Birthdays and Dogs

As promised, I fixed French toast for Alice Nan for her birthday.

She was able to get on the road early and should be on her way back to Santa Barbara.  We will miss her.  She's such fun to have around, and always looks on the bright side of things, a talent I don't always have.  Polly has accepted her, so there hasn't been a lot of barking, which is a blessing.

I was up too late and up way too early in order to start the French toast so after she left, I was very, very sleepy and, in fact, fell asleep with my head on my desk, waking when the phone rang.  I was so disoriented I couldn't place where that noise was coming from.  I"ve been sleeping so well these past several months that 3 hours just doesn't cut it for a night of sleep any more, though it used to be my norm.

Diana Ross was one of the few "names" that I recognized on the Grammys last night, a vision in red.

Someone said she was 75 years old and I thought to myself "I'd like to look like that at 75," and then laughed since I will turn 76 next week!  Too late!

The tree guys finally showed up to trim two of our trees.  We expected them 2 weeks ago, but their "cherry picker" (the machine that lets them ride up to the top of the trees) was broken and they had to wait for it to be fixed.

But it's fixed now and our trees are finally trimmed.

Norm came by around noon.  The schedule had him arriving early in the morning and spending the night, but he had to work in the morning and has to work tomorrow morning as well, so he just came for a few hours.  When the schedule was set up, we needed a lot more help than we do now, but with Walt close to back to normal--or at least a new normal--we don't really need physical help as much as we have appreciated the mental stimulation of having a rotating number of folks in the house.

Norm and I ended up watching the Westminster Dog Show (Day 1).  In truth, I think contests to see which dog is the most beautiful is as dumb as a contest to see which woman is the most beautiful, but I do love looking at the dogs.  This one, unlike the coverage of the National Dog Show, which only shows the Best of Grou and Best of Show categories, this coverage was of the Best of Breeds.  Polly was unimpressed by the Chihuahuas but I thought seeing so many altogether was cute:

I also decided I want a Xolo.  Not so much because I like the look (or description of the dog) but because I want to tell everyone I have a Xoloitzcuintli (once I learn how to pronounce it!)

We also learned about poodles.  Norm looked up the story behind the silly poodle cut and discovered it's not so silly after all.

The traditional poodle look stems from the 17th century.  Poodles are water dogs and since a Poodle's thick outer coat can get heavy when wet, the bottom half of the body was shorn back to help keep the dog afloat. To keep his organs warm in cold waters, the hair was kept long over the chest and head. Bracelets of ankle hair were left to protect joints from rheumatism, and a topknot was used to keep long hair out of the eyes when swimming.  So now you know it's just not some sort of frou frou affectation on the part of owners.

After Norm left, I watched the Westminster agility trials, which were so much more fun.  Watching dogs competing in athletic competitions made more sense than conformation.  Those dogs are amazing.  Even when things go wrong....

...they pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and continue on.

I believe this dog was in the top 5.  The dog that won was tiny and barked through the entire course.

We are on our own for the next two or three nights, then Norm will be back and Ned will be home.  I think Ned is going to be very pleased to see the progress his father has made during his absence.

Changing of the Guard

Marta's stint is over and Walt's brother Norm arrived today to spend a few days, to be relieved by Tom on Saturday.  (Poor Tom is making a big sacrifice.  He has one of those humongous TVs but he is going to have to watch the Super Bowl on our "small" TV.  Now that's love.)

Interesting about TV sizes.  I remember back when Farenheit 451 came out.  This is the movie where books are being burned and the hero is one of the guys in charge of finding and burning books.

I don't remember a lot about the movie (other than that it ends with a special group of people dedicated to memorizing a book and teaching it to a young person so that the stories can be preserved, even if no print version exists).  But I do remember one scene where the guy comes home to find his wife, a TV addict, lying on the couch watching the government TV program on what I remember was the biggest television set I had ever seen.

Sometime in the past few years, I happened to see a snippet from the movie and the HUGE television set she was watching was smaller than the set we have now.  It's all in your perspective!

Ned called to check in today.  His cell phone is not working well in Hawaii and, in fact, he has not received the few text messages I'd sent him.  I asked him how things were going and he said that except for the view, nothing has changed -- he's living with two 70-somethings, helping them organize their house, and today he was taking his mother-in-law to Kaiser!

This morning Marta and Norm took Walt for a visit with his primary care physician.  The plan was for me to get shopping done while they were out.  His visit went well and just a few little tweaks needed to be made to his current routine, in addition to lab tests to make sure the infection is completely gone.

While they were out, I got myself all ready to go shopping, got my jacket on, gave Polly her treat, got my purse, and when I went to get my car key it was gone.  I opened the front door and our car was gone.  We have FOUR cars here--Marta's, Ned's, Norm's and ours--and for one reason or another, they took our car and left no other keys behind, so I had to stay home until they got here.

Last night, while channel surfing, I found something called:

 

While this is not something I could see myself watching on a regular basis, I read the synopsis and was curious about how you fry lemonade, so I recorded it and while waiting for the car to return, I watched it.

I'll tell you it's a whole new world for me.  We haven't done the state fair in decades and the available foods have changed significantly.  Here are some of the things that you can now get deep fried, other than lemonade (it was a kind of cake, actually):  butter, candy bars, red velvet cake, cookie dough, bread pudding, ravioli, green tomatoes, cheeseburgers, fruit loops, bacon wrapped chicken skin, peaches and cream, coke, stuffing, pumpkin pie, oranges, chicken noodle soup on a stick, shepherd's pie, margarita, oreos,  pizza... the list goes on and on..

The winner of the show I watched deep fried peanut butter cups wrapped in flour tortilla triangles and then topped with chocolate.

With only two exceptions, the contestants were surprisingly not fat.  

It was an interesting thing to watch, but a good reason why you won't find it on the Food Network and I doubt I'll watch it again. But it was definitely a look inside a world that I know nothing about, though I admit that I occasionally think it would be fun to taste something like deep fried Snickers.

Something I do not need -- another bad-for-you food to get addicted to!

Visitors

A wonderfully quiet day at home with no doctor visits!!!!  Not only that, but Atria is under quarantine because some people have the flu, so I couldn't go see my mother even if I wanted to.  Guilt-free!

Walt and I apparently had a good night.  He slept in his bed and Ned got up a few times to check on him, but he got a good night of sleep and I fell asleep during the DVR recording of God Friended Me and except for a bref trip to the bathroom woke when I received a phone call at 7:30.  What a nice normal night!

Walt's brother Norm came up in the late morning and stayed until after dinner.  He is a golf fan and there was a televised golf tournament from their old neighborhood in Hawaii so they watched that for awhile.

Ned gave Norm the "how to take care of Dad" session and then went off to run errands.  Fortunately, Dad didn't need taking care of, but Norm was ready.

Alice Nan left Santa Barbara at 8:30 and was here sometime after 3.  She's staying a few days.  She also got the "how to take care of Dad" seminar.

Jessica dropped by with another batch of soup and some rolls.  Polly has given up attacking everybody who comes in.  So many people have been here the past few months, that she pretty much gives up.  Though with a handful of popcorn, Norm discovered that you CAN buy her love.

We had a nice instantpot dinner and as we were finishing up, everybody's cell phone rang at the same time.  Jeri has been coordinating things so that when Ned is gone for 3 weeks, someone will be here to help with Walt and she was sending everyone (except Walt) a chart of who was coming here when.

About this time we learned there was an active shooter in downtown Davis, who had shot a female officer.  She had been taken to Sutter Davis Hospital and was in serious condition.  No other information other than that she had responded to a call about a 3-car collision.  But there are messages all over Twitter, Facebook, and Neighborhood about everyone staying indoors because they are still looking for the shooter.

When Norm decided it was time to leave, I reassured him that nobody was going to mistake him for a 20 year old shooter.

As of this writing (10 p.m.) the shooter is still at large and they are evacuating houses for people's safety.  

But Walt is about to be safely tucked away in bed for the night and hopefully all the excitement will have died down by the time he wakes up.
 

I Survived

My name was Mme. Leontine Pauline Aubart.  I was a singer living in Paris, the mistress of Benjamin Guggenheim. I was born in May of 1887 and I was 24 years old the day I boarded the Titanic.  I was a first class passenger, embarking in Cherborg with my maid on April 10, 1912.  My cabin was B35.

It was a great ploy.  As we entered the theater for Titanic: The Musical tonight, we were handed a program and also a boarding pass for one of the characters in the show.  

We were invited to come home and check the web site to find out whether we had lived or died in the disaster.  I survived.  So Did Walt's character.

I so hoped the show would be good.  I wanted to be able to give it a good review, since this meant so much to the company.  Fortunately, it was very good.  I was actually surprised at how moved I was seeing all the passengers getting ready to board the trip.  The sense of sadness persisted when I was out in the lobby looking at the display of newspaper front pages after the disaster and other photographs.

It had been kind of a busy day.  At 11, I interviewed a playwright about his first play, which is being presented later this month.  The guy was a musician who attended Berklee, long before Jeri went there.  He turned to play writing in his 50s and, after 6 years, his first play is finally being produced.   I'll be reviewing it later.

I rushed to get the article written because we planned to drive to Santa Barbara in the morning.  It would only be for 2 days, but since we hadn't seen Brianna on her birthday, we both wanted to see both of the girls.  I have to be home on Monday to review a show on Tuesday.

In the afternoon, after I dropped Walt off at Hertz to pick up the rental car he wanted to drive to Santa Barbara, I drove around looking for the house of the woman I met at a show the other night, who has the first Lamplighter book and mentioned that she hadn't really known there was a second book -- her daughter is in the roster of the second book.  I told her I thought I had an extra copy and took her address.  I found the book this morning and delivered it to her house (she wasn't home, so I hope she found it where I left it!)

In the evening we went to Titanic and at intermission, Walt checked his cell phone.  There was a message from his sister-in-law, saying that his brother was in the hospital.  It's not anything life-threatening, but I could tell that Walt needs to go and visit Norm.  Norm almost died a few years ago and Walt just about lived at the hospital until he was out of the woods.  I knew that he would not enjoy our brief trip to Santa Barbara, so we've cancelled the trip and he'll drive the nice shiny new car down to the hospital instead.

At least I don't have to stay up half the night writing the Titanic review, but can do it in the morning.

Death, Aging and Other Indignities

There are a couple of unreated, but marginally interesting things to talk about today. First is that I may have had a greeting from my friend Michele, who died a little over a year ago. I subscribe to a "birthday alarm" service which reminds me when it's time to send a birthday card and so a few days ago, I had a reminder that Michele was about to turn 66.

Naturally this brought a momentary pang to the heart, missing Michele, realizing that she's not here any more and that it also would have been her birthday. I wrote to Char about it. She is missing Michele as much, or much more, than I am. And remember that Char's last name is Blackford...that's important.

So the next night Walt and I went to a show in Sacramento and at intermission, I decided to bring a book and see if my eyes would let me read (they wouldn't). I had chosen a book at random off of my bookshelf to stick in my purse. It was an early Tess Gerritsen and I chose it because it was thin, and I thought maybe even with the eye problem I could get through a shorter book.

When I went to open it, I discovered there was a bookmark in it. I use all sorts of weird things for bookmarks -- anything from real legitimate bookmarks to tissues, to napkins, to anything that happens to be sitting next to wherever I'm reading. Apparently I had started this book before and I had stuck in a little packet of forget-me-not seeds that we had received at Michele's memorial service as a bookmark. But the thing about it was that the package was kind of stuck by one edge to the spine of the book so that the lower corner was pointing at the following sentence:

I just kind of smiled and wished Michele a happy birthday--just in case she was hovering around somewhere.

The other thing is that I hope not to continue to whine about my eyes, now that I have the problem diagnosed and surgery scheduled, but there are still bad days and better days. Today is not a better day. I've enlarged the print for a lot of the internet, but some things can't be enlarged, like MailWasher, which I use to prescreen e-mail before downloading it. I discovered this morning that I absolutely could not read that screen, so I had to Do Something. I've ended up buying myself a magnifying glass to see the screen for pages that I can't read otherwise. It slowed things down considerably, but it is very helpful.

It's also helpful for reading the tiny print in some theatre programs. I had a devil of a time reading the program for the University show(s) that I reviewed last night. I was very sorry I didn't have this glass then!

The university show was difficult for me. Walt and I were going to go, of course, but his brother has been in the hospital for several days. He needed surgery, but they had to wait until an infection cleared. The surgery was done two days ago, late in the day. It turns out that there were complications and he developed pneumonia and was in the ICU. Walt decided he wanted to go down to the hospital (about 80 miles away). He asked if I could drive myself to the theatre.

I told him I could, since it would be after dark and I'm better about driving after dark, as long as it's not on the freeway. We only have one car, so he rented a car and went off to Santa Rosa. He called later to say Norm was sedated and didn't know he was there, and he thought he would spend the night so he could go back again today.

I went off to the theatre thinking nothing about it, hoping that Norm would be able to get out of the ICU today. Literally three minutes before the lights went down in the theatre, I went to turn my cell phone off and saw that I had a voice mail. It was from Norm's wife, looking for Walt (she had called earlier in the afternoon). Her message about Norm was that the doctors said he was "very critical" and that he "might die."

It was too late to call her as the lights went down right then, but I've been so worried. Walt called this morning to say that his fever is finally coming down, which was a good sign. He's still sedated and considered critical, and mostly he doesn't know they are there and seems confused about where he is, but maybe he's passed the crisis. None of us will breathe easy until he is out of the ICU.

I don't like thinking that this is the way the rest of my life is going to go...burying friends, visiting loved ones in the hospital and worrying about my own deteriorating body.

Anybody who wants to live forever has got to be nuts.

Norm and Ned