Halloween Memories

Happy Halloween! Now I have to find something to do besides go home tonight and hand out candy I don't yet have. My outside light has burned out and since I don't get home till after dark and I am dallying and frittering my morning away so that I am rushing out the door late before I start I won't have time to do something about it. Can't risk dark stairs on Halloween night so if the car is not in the driveway they won't come knocking, I think. Ponder ponder and search for a time waster after work. Maybe BJ's wholesale club is in order. That's the ticket.

Glad I solved that problem. I was thinking about Halloween years ago when my late husband, also known as my first husband, and I were commuting together and living in this house. My mother and dad were staying here for a few days while dad went into Boston. W and I came around the corner slowly since it was dark and kids were already out. My mother was on the porch and waving. We parked and walked to the porch as she called out that she was locked out. The inside door was open but the storm door had somehow latched. She had been locked out for some time and the water was boiling away on the stove. The storm door was a good strong one of course and no one wanted to break the window. Kids kept stopping by to be told the candy was locked in the house and neighbors began to gather to offer solutions.

W thought that a window was open on the second floor and if he could get to the roof he could get in the window down the stairs Voila!! case closed. A neighbor brought a ladder and up W went to the roof to discover that no window was open, the roof was slick with wet leaves and no lights were on upstairs so it was dark, dark, dark. He couldn't see where the ladder was, the roof was sloped enough to alarm him since he slid sitting down and then he froze and wouldn't try to get off the roof. Kids are now coming by and pointing at the man on the roof. The man on the roof is yelling for us to call the fire department. They get cats out of trees, they can get him off the roof. My neighbors are gathering in a larger crowd than ever, my mother is hysterical and at that point my brother and father arrive from the city. I am looking for a hammer since by Golly I am breaking that window. We fill in the newcomers and my father tells my brother to go up the ladder to a window he can see is open on the side of the house. The ladder is moved and up goes my brother. It's probably halfway up before he realizes he is deathly afraid of heights.

Oh yes. Now we have a man on the roof and a man on a ladder both stuck. Yikes. What fun. The kids could care less about the candy anymore, they are loving all the adults in a melt down. It's better than a double feature Three Stooges on Saturday morning. I don't know how my brother finally got moving but I think it was the fear of the fire department. He had gone to high school with a lot of the guys in the department and he didn't need that story floating about the time they talked him down.

He finally pulled himself together and somehow got through the window. My mother at this point is yelling for him to hurry to the kitchen and turn off the stove, my husband is outraged that he would come second to the boiling water and he is yelling for him to get the window behind him open so he could crawl in.

Well all of the major players in that little scene have since moved on to their heavenly home. I'm sure the fear of heights has been dealt with since those big pink clouds are up pretty high. Every Halloween I think of the night long ago when our street came alive with shouts of "Look, there's a man on the roof" "Call the Fire Department" "If you call the Fire Department, I'll jump" "Just break the damned window" "Trick or Treat".

Life isn't quite so much fun since they've all gone. Happy Halloween everybody!!!

Tough Day

I am really having a tough time today. I look out the window and the trees are turning and dropping leaves. It is really truly fall and I keep thinking about my dad. 8 years ago he passed away and it was this month that he developed pneumonia and never left the hospital. I have been crying all day. What is wrong with me? Eight years already. Enough. But then, I keep seeing his face and how scared he was. Mother had died 6 months earlier and he was so lonely. My mother would be so ticked that I wrote this about dad and 6 months ago I never wrote this sort of thing about her.....she would be giving me what for!!!

Road Trip

Spent all day yesterday on the road with my man. We had to take his dad to the doctor to hopefully be cleared for hip surgery. We decided to leave early to get lunch before picking up his dad and good thing we did. The bridge leaving here was down to one lane in either direction due to road work and the back up was incredible. It was 4Th of July, great weather, long weekend traffic. It took an hour from the stop point to crawl over the bridge so what normally took an hour took two. We were so squeaked for time his poor father was spinning. We flew to the house and practically carried him to the car. We made it on time and starving. All went well at the doctor's office. My husband had formed a bad opinion of this guy from the emergency room and contacts about this visit. He changed his mind. He went into the inner sanctum with his father and had to deal. I usually jump in because he puts on that help me look but this time I reached for a magazine and sat back. He had no choice but to go.

He came back with his dad and he was so relaxed. He really likes this doctor and feels that the doctor really likes his dad and in addition, the doctor can't be manipulated by his dad. He does that you know. He is good at it. So is his son.

Back to the day. We brought his dad home and he was pooped. It takes a lot out of him to walk with the hip and leg as bad as they are. We had brought beef stew that the hubby had made for his dad and heated that up. We waited until the man had downed a large bowl and slice of buttered bread along with a glass of V-8. After that he said he was going to take a nap and we left. We had a 3 o'clock appointment for the car up the road. Off we went and while the car was being tended to we walked and stopped at a pizza spot where we took our starving selves. Split that small pizza with water and call it a day.

Back to the car and home but first, that bridge? One lane in each direction remember? Oh yes, another hour to get over it and then home but first stop at a client's house to pick up a computer. The house was in a new development and my mouth never closed. One beautiful and huge home after another, an endless winding display of enormous monthly payments. What do all those people do for work? All I hear about is the lack of good paying jobs on this side of the bridge. They must all work on the other side. The taxes on those places must be staggering and yet, that town still needs more for the children.

Home we got and pooped we were. Long day. How did the pioneers handle all that day long and night long covered wagon stuff? I don't know but at the end of the day we were over one huge hurdle for his dad's surgery. The doctor said the man is in great shape other than the hip. YAY.

Go SOX!!

Go Sox!

Just sayin'.

This and That

Never did figure that name out from the picture dream. Last night George Noury on Coast to Coast talked about falling dreams. He wanted to know if anyone ever hit bottom and lived to tell about it. The man is a hoot. He had some real doozies calling in. One woman said she turned her feet into propellers and landed like a helicopter.

I can remember dreaming like that and feeling like falling but ever since I moved the folded up blanket from the bottom of the bed which naturally made more weight on my feet, the dreams stopped. Read that tip in Good Housekeeping or Prevention or one of those.

My Father-in-Law has an appointment on Monday with his primary so we finally have a foot in the door so to speak. Now all we have to do is gather up all the medication he takes, write down what it is and when he takes it. Why there is no control point for this I will never know. He sees one doctor who refers him to all others and nothing ever gets back to the primary. I thought that was the point of a primary care physician. In my clinical group, the doctors all note a single record for me. If the doctor I am referred to is not in the group, there is a follow up and all notes are entered. What's with his doctor? Well, we'll soon find out.

The weather is rainy and warm. It was a wonderful stormy night last night. The rain pounded down so hard it woke me up and then, when it stopped, a beautiful clean breeze came along. It was intoxicating it smelled so good. I must press on with the day. My aunt's 80th birthday is being celebrated this weekend. I have not been invited but the aunts and cousins are in my area and might knock on my door. I don't want a mess if they do. Then again, if I wasn't invited, why should I let them in? Only kidding.

What is this Dream Doing?

I had the weirdest dream last night. It was in black and white like old photos, you know, the black and white that is more brown and white. I don't know where I was but I was looking through a large box of old photos one of which was a wedding picture. On the back of the picture was written "Kelleigh Brown on the day of her wedding". She was cute enough in a 1950's kind of bride way. The other pictures in the box were of her and her family. Some were collages of Christmas. The room with the tree was a large living room with French doors at the back. The tree in one picture was white. The tree picture was in the center of the collage, the pictures around it were of presents and dinner and people on the couches and I guess they were all taken on that Christmas. There were pictures of showers and ladies at lunch. The ladies at lunch all wore hats as they did back then. The hats were turbans and beaded and actually so cute. The ladies in one picture were standing and were all looking at paper one lady was holding. On the back of that picture was written, "Here we are deciding what to wear at the wedding and where the wedding should be." Odd. All those ladies planning a wedding. It must have been Kelleigh's since the handwriting was the same as that on the back of the wedding picture. I thought how lovely that everyone cared so much for Kelleigh. As I woke up I was thinking. . how much did someone care that the pictures wound up in a box somewhere for total strangers to pick over?

I will have to mull this one over, won't I?

Medical Conundrum

So as I was saying, the weekend included emergency room time with my Father-in-law. He has had both hips replaced over the past 25 years or so and one is going way south. It has dislocated at least 5 times over the summer and finally he got a referral to a surgeon to determine whether or not that is a possibility. One of his hips was replaced by a local surgeon who told us that since he didn't replace the hip that is causing the problem he won't touch the it. Can that be a legitimate medical decision?

Any how we have seen the surgeon and he needs the primary care physician to advise that my FIL is either a candidate for surgery or not. He won't schedule the surgery until he hears that. The primary needs to run tests and so forth to determine whether FIL is or isn't and since the tests are classified as pre-op, there should be an op scheduled. Those tests are time sensitive and will only be valid for x. If the op is scheduled too far after the tests, they aren't considered pre- op and insurance may not blah blah. The surgery cannot be scheduled without knowing if the patient is a candidate and that cannot be attested to without the pre-op tests and here we are. . . imagine if the government got involved? Hillary Care or otherwise would put the kind of people in charge that we deal with at the Registry of Motor Vehicles. I'm dealing with quality folk now and I am ready to go on a Thelma and Louise kind of road trip because of it.

Pray we keep our health.

At this point the doctors have come to some kind of arrangement and by Thursday? we may be on the road to fixing the hip situation. Now see how easy that was? It's only been a matter of weeks.

Later

Can't be Done

The weekend was a lot like walking in circles. We moved around a lot, got really tired and accomplished zero.



Saturday we spent the day at the emergency room with my FIL. His hip replacement needs replacement and until it gets done it dislocates or causes so much pain he can barely stand it. They gave him pain medication and sent him home and by then....day is done. We went home to the baseball game and total depression since . . . the Sox? how could they??? But they did. Oh well, it's only a game.



Sunday. Get the to do list out that didn't get done on Saturday and do it. However - every errand in every store was a giant waste of time. The store was out of whatever we needed in each and every case. Oh, don't get me wrong, we piled up the purchases but they were not on the list. My husband said as we walked to the car from yet another unsuccessful tour through a store, we will never have to leave the house since the only way to find what we are looking for in each and every instance is to go on line. He is right.

I am going on line and see if we can get the list lined out.

The Dreaded To-Do's

I am off today. Well, I am not in the office today but working from home and that is almost as good as off. The sun is out and I am working my way up to walking for a bit. Why oh why do I not do what I know is good for me and what I know will make me feel better? What is wrong with my head? I have a whole list of things in it that I know if I did my life would be a lot smoother and yet, there they sit, on the list with never a check mark or line drawn through them to indicate their doneness.

Sigh, sigh sigh. I think that it is much better to be all engaged in wondering why these silly things don't get done than it is to look at the really big issues in life. Maybe this failure to complete the to-do's is really a ta-da. Perhaps it's a blessing to have these little grinding and never ending granular failures to toss through than to have the huge ones staring at me.

See? I'll do anything, think anything, be distracted by anything rather than stand up, put on the damned sneakers and go out that door for a walk. I must be firm. And there is another thing on the list. Weight bearing exercise has been on that list for I can't tell you how long. I did check off the "Buy hand weights in varying sizes so that the Strong Women Stay Young recommended exercises can be done in those early morning do nothing hours". But then. . . .

What? Go for a walk you say? Stop this babbling nonsense. Grow up. Be responsible. Put on those sneakers you had to have and went all over the northeastern region of the USA to locate. I will but where oh where are my socks? If I can find them without seeing all the dust under the bed and coming back for the swiffer to rid the bedroom of that blight which as you all know leads to the "Yikes look at those dirty windows and how can they be washed with curtains so dingy" thoughts, I might get that walk in today.

Oh.. all .. right! I'm going. But....I'll be back and then...there's the list.

Sticker Shock

And I thought I liked to shop. My cousin is the queen of all shoppers. We went from noon until 6:30pm and only sat down for about 15 minutes to grab a late lunch. We went into and out of every store (it seemed) at the Natick Mall which used to be called Shoppers' World and now has expanded to Shoppers' Universe. Nordstrom's and Neiman Marcus and European stores galore were in the new expanded glory of the mall. A pea coat, remember those? A pea coat in Neiman Marcus was a steal for 1800 dollars. My blood pressure was in roller coaster mode. I kept grabbing tags and going crazy. How on earth do you justify spending 1200 dollars for a white blouse? Please someone tell me. I'm fantasizing that I might actually have that much money and it's not needed for anything at all and if I spent it there would be plenty more where that came from but seriously, my fantasy hits a wall when I think about the shopping and the tags.

I am still a little jarred from the whole thing. My cousin pooh poohed my out bursts and said that only a fool would buy at retail (she used to be a buyer for some large stores). But even on a sale....what would that be marked down to?

In the same vein, a talk show host had spent the weekend in NYC and found an article in the Sunday Times about a young couple settling into a co-op in the city. They had bought the co-op for 6 million and had to spend 3 million to renovate. He was sputtering about the idea that having spent all that money for the co-op it wasn't good enough for them. He wanted very much to have them on his show so that he could find out what they were really made of. Besides money that is.

Well - I must run. I have a date with my rheumatologist and can't be late. He will definitely be the doctor to use that take two aspirin line. The way I feel today I should take four. Later

Out of the Ordinary

Well due to the husband's need to put food on the table, we are back from the weekend on Sunday. Note I said we. It's always only I since most of his work goes on at the summer place which is open all winter and where he is usually anchored in. This bit of work is closer to our other place which is where I work. Here we are where usually I am only. The dog doesn't have a clue what's up. She is pacing and pacing. Very rarely does she spend time here and honestly it is a much better spot for her since we have a large fenced in yard.

Problem is that the husband expects to open the refrigerator and see what he usually sees and here? I live like a lonely old maid. I have no juice or extras anywhere. I have frozen dinners of the Lean Cuisine variety. I have the high fiber cereal and canned soup. I bring my salad fixin's and milk back and forth. He's not happy.

We did go out last night to an Outback restaurant. We had a gift certificate and put it to good use. As always I had most of my steak to bring home. I just love their chopped salad and can't stop so that is usually dinner plus the baked potato. At least he'll have steak for breakfast. LOL

We talked about discovering (for us) the Outback and how we went there with my brother and his wife when we were in Florida for my folks 60th wedding anniversary. Neither my brother nor his wife had ever been to one and after that they always took the family for group events. We also went to one when my cousin's daughter got married in California. We decided to go and make it a real vacation. What a good time we had. One of the stops was in Fresno and we were searching for a place to go for dinner that was close by the motel, reasonable and good. Not knowing anything about Fresno we went into the Yellow Pages which is my AAA guidebook by the way and the only thing nearby enough that we were sure was good was the Outback. We went and sure enough it was as if we were in the one in Florida or the one in Massachusetts. I really don't like that trend of franchise everything but scattered among the unique to the region shops and restaurants which this one was is not an awful thing.

I am meeting my cousin today for a shopping adventure. Tell you all about it later. Have a fabulous Sunday.

Good Time with Good Friends

We had the nicest visit from two of our dearest friends. They have been friends with each other for a zillion years and while at our house years ago they realized they were more than friends and started to date which led to their moving in together and 10 days ago they got married in Las Vegas. Honestly they are both so happy. This is her first marriage and he had been briefly married many years ago and divorced for years and years. They are so giddy about the husband and wife thing. They are also torn between being so excited and then thinking they are too old to be so.



They came to pick up a freezer that we were giving them...long story but we planned on dinner for them and I bought a small cake that looked as if it could have been the top of a wedding cake. They didn't have a cake and she cried over it. I gave it to her and told her to freeze it until their first anniversary and have it then. Is that still done? I remember doing that years ago. We grilled and had steak. My husband is a griller extraordinaire. He puts the grilled steak on a tray that has olive oil, garlic, rosemary and sage. It is so flavorful. I made a great salad of romaine, red pepper and our heirloom tomatoes and had some great french rolls heated in the oven. Toss in some great wine and what a nice meal. We toasted them before eating and more tears since it was just the two of them in Las Vegas thus no toasts so Kleenex all around, well at least the ladies. The men? They are not so weepy.

Dinner is now done and they are on the road back to their house. My man is in the recliner with the baseball game on and the snoring is so loud that it's hard to hear the announcer. Hope you are all as content as we are.

Pea Soup Time

We are in a pea soup fog. It's Hound of the Baskerville weather. It's so foggy that if you walk under a tree you get fogged on. It accumulates on the leaves and drips off so it's as if it were raining under the trees. I LOVE this weather. It's really warm out too. I must hit the road for a walk and see how wet I get with the fog. I'll let you know when I return.

New Beginnings

There have been so many new beginnings recently. My niece had a little boy, actually a big boy and he is lovely. My sister-in-law's daughter had a little boy yesterday and my cousin's daughter got married Saturday. There are more as well but all of that in less than three weeks and I don't have much of a family at all. To go a bit further, every morning we can start all over again. God is so good.

That direct line radio station I listen to was talking about sin this morning and the pastor was quoting the bible. He read Psalm 51 which he said was David's view of sin and then 2Samuel 12 which was God's view of the same sin. Then that pastor said the most frightening thing of all. When we sit in that judgement seat we think the Lord will show us our life as He saw it and we all know how terribly painful that will be but this pastor said that he thinks we will also see how our lives might have been if we had only repented sooner. We will see everything as it might have been. What a thought.

Oh Lord have mercy. I am so grateful for new beginnings and I pray for Your help and guidance as I move through this day ahead of me.

October is here! October is here! Yikes, how did this happen? I know that it's just a bunch of days one after the other and then. . . here is October! But still, all those days did happen and what speeds everything up as we get older? Maybe it's just as well since as we age we feel more physical aches and pains and creaks and groans so sooner is better to pull up the covers and sleep through it. Thus, the solution of the day whizzing by. We also tend to think differently when we age. Now the clouds that used to be on the horizon are actually overhead and dimming the brightness of the sun. Thus the solution of the day whizzing by since it isn't always so promising. See? There's a good reason for all of this.



The reasons are good and the weather is glorious and what we should do with the bright patches is get out enjoy and after all that fresh air and healthy exercise we'll get a good night's sleep for a change since the other part of aging includes days whizzin by and night's dragging as we think of all the awful things that might be out there waiting tomorrow or of all the things we coulda woulda shoulda done blah blah.

Tell you what....I'm outta here and into that fabulous fall air. Happy pumpkins and corn stalks and candy corn. What could be better?