The Pulse of the People

When I turned on the TV this morning, at 5:30, after feeding the dogs, I learned that 20 people had been killed at The Pulse, a gay bar in Orlando.

Watching the report with the horror and watching the endless speculation about the shooter, his motives, the victims, the interviews with terrified parents and friends, etc we have become inured to, I fell back asleep until after 7, by which time the death toll had risen to 50, with an additional 53 wounded, making this the largest massacre in our nation's history.

Talking heads have been talking all day.  I have to admit that I feel sorry for them.  It's a major disaster and it must be covered 24/7 or they might miss some rapidly breaking new development.  But about 23 of those 24 hours there is NOTHING substantive to say.  They bring in the same "experts" to guess what the shooter might have been thinking and speculate about his ties to ISIS, but really it's just killing time until the next breaking news tidbit is released. I finally reach news overload and actually (oh horror!) turn the TV off.

I am heartsick, as is the rest of the country that we are counting bodies yet again.  I feel so sorry for Obama, having to make yet another speech about the tragedy and how helpless this country is about doing anything to restrict the sale of assault rifles.  And of course there is the usual round of messages by the Obama haters pointing out how much violence there has been during his administration, conveniently forgetting how many bills to try to curb all of this he has been unable to get through Congress.

I listened to a mother trying frantically to get news about her son.  Her story was so heartbreaking because I knew exactly how she was feeling...only she was feeling worse.

One of the saddest, surreal things I read was from someone who realized that the first responders were all in that club surrounded by dead bodies and listening to cell phones ring, here and there, calls from loved ones wondering if they are OK.

I read this afternoon that Canada has had 8 mass shootings in the past 20 years; we have had 5 in the past week, yet nobody on the right side of the House of Representatives sees this as an issue that even needs to be addressed.

Donald Trump, not surprisingly, was not at a loss for words today.  He congratulated himself for demonizing Syrian refugees (which shooter Omar Mateen was not), calling for increased border control (Mateen was a longtime US citizen with no criminal record), and for calling for unconstitutional surveillance of Muslim-Americans (Mateen was already on the FBI’s radar, but thanks to the Republican Party, a ban on weapon sales to terrorist suspects was defeated in Congress).

To cheer myself up, while Ned painted the shelves for my office, I went to Atria.  I hadn't been there in 3 days and had my mother's clean laundry ready to bring back.

It was the kind of day that I just hate because (a) I feel so helpless, and (b) I don't have a clue what to do.

She was kind of curled into a ball on the couch when I arrived and was asleep.  I sat in a chair and waited for her to wake up, which she did about 10 minutes after I arrived.  She felt terrible and she didn't know why.  There didn't seem to be any pain, but her body just wasn't right.  She said she hadn't eaten, but you can never know if that's true or not because she can't remember if she has eaten as soon as we walk out of the dining room.  Her shoes were near the couch, which I always take as a sign that she has at least been out of the apartment, hopefully for a meal.

She seemed sick to her stomach and tried to vomit several times while I was there, but I don't think she actually brought anything up.  She sat in her chair, looking like a limp dishrag.

I checked her kitchen and saw that she has NO food at all, which isn't surprising.  I decided to go and get food and stock the cupboards so that in case she doesn't feel like going out, she has something to eat.  I went for junk food rather than anything nutritious because I wanted things that would (a) last indefinitely and (b) be appealing to her.  (The first thing I bought was a box of Twinkies since I've heard that there are so many preservatives in Twinkies that they will outlast most humans on the planet),

I also replenished her big jar of cashews, bought the kind of potato chips she likes, the oatmeal cookies she always bought, and some goldfish crackers, and then a package of Hershey Kisses, which she used to have in the house all the time.  None of those things will go bad if she doesn't touch them for a year, but if she is hungry they are there.  Oh, I also bought two tiny cups of Haagen Dazs ice cream for her empty freezer (I am remembering when she had 12 partially eaten ice cream cones in there).

When I got back from the store, she was in worse shape and was again curled on the couch with her hands over her head and moaning.  She would try to sit up and when she put her head back would yelp and dive back to the pillow. I stayed for a long time during which time she sat up again and we started talking.  As before, the more we talked, the better she seemed to feel.

My dilemma is whether to take her to the doctor or not.  If she didn't start sitting up, I would have rushed her off (against her will) to the doctor, but it's Sunday and Kaiser in Davis is not open on Sunday and we would have to drive all the way to Sacramento.  She NEVER wants to go to the doctor and if she feels very sick tells me to wait until she's better and then she will go.  Her childhood years as a Christian Scientist really kick in these days, though she converted to Catholicism more than 50 years go.

I have to work at Sutter tomorrow and I considered not going, but either she will be fine, with no memory of today, or she will still feel bad and grudgingly agree go to the doctor and then sit in the exam room and tell the doctor that she feels fine and she doesn't know why I get so worked up.  Then she'll get back in the car and moan about it all again.

The worst part is that as bad as she does or does not feel, what compounds it exponentially is that she doesn't know what's wrong, she can't figure out what caused it, and she can't make it stop, so obviously she is stupid, stupid, stupid (I lost count of how many times I heard that) because she should be able to diagnose it and control it.  But she's just stupid, stupid, stupid.

This lady had better die in her sleep.  She has never had a serious illness in her life and should she have some sort of organ event that requires hospitalization, she is going to be the world's worst patient.

I was quite ready, at the end of the afternoon, to lose myself in the Tony Awards broadcast and that was a great tonic.  Even though (and I know it's sacrilegious to say this) I don't really much like Hamilton (at least based on everything I've seen--and I've seen a lot), it was fun watching the show win 14 of the 16 awards for which they were nominated.

I'm going to work tomorrow, but will stop by Atria on the way home at 4:30 and see how things are.  I know I will worry all day about her, but she doesn't seem to answer her phone any more and sleeps until noon, so I can't stop by on the way to work either.

Aaaarrrrrggggghhhhh!

Sunday Stealing

Can you stay inside all day without getting bored?
Sure.  I do it all the time!

Tell us about a TV show that we should watch.
Outlander.  If you are a fan of the Diana Gabaldon books, you already watch it.  If you are not, why not?

When was the last time you were at your home computer all day?
Well, the day isn't over yet.....

What websites other than your own do you visit daily?
Facebook
SwapBot
Pocket Letter Pals
PotShots
Compassion (maybe not daily, but often)

Do you have a favorite day of the week? Why?
Usually Thursday, because that's when I volunteer at the book store.

Did you ever watch Saturday morning cartoons? What was your favorite? 
We didn't have a TV when I was cartoon-watching age.  I don't know if there were Saturday morning cartoons, but when our kids were little, I always enjoyed Underdog.

Were you a comic book fan?
No.  Never was, except Mickey Mouse or Casper the Friendly Ghost when I was really little.

Did you earn an allowance when you were a kid? How much? Was it tied to chores?
I got 50 cents a week for helping with dishes, dusting, and general housework.

What is the fanciest type of car you've ridden in?  What occasion?
I don't pay much attention to cars.  I remember when I was a kid that my aunt came in a car that had a rumble seat and my sister and I got to ride in it for a short ride.  That was fun.

What's your favorite sport to watch? 
Horse racing (it's all over in 3 minutes!  But I love watching the horses in the pre-race activities)

Ever tried surfing? 
Does web surfing count?

Have you ever been to a live major team sporting game?
Sure.  We've been to 49er games and Giants games.  We've even been to Red Sox games when we visit Jeri and Phil in Boston.

From a scale of 1 to 5 how athletic are you (1=nerd, 5=very athletic)?
Uh... -1?

What's your favorite horror movie?
I'm not a horror movie fan.  Is Psycho a horror movie?

What is your favorite cult classic movie?
Harold and Maude

About how many times do you go to the movies a month?  
We are lucky if we see three movies a year.

Favorite movie, which one came to your head first?
Oddly enough The Music Man (which rarely makes my list of favorites), but I think that is because we are seeing the stage show next week.

What if your life was like a movie? What type of movie would it be? 
Definitely a comedy.

Do you like long series movies, like "Lord of the Rings"?
Some.  I enjoyed the Star Trek movies, but once TOS cast was gone, I lost interest.  I'm loving Outlander on STARZ, though technically that's a TV series.  Loved the Toy Story series, but I never got into the biggies like Star Wars, or the Indiana Jones movies.  If I watched a movie from a series, it was by accident not because I was waiting for the next in the series to be released.  And we see so few movies now, it's unlikely I will even know about series movies.

Larry Would Have Loved It

11 June 2016

I knew when I saw how thick the memorial booklet was that Larry would have loved it.

Yesterday we laid our friend Larry Fanning to rest at a Mass at St. Martin's Episcopal church in Davis.  Larry was a very religious man and any service without all the prayers and hymns would have cheated him out of a first-class send-off.

Born in Arkansas in 1947, Larry and his family moved to Dixon (the next door neighbor town of Davis) when he was a young man and he graduated from Dixon High, Sacramento City College and Sacramento State University, where he received a Masters in Medieval History.

He was baptized a Roman Catholic at age 16 (he always stressed the "Roman") but as a gay man, he was disillusioned with his exclusion from the church. He found a new welcoming home with the Anglican community in Davis, where he worked for many years in many capacities, both as a volunteer as an employee.

After his death, Stephen (his partner of 43 years) donated Larry's books to Logos and Susan said they were mostly medieval history and books on religion.  If there is one thing Larry liked talking about, it was religion.

The memorial service yesterday was a full house and as I looked around the church, and later the reception, it was just about every member of the Davis Comic Opera Company still living in the area. Stephen was an actor and director for DCOC and Larry was a faithful member of the tech crew throughout the company's 30 year history.  He was also an informal social director, hosting many social events for members of the company.

The eulogy given by longtime friend Nancianne Pfister underscored what I think everyone felt about Larry -- that he had a very big heart.  If anyone was in need, he was there.  He was ready to give himself to any cause and worked for many years for Yolo Hospice and other local nonprofits.

During the Mass, when it came to giving our neighbors in the pews a sign of peace, I spied Ned and his friend Greg in the back and flashed them a peace sign.  Ned and Greg have been friends since high school.  Greg is to Ned what Charlotte has been to me throughout my life.  I was going to say "though they are a bit more crazy than Char and I," but remembering our adventures with Christmas trees, pumpkin pies, and craft activities, I'm not so sure.

Ned and Greg made hundreds of movies together, their best work being Ned and Greg Investigators, the very fist made-for-local-TV production, a mystery which started with Walt being thrown off the highest building in town and the subsequent hunt for the murderer of "Ned's Dad."  It was filmed all over town, and included a major fight scene outside the local police department (for which they received permission of the police), and a gathering in a local restaurant, for which they opened in the morning and let Ned, Greg and all their friends inside to film.

This was in the very early days of Davis Community TV, when there was almost no local programming (and probably not many viewers either) and you could actually call the TV station and ask them to run Ned and Greg Investigators and they would.

The guys had just come from a whirlwind trip to our condo at Lake Tahoe to take up one of the big pieces of furniture, a cabinet that had belonged to Gilbert, from my office.  It fits beautifully, Ned reports, and holds all of the records that people have taken up to the condo over the years. (When it belonged to Gilbert, it was a record cabinet, so it has now come full circle!)

After Larry's Mass, we proceeded to the Columbarium behind the church, where his ashes were placed, and then to the parish hall for a brief reception.  It was old home week, with lots of friends standing around telling "Larry stories."

I had the chance to visit with one of Larry & Steve's neighbors, who is also a volunteer at Sutter.  She was with another friend of hers, who looked very familiar and obviously knew who I was (and who called Walt by name too).  It wasn't until she left, when she mentioned her husband's name offhandedly that I realized she was someone I had known for many years, though have only interacted with in the last 20 or so years through Facebook.  She has been through chemo and has what she calls "chemo hair," which has grown back curly (and grey, of course)...one reason I didn't recognize her.

But it was nice to chat with the woman from Sutter.  The problem with working the information desk is that you have almost no interaction with other volunteers, certainly not often enough and long enough to remember anybody's name. But now that we have shared Sutter experiences and our shared experience of mothers with dementia, I won't easily forget her name when I see her again.

I also had a very long conversation with a guy who was involved with DCOC, as was his son, who still acts (I recently reviewed him in a show...positively, fortunately!).  The guy is a very long time Lamplighters fan and we have discussed Lamplighters before in other encounters.  He has been attending Lamplighters performances for longer than Walt and I have (and we have been going for nearly 60 years!)  It's always very flattering to talk with him because of his nice comments about our two Lamplighters histories.

The whole day made me realize that Larry has hosted his last social gathering, and that he went out in the absolutely perfect way for him, surrounded by lifelong friends who were all there because we loved him so much.

Meltdown

Walt looked at me warily as if I were a time bomb about to eplode.  Polly needed to be with me, but had that "don't touch me or I'll jump" look she gets when she's terrified.  I was in the middle of a mini-meltdown.  I opened a cupboard and trays fell out, with a loud bang and I slammed them back in the cupboard, then I got my chicken tenders in the oven only to realize I had left out a vital step in the recipe (this was not a Blue Apron meal) and had to remove them and see if I could fix it. Neither thing was all that catastrophic but I had just been at Atria for about an hour and a half and had left with all my emotions on high and was not emotionally prepared for minor kitchen disasters.

After the hour of repetitive conversation with my mother, which always depresses me, we had a major crisis.  When I arrived, her door was ajar, not closed, which surprises me because you have to make an effort to leave it open, since it locks automatically.  

She was worried, as she always is, because there was something she needed to ask me, but couldnt remember what it was.  Then she asked me to check her door because there was something wrong with it.  She said she couldn't get it to close and was afraid someone was going to get angry with her for leaving it open.

I checked the door and it was closed, and told her it seemed fine, which seemed to calm her.  I chalked it up to one of the odd fears she sometimes has.

Toward the end of the visit, I got up to get her laundry to take home and wash and I noticed that her room keys were not on the counter where she keeps them.  I didn't say anything, but started looking around and they were nowhere.  She realized I was looking for something and asked what I was doing.  I told her that her keys were missing.  She immediately got what Walt describes as the "kid caught with her hand in the cookie jar" attitude and told me she knew nothing about it.  She never used the keys. Someone must have put them somewhere.

She helped me look and at one point was standing in the living room saying "I can't even remember which shoes we are looking for."  I am afraid I yelled at her that we weren't looking for shoes, we were looking for keys. She was sitting on the couch with her head in her hands and I felt guilty for letting her know how frustrated I was.

I looked everywhere, but they were nowhere.  I even checked the refrigerator, where Alzheimers patients sometimes put things like keys.  I finally was going to leave her my set of keys when I thought that maybe she had put them in her purse.  Then I couldn't find the purse.  She keeps it in a drawer, but it wasn't there.  I checked all the drawers.  No purse.  I finally checked her closet and in a dark corner the purse was there, as were her keys.  

I took out her checkbook, which I long ago put in her wallet to keep her from losing it (that system has worked well).  In the keys search, I had found her AT&T bill and wrote the check for her to sign, but then found out that the return envelope was not there.  I also went to get the newspaper bill, which I made the mistake of not paying 3 days ago.  It was part of a stack of junk papers that needed to be thrown away but she wouldn't let me touch because she needed to go through it all.  I pulled the bill out and told her NOT to throw that away.  But of course she did.  

The nice thing about dementia is that even when something unpleasant happens, you immediately forget it, so by the time I had written the AT&T check and packed up the laundry to go home, stopping to talk with her about a headline in the newspaper, she had forgotten all the drama of a few minutes ago.  But of course I had not and got into the car still agitated.  I usually take the long way home, listening to my audio book, to decompress, but the battery of my iPod no longer holds a charge and though it had only been played about 30 minutes I had not plugged it in, it was dead, so there went my decompress time.

Which probably explains my mini kitchen meltdown.  Dinner turned out just fine.

This was Thursday and usually my Logos day, but I had accidentally agreed to work at Sutter, so Susan said she'd get someone to cover for me.  (She apparently forgot because Sandy called me at 2:30 to ask if I was coming). 

It was a quiet day at Sutter, not nearly as eventful as when I worked on Monday.  The major trauma was that before I left the house, I couldn't find my Kindle anywhere.  I finally decided that maybe I'd left it at Sutter and, thank goodness I had.  

So when I was not dealing with flowers being delivered (there were three deliveries for the same patient, who had also received flowers yesterday as well!) I was enjoying the last chapters of Bill Bryson's "The Road to Little Dribbling," which I have been reading for awhile.

Nothing like Bill Bryson to lift the spirits!  I've been a fan ever since I found "The Mother Tongue" decades ago and have read almost all of his books.  Years ago, Walt and I were in Cambridge, England and I saw a display in a book store window. The book was Bryson's "Notes from a Small Island," a book he wrote driving around England, where he and his family had lived for many years, for one last look before returning to the US. Walt and I were driving around England and Bryson's book became our most delightful tour guide, as he visited many of the spots where we visited. Bryson is the master of the little known fact about things you never realized. In this new book, he is taking another tour of England to see how it compares with his first book. As in "Notes," this one is chock full of information you didn't realized you wanted to know and things about people you never heard of before. 

I love his stories like trying  to register at a hotel where when asked where he was from and he replied "London" the clerk asked how to spell it.  Then she asked what country.  He said "England" and she asked how to spell that and she told him that her computer didn't recognize "England" (the country in which she lives) as a country.  And after trying Britain, Great Britain, and UK, she finally said that the computer recognized France, so she put in that he was from London, France.

He then lists a number of things you should ask yourself to see if you are truly stupid, one of which was "If you have been to a tanning parlor, do you think that because you cannot see that your eyelids are white, no one else can?"  Hmmm...wonder how he came up with that one...

This book is filled with tales of marvelous vistas, beautiful, walks, quiet beaches, quirky locations, eccentric people, and quaint little towns you have probably never heard of but suddenly desperately want to visit. And who knew that more people are killed in England by cows than by bulls..? Or that a building in Sellafield is "the most hazardous building in Europe" because it is filled with decaying fuel rods from England's nuclear years, when nobody thought ahead about how to safely handle such things.

"Little Dribbling" celebrates the best...and the worst of Bryson's adopted country. It's a great read.  I recommend it to de-stress after a stressful day!

Bedtime Stories

I have finally decided that Polly needs a bedtime story before she settles down for the night.  It's the only explanation I can come up with for her weird behavior, which has been going on for years now.  I think I've written about the behavior before, but it took until yesterday to define it.

Both dogs settle down after their dinner, which is around 7 p.m.  Somewhere between 9 and 10, Polly will go outside.  Now, during the day, they either wander around the yard, or they rush at one of the fences to bark at dogs, people, or ghosts.  Maybe a rodent that we can't see.  When the mailman comes, they rush the front fence to bark at him. They bark and bark and bark together until they either get bored or we call them in.

But this late evening thing is all Polly.  She stands on the patio and barks a fairly quiet bark.  One bark.  Then about 5-10 seconds later she barks another.  She keeps this up for maybe ten minutes.  If you look at her, she doesn't seem to be barking at anything.  Lizzie ignores her, but once in awhile Polly's bark changes ever so slightly and Lizzie goes outside to check, but then comes back in again.

I finally decided it is the doggie version of "Goodnight Moon."  

On the concrete patio
There was a table
And a rickety fence
And a dog who -
Stands in defense
And there were three little plants covered with ants
And two little plots
With a pair of pots
And a little tool house
And a little mouse
And a puddle, some slush and a tree with a thrush
And a grumpy old grandpa who was yelling "hush"

Goodnight patio,
Goodnight table,
Goodnight fence.
Goodnight dog standing defense
Goodnight plants
Goodnight ants,
Goodnight plots
Goodnight pots
Goodnight house
Goodnight mouse
Goodnight tree
Goodnight thrush
Goodnight grandpa yelling "hush."
Goodnight stars
Goodnight air
Goodnight noises everywhere

Once she has said goodnight to everything in the world, then she comes in, goes into the living room and goes to sleep for the night.

She has probably followed this routine for at least the last couple of years.

---

I had my taste buds tickled this afternoon, a satisfaction years in the making.

The one thing I have missed about my parents has been my father's potato salad.  He created his own when I was still a kid and I've never tasted any like it.  For one thing, the potatoes aren't chunks, but are sliced very thin.  For another,there is no mustard in it and he used sweet pickles instead of dill.

I was always his taster, lettng him know whether he had all the blends right.

I've never actually made it myself because it's loaded with onions and Walt doesn't like onions.  It also involved a ot of slicing and I could never get the potatoes to slice thin enough.

I eat other people's potato salad and they're OK -- some I actually like, but nothing has ever equaled my father's.  My mother did ok with it, but tended to over-salt it.

When I got the new mandolin slicer I suddenly thought I could use that to slice the potatoes...and I could make an individual serving that I wouldn't have to force on Walt because of all the onions.

Today he went to San Francisco to the symphony and I had the afternoon home alone with no car (so no temptation to go anywhere) and I decided to try it.  

It worked!  It needs tweaking.  The potatoes were cooked a little too long and the parsley wasn't diced fine enough, but otherwise, it was that taste I'd been missing.

It's such a simple salad -- just the potatoes, onions, sweet pickles, parsley, hard boiled egg and mayonnaise mixed with pickle juice.  I might try pickle relish next time.  But it was pretty close to what I've been missing for so long! i also satisfied my taste buds and probably won't have a craving for it for awhile now.  At least now I know I can make it, if I want it.

A Part of History

Well, I voted.

I only had to stand in line for a couple of seconds, behind two people, but that was longer than I normally have to wait in the middle of the day in Davis and all but two voting stations were filled, so I take this as a good sign that people are coming out to vote.

There are four other people in this family besides me.  One voted for Bernie, one threw the vote away by voting for neither Bernie nor Hillary, and I don't know if or how the other two voted.

I went back and forth between Bernie and Hillary until this morning. Each had positive attributes and each had negative attributes.

In the end I guess that I voted in the same manner as the throw-away vote, i.e., I decided Bernie couldn't get the nomination and I wanted to be part of history, part of putting the very first female in the country's history on the ballot to run for president.  Something to tell my grandchildren. In other words, this was not a vote based on firm convictions, but more on "I have to vote for someone, so why not be a part of history?"

When/if this nomination is locked down and she is officially the nominee, my choice will be significantly more clear.

I wonder if Trump is going to actually make it to the nomination, or if he's going to go all Captain Queeg on the country and end up hauled off to the loony bin.  It certainly wouldn't surprise me, given his bizarre actions of late, what with his demanding his staff keep up pressure on the "Mexican" judge and then getting angry when they would not and saying he'd run his own campaign because he was smarter than his staff, who were all stupid people.  (He may be the first candidate ever to run for president while under indictment, though there are those who feel Hillary may be under indictment too, which would certainly make an interesting race!)

He has called all reporters racist and is trying to bar most of them from his rallies and some have been ejected simply for being there because Trump doesn't like them.  There are so many points for which he needs to answer that it is getting more difficult to evade questions...and reporters are getting more tenacious in asking them.  One reporter asked him the same question something like 24 times and he evaded every time.  I don't see THAT going on until November.

I can't believe that this morning I woke up liking Lindsey Graham, who has removed his endorsement of Trump and has called for other Republicans to do so as well.  Graham says that Trump's statements are "the most un-American thing from a politician since Joe McCarthy."

I even thought kindly toward Newt Gingrich who said that this was one of the biggest mistakes Trump had ever made and that it's inexcusable. Mitch McConnell has said he does not agree with what Trump is saying. Paul Ryan says he completely disagrees with him (though he still endorses him). Ana Navarro, Republican strategist says "what he is doing is disgusting. I'm livid about it." Senator Mark Kirk has removed his endorsement. Iowa State Senator David Johnson has left the GOP in protest over Trump. "Johnson, who said he would change his registration to No Party, compared Trump’s rise to the top of the GOP ticket to the rise of Adolf Hitler in the 1930s."

This is their candidate!

There are a host of Republicans on Twitter who are leaving the party.

"Pigs may fly, hell may freeze over, and I, a lifelong GOPer, will never unite behind the Orange Menace."

"So I guess I'll cast a vote for a democrat for POTUS for the first time in my life, way to fail the world, RNC."

"I've been lifelong loyal GOP, since the day I could vote. Tonight, I have unregistered and now am an Independent."

I am not eager to live as long as my mother, for example, but I sure would love to come back in 50 years and see how the books treat this period in our country's history. What will my great, great grandchldren learn of history in school?

And just a hint of what we may have in store under President Trump Iran denied visas to 3 GOP Lawmakers. “Despite what you seem to presume, members of the U.S. Congress do not get to dictate the policies of other countries,” the Foreign Ministry added. “This clearly applies to Iranian visa policies.”

A Flurry of Activity

Things at the information desk are usually pretty dull.  I sit there for four hours and occasionally give someone the room number of his or her loved one so they can go and visit.  Sometimes flowers are delivered.  Sometimes the volunteer in the nearby gift shop asks me to watch the shop while she goes to the rest room, at which time I stand between the information desk and the shop so I can keep an eye on both.  But that's really about it.  I get a lot of reading done.

Rarely, someone I know stops by, as was the case yesterday.  Suddenly a midwife from my old days at Women's Health stopped by.  It was so good to see her.  It had probably been decades since we had last met and I was getting all caught up on her current activities and the melodrama that had been my office after I left.  It was easily as juicy a story as something you'd find on General Hospital.

We were just getting to the juicy part when a woman rushed in yelling for a wheelchair because there was a sick man outside.  As I was getting the wheel chair for her, the man came through the front door.  He was a walking vision of pain  Doubled over, shaking, face red, crying a lot.  She got him in the wheelchair and wheeled him off to the emergency room. She came back later to pick up the things she had left at the desk (she didn't know the man, just found him outside) and said he was being taken care of. (Given the state he was in, I wonder how he got to the hospital in the first place!)

Later in the afternoon a call came over the loudspeaker for essentially all hands on deck at room such-and-such  I don't know for sure that the new emergency was for the guy we had sent off to emergency, but I checked the computer for room such-and-such and the patient was a 77 year old man who had been admitted that afternoon, so it's a good chance that it was.  About 20 minutes later the emergency was called off.  I hope the guy is OK.

In the morning the Today Show had been showing a picture that had gone viral on the internet of a baby who was born with a full head of hair, but this 8 month old baby who sat in the waiting room today was certainly a contender in the hair category (Grandma said I could take her picture, but didn't know I was going to use it here, so I have blurred out baby's face).

Grandma was there with baby and her sister who also had a huge mop of curls and had also been born with a full head of hair. They were all there, with Grandma's son-in-law waiting for the birth of this baby's niece who finally arrived...and also Grandma reported, had a full head of hair.

I was sitting with the family while watching the gift shop for the volunteer who had gone to the rest room.  It was the end of the day and I had already shut down the information desk.

I'm getting to know more of what I'm doing at the hospital.  UPS delivered a parcel and I knew where to deliver it (proud of myself for figuring it out, since it's not in the instruction book).

But the rest of the day was the usual calm and peaceful.  I made several trips to the cafeteria, now that I've lost the silly uncomfortable feeling I had about going in there, to get a refill on my big glass of ice water.  A very famiiar looking woman greeted me like a long lost friend.  I didn't recognize her name and guess we had chatted at some time at the information desk.

The last hour of my four hour stint usually goes very slowly.  There is less traffic through the front door, it seems, and other than a change of shift for the security guards who routinely patrol the hospital and sit in front of the door to the labor room to make sure nobody gets in who shouldn't be there, there is little of interest.

I was engrossed in my book, Bill Bryson's "The Road to little Dribbling: Adventures of an American in Britain."  At least I thought I was engrossed in it when someone kind of coughed and i realized I had fallen asleep and a woman was standng there needing directions.  I was embarrassed.

After I had directed her I decided to wake myself up by walking down to the ER to get the wheelchair that had been used that morning.  I have to return it to the volunteers' room at the end of the day.  I got there and proved how really stupid I am.  I could see it through a window in the ER waiting room but I couldn't find a way to get from where I was standing to the room where the wheelchair was.  I could see the door to that room so I went outside and was going to go into the other room when I realized that I couldn't find the door which I had plainly seen when I was inside the waiting room.

I went back in again trying to figure out how in the world to get into that other room where I could clearly see the wheelchair.  Fortunately before I made a total idiot of myself and asked someone how to open a door to get into that room, I realized that the "other room" I was looking into also had ME in it and I was looking at a mirror and the wheelchair was actually behind me.

Fortunately it was time for me to go home, so after returning the wheelchair and all the other stuff from the desk to the volunteers room, I stepped outside of the nicely air conditioned room into the sauna outside.  I made a quick stop for dinner fixings and then came home and immediately fell alseep for an hour and a half, sleeping through Jeopardy and feeling totally discombobulated when I woke up.  It was too light outside to be that late (I am not a fan of Daylight Savings Time).

Walt and I watched The Martian last night.  I'd been wanting to see it ever since the movie came out, since I'd read the book and found it fascinating, but I missed it when it made the round of the theaters.  They left an awful lot out of the book, but you certainly got the story in spades.  Good movie, though why in God's name the Golden Globes people placed it in the "comedy" category, I haven't a clue!

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