Nutcracker. All five of our kids were in that very first production, did several productions after that, graduated to the tech crew and Ned is listed in the 2006 program as having worked on set design. So The Davis Children's Nutcracker is very near and dear to my heart and I'm writing a feature article for its 30th year anniversary.

I brought Walt along with me for the interview, since he has been involved with the show, off and on over the years, and since we have been involved in many projects with Bob, whom we consider a friend, over the years.

It was old home week, and such a great time reminiscing about all the things that have evolved as a result of that very first Nutcracker.

I left the interview all jazzed about other interviews I'll be doing for my article, and I have the first line already written: "Davis would be a much different town today, if Bob Bowen hadn't liked beer and pretty girls." How's that for a "grab-ya" opening?

We had dinner and then drove back to Sacramento to see this monologue show. It was held in a very small theatre, the very theatre where several years ago I had the embarrassing zebra incident, in fact. We were so early we had time to stop at Starbucks for a gingerbread latte (since Mary has been mentioning them and making me jealous), and were early enough to attend the prologue before the actual show.

I don't understand people. OK, the show itself doesn't start until 8 p.m., but there is a woman standing on the stage talking about the show and a group walks in and proceeds to stand there, almost directly in front her, discussing, in normal tone of voice, where they want to sit. Talk about rude! Another couple sat in the front row and continued to talk while the speaker tried to talk over them.

With Walt's arm in a cast, seating at theatres is getting tricky. I always try to get a left aisle seat for myself so I can stretch out the knee that doesn't like to bend ever since my bike accident four years ago. But now Walt needs the arm of a seat to rest his arm on, so he also wants to have a left aisle seat.

This particular theatre is only four rows deep and it is angled in such a way that the aisle separating the right section from the middle section is only the width of about half a seat in the top row, so Walt could sit in the right section and I could set in the middle section, with no chair in front of me, and we could both be taken care of -- his arm had an armrest and my knee had no chair in front of it, so I could stretch out, and the space between us was less than the width of a theatre seat.

But, as I mentioned in the first paragraph, the danger of this is that I am essentially sitting at the top of the stairs, not actually IN the row of seats, which means that if the actor looks at the stairs, all he can see is me, all alone....asleep.

I suppose that will factor into my review at some point. Perhaps not admitting that I was actually sleeping, but mentioning that the show could be just a tad shorter. It was good, but not outstanding. Too much seemed repetitious and not funny enough.

Or maybe I just needed that nap this afternoon.

Baby Sykes Gets a Gift

I don't know if you remember this photo that I printed in June last year:

This was Ned's wedding and in the June entry I talked about how their gift to all the guys in the wedding party were Converse high top shoes. The girls got colored high tops.

Ned still wears high tops. It is his trademark.

When we got the message that Tom and Laurel are having a girl in April, this is what Ned & Marta had sent to them:

Tom was thrilled. He says they aren't too much "into pink," but how can you not love these shoes? I told Ned that trumped the gift I have for them, which I hope to give them at Thanksgiving.

In other news, we spent about 6 hours at Kaiser yesterday (yesterday's video was about trying to park there!) It was Walt's first routine exam following his accident and we had to get there around 9:30 so he could get x-rays before his 10:30 appointment. Knowing how parking is at that facility (abominable), I let him off while I drove around and around trying to find a place to leave the car.

He was in the doctor's office for a long time and finally came out to tell me we were going to be there a lot longer, that the doctor didn't think his wrist was healing properly, and that she wanted him to meet with an orthopedic surgeon. He looked very glum.

We left my hard-sought parking place and went to a Waffle place, since Walt just wanted some comfort food and I figured that it looked like a good "home cookin'" kinda place. It was. He had a salad and grilled cheese sandwich and I, because I need the extra calories, decided that since it was a waffle place, I'd actually have a waffle (it was delicious).

Back we went to Kaiser. I sat in the waiting room waiting for Walt for so long that I was getting upset because I was certain they were doing the procedure and they had forgotten to tell me.

But no. After about 2 hrs, Walt came out and said he had decided not to have it done.

Apparently the problem is that without the insertion of pins and a metal plate (and a second operation to have them removed after the wrist heals), he will have decreased range of motion in the up/down movement. It shouldn't affect most of what he does.

Walt weighed how many more years he may live against his real resistance to having surgery and decided he would just live with what the doctor refers to as a "deformity."

I'm kind of sorry that I wasn't in the exam room with him to know exactly what the doctor told him, but the decision has been made and he goes back in a couple of weeks for his next regular check-up. He is hoping to get the cast off in December but I don't know. Given my mother's very lengthy recovery time for her ankle, I'm not counting on anything until they actually tell him they are removing the cast!

Fingers, Day 2 - Fingers, Day 7

Things are going crazy for me this week, with a big article due tomorrow (for which I need to transcribe tapes--and my transcription unit isn't working right, so I'm having to do it using the hand-held machine), Michele's slide show, organizing things (food, pick-up of Jeri, meeting Tom, etc.) for the memorial, Rupert's return tomorrow, and just all sorts of things. Makes me feel overwhelmed and out of control.

Medicine, Messes and Martians

The day started with the first (of what I am sure will be many) trip to Kaiser for Walt to meet with his orthopedist. Things went surprisingly quick, with her assessment that the folks in the ER had done a fine job of lining up his bones and putting on the splint, so all that needed to be done today was putting on the fiberglass cast (which Walt says is Very Heavy). We were out of there in no time, relatively speaking.

The hardest thing was just finding a place to park. The hospital was not new when we moved here in 1973 and it has only increased in membership since then. At certain times of day, the only way you can get a place to park is to follow someone heading into the parking lot with keys in hand and hope they aren't just picking up something out of the trunk. Not only that, but there are HUGE cars (SUVs and trucks) parked in compact spots and it makes the row very, very narrow. Being a nice, thoughtful person, when I parked, I pulled up as close as I could to the car facing me, leaving my back end pulled in nice and tight (which I can do with the car, unlike with the back end I carry with me at all times).

When we returned to the car there was an irate woman who wanted to be sure to know that I had hit her car. She said it over and over again that I had hit her car. She said "get out and see," so I pulled back a bit to examine the damage and she said she didn't say I had caused any damage, but she just wanted me to know that I had hit her car. She drove off angrily.

When we got home, the dogs were, as usual, thrilled to see us. Rupert danced and danced and danced, right in the big pile of poop he had left right in the middle of the kitchen floor. I couldn't get to him before he'd smeared it everywhere. I had a huge mess to clean up, and a dog to bathe.

Then we tried to go to Taco Bell to collect the free taco they advertised for a stolen base during the world series:

The store would not give a free taco without a purchase of some other food item, so I've made a very brief video (which pretty much says what I have written here) and am trying to spread the word about the 77-cent fraud perpetrated by the Davis Taco Bell. Harumph! They caused more ill will than they would have spent on ingredients for the free tacos.

But the fun was in the last part of the day. This was the day they were going to screen The Martian Child prior to its theatre opening on November 2. My editor invited Walt and me to go with him. (The Photo of the Day was going to be the photo David sent me from when he and Sean attended the premiere in LA a week or so ago, but, of course, it's on my desktop, which I still don't have back.)

The movie is a real feel-good movie which does justice to the book. The one glaring difference is that John Cusack is a widower, not a gay man, but as David says, straight people can be just as good as adoptive parents as gay people can, so it didn't really affect the movie.

There were a few places where I almost guffawed outright, not because they were so funny but because anybody who knows David and Sean would find them very funny (and no, I won't say where or why!)

But I laughed, I cried and I was thrilled that the movie turned out so well. Can't ask for a better cast: John Cusack, Joan Cusack, Oliver Platt, Angela Houston, Amanda Peet and, as Dennis, young Bobby Coleman.

Go see this movie; you won't be disappointed. Even my critical editor called it "charming."

When the movie finished it was nearly 9 p.m. and we hadn't had dinner so I suggested we go to Olive Garden, where we both had a great grilled shrimp caprese

...and then came home to the rowdy dogs again. I'm praying Rupert doesn't figure out the dog door. It is my one refuge from him. He's very sweet, but he won't just sleep at my feet like the other dogs do, and I can't work with him in my lap.

When Walt started to head upstairs to get ready for bed, he made a terrible discovery. They had him pull up the arm of his shirt when they added the fiberglass cast over his splint and the arm of the shirt is too narrow to go over the new cast, so I had to cut it off of him. Fortunately, it is a shirt that has some wear in it, so it's not like having to destroy a new shirt.

It's been a long day and I'm ready to sleep.

The Rest of the Story

I said that there was more to Saturday than just the puppy birthday party but that it would take its own entry. This is that entry.

We got home from the party and I was trying to put together a journal entry. Rupert, the new puppy, seemed to be getting along all right with the other dogs and hated to be in the cage, so I left him running around. Walt was outside working in the yard.

Rupert really, really wanted to be in my lap, though, and I remembered that he had been left in the night box at the animal shelter two nights ago, that he had obviously been attacked by something or somebody because his nose was bleeding and swollen (not when I got him) and he had some head trauma. So I decided that the journal entry could wait and I would give Rupert some lap time. It would also give me time to catch up on watching some of the things on my DVR, which is 82% full.

We were sitting there peacefully, Rupert curled up in the crook of my arm, asleep and me watching NCIS or something like that. I saw Walt lean the ladder against the tree outside the family room window and head up to cut some branches. "All I need now is for Walt to fall off the ladder," I thought, with a laugh.

NCIS finished and I went into the kitchen about the time Walt came through the back door, holding his left arm.

"I think I should go to the emergency room," he said. "I fell off the ladder."

His wrist didn't seem to be badly swollen so we put ice on it, but it was less than half an hour later when he decided we really needed to go to Kaiser. So we put Rupert in the cage, fed all the dogs, I got my camera (of course) and, figuring it would be a 2-book night, an extra book to read and off we went to Sacramento.

By the time we got there, the wrist was very definitely swollen.

I was pleased that there was hardly anybody in the waiting room, after all the horror stories I've heard about hours-long waits in the ER. In fact, Walt barely had time to sit down before they called him. He was gone for awhile and then someone came to tell me he was being taken to the Treatment Unit, following his x-rays.

We sat in the treatment unit for a very long time, then I waited for him to get assessed by the doctor there, then we were off to another part of the hospital where we waited for another long time until the Ortho Tech and the doctor came with the x-rays, a big bucket of water, and casting material.

You can see where there is an ink drawing on the x-ray where the bone should be and how far it was moved. "It's supposed to look something like a clarinet," the ortho tech told us, which we thought was kind of funny, since Jeri plays the clarinet. But then we're easily amused. The ortho tech tended to explain things with mannerisms reminiscent of Mister Rogers, as if explaining things to a very young child, with pitch of voice higher than it would be for normal conversation, and a sing-song cadence to it. I asked him if he had been a flight attendant in a former life.

The doctor and the tech set to work after the medication injected into Walt's wrist had started to numb it. There was much grimacing involved by all, the medical professionals and the patient.

They sent me off to the pharmacy to pick up his pain medication while they did follow up x-rays (fortunately the pharmacy is on the same floor -- I remember that 2007 started with my mother going to the pharmacy to pick up medication for her friend and falling down stairs!). Things look "much better," they say, though not perfect. I'm not sure what that means for down the road, but perhaps we will find out on Tuesday, when he goes to see the orthopedist. We will probably also find out then about how long he is expected to remain in the cast.

It was after 11 when we left Kaiser and since I had not had lunch (Walt had) and had only eaten an English muffin for breakfast, I found the very first McDonald's I could and we stopped to get something to eat. Then I was up until 2 a.m. writing the report on the puppy party.

Fortunately, Rupert seems to be a very considerate puppy and, sleeping quietly in the playpen, he let me sleep until 8 a.m. today.