Noting Differences, Not Just Swearing At Them...As Much

OK, more details. First shoulder surgery:  I'll start with the waking up part., smooth and easy, not a care in the world. The second time around I woke fighting, not just noting people were talking around and over me. I was convinced I wasn't breathing. I had to force my diaphragm to expand and contract, suck in air, expel the spent fumes. It didn't feel like I was doing it naturally, and worse, nobody was noticing. I tried to tell people I wasn't breathing but the person next bed over, on the other side of the curtain, needed attention. Nobody noticed me even when I managed to push a word out, to sound an alarm. I knew the anesthetic could affect my lungs, so I didn't dare let my attention lapse from controlling my own breathing. It  took several terrified minutes before I felt breathing would continue without my consciously working at it.

Not my idea of a good time. Nor of being looked after. Obviously I survived the experience, but I hope never to repeat it.

It's not the same as forgetting details. After all, who  could forget thinking they couldn't breathe? I forgot I had to wait 7 days post surgery before being able to remove a sticky dressing in order to get a complete shower. I had to call the doc's office and ask them when it was OK. 7 full days. I am so yearning to rinse a ton of stinging salt off me. Summer sweat is here! But the incision needs a full 7 days to seal completely, to fully keep germs out. Infection is their one big worry, the thing most likely to cause implant failure.  As the patient allergic to medical adhesive who once peeled adhesive tape away after surgery, and both watched and felt it peel my skin off with it, it's kind of a big deal for me. I insist that EKG stickers get an alcohol wipe before the staff forget where one was stuck. I may be the only person who isn't actually amused by looking like I just "enjoyed" carnal relations with an octopus. The one time I lost so much skin with the tape it took a week extra to heal, and alcohol swabs were required to prevent infection starting.

But Hurray! Tomorrow is full shower day!

Another difference is pain. I started in with Oxy the first time in the hospital because it was recommended, if that's what you call a hand holding one out to you along with some water. and it indeed did prevent pain successfully..... Or maybe..... I just took it third day in, everything else wore off and I needed it. So I'm doing a morning and evening dose now, knowing my body is starting to complain. Last time there were more tablets than in this bottle,  30 then, 20 now, so I'm waiting to see if I will need the previous dose, which seemed to wear off simultaneously with need. Mostly any pain this time is when the straps don't seem to be holding my shoulder high enough. It feels like it's pulling apart, and the mirror shows a strong low slant instead of level shoulders. While some straps dig painfully in, others are too loose. I pull what/where I can. No happy medium. Where they dig into my neck the hard plastic scratches. Same with shoulder blades. I hate this "sling" contraption worse than the previous one, but I figure mostly that's less skin protection from summer fabrics.  OK, I asked for that by waiting for a warmer season, but that was for ease in bathroom duty. Is any of this making sense? This may well be why I'm not legal to drive for a few days or weeks.

Today I put on very baggy shorts and didn't need all the assistance moving clothing. Steve seemed a bit disappointed by that, but I noticed he didn't seem to miss the constant waking out of a sound sleep! Or maybe he just likes turning it into our private game, like I do. Either way, he has thanked me for interrupting an unpleasant dream, so there's that, anyway.

There are still parts of the contraption which dig painfully into my arm, especially with any movement. Losing it will be a joy! The ultimate goal will be having enough pain meds to match pain supplied.

One benefit from past experience has been learning the value of grocery deliveries. Not just talking getting it to the yard, but up the porch stairs, or even inside the front door.  Especially with gas prices right now. Part of my OT before being allowed to leave the hospital was demonstrating getting groceries up the stairs. Safely! So... sideways or even backwards. AND THIS DOESN'T EVEN START WITH PLANS TO REPLACE THE NOW UNSAFE FRONT PORCH, A WHOLE 'NOTHER TOPIC SAVED FOR A DAY WHEN I CAN FIGURE OUT I'M DOING FULL CAPS BEFORE I HAVE TO DELETE / RETYPE!

Second Verse, (Not) Same As The First! !

First, expect typos and worse. I just deleted everything I just wrote - no clue how - and am trying to recall what I was writing. Shoulder #2 is fixed, healing in its contraption to prevent movement or comfort plus all illusions of competence, and from the moment the IV ports and nerve block went in, everything was different from last time except for the side, hospital, and surgeon.  My only comfort at times like this is having an excuse. Plus Steve doesn't tell my he's upset when I stare swearing at whatever latest thing is going wrong!

I just had to reinvent another paragraph! Arrrrggggghhhhhh!

Lesson one: all is different when you lose the strong side, and I'm very much a lefty, the side in the contraption now.

I am able to do some things, such as the aforementioned swearing. In fact, competence is growing! I made coffee, though only half a cup.The rest of breakfast was all finger food. Luckily I planned for that. Triscuits, banana chips, and chocolate chips. No scolding! There have to be a few benefits to this, right?

On the other hand I can wake up freezing because the house was very warm when I went to sleep in the middle of some show (???) and woke in the wee hours without blankets. Too groggy to remember I needed a bathroom assist with relocating pants to wake Steve first for his favorite part of being able to help me brought the predictable results. Luckily by then I got my brain in gear, did necessary things in necessary order with necessary assistance, and returned for necessary sleep with a much needed blanket. 

(You thought I was going to repeat "necessary" again, didn't you? Instead, after replacing ALL the "r"s with necessary "e"s I changed course.) In the meantime I got much more practice with swearing at stock reports and some weird kind of notifications which keep intruding on my screen from the right side. Note I never use those, don't give a flying fuck how stocks are doing, am not invested in them nor ever wished to be, and have no earthly idea why they keep popping out. Same with the bloody notifications. I have managed to figure out how to get rid of them - DANG IT AGAIN! - for a minute or so.

They have persuaded me to hang it up for now.  I'm fine... sort of.

Stages Of Waking

Dreams are funny things. By funny I don't mean laughing-funny, I mean weird-funny. I'm one of those people who often wakes out of a dream and thus remembers some of it for a very brief while. A few minutes later I'm aware of having had one but the details.... rarely recalled, just a feeling, an awareness I had been dreaming. More than that is unusual. Occasionally later in the day something will prompt that feeling to return, but totally without any context.

This morning is a good example, though bits of memory exist. The main part of the dream was about swimming across a wide river I identified as the St. Croix, somewhere around Stillwater. as judged by wideness and how populated it was, though all landmarks were missing It was just a flat, calm river, brownish water somehow clear, not dirty. The swim was totally enjoyable. There had been a point to swimming and who I was swimming with, something to accomplish, but already fading.

I was there with people I know. Who? No clue, just identified as people I knew and was talking with during the swim. Who expects logic in a dream? I don't, during the dream or in retrospect. But at some point we were done swimming and it was time to get out of the water. I needed to call my parents.

So I did, partly while still in the river, partly up on dry land. I complimented them on having such a nice river to swim in. It never occurred to me to question why this was their river of course, just something to say while I was checking in.

Around that time, the real world started to intrude. An actual thunderstorm was going on outside, welcomed in an awake state to water newly planted flowers in the gardens so I didn't have to haul a hose around later in the real day. It was expected and welcomed, as well as interrupting the dream. Rolling over kicked my bad shoulder into complaint, completing waking me up out of the dream, and the few steps to the bathroom progressed through a series of ideas as I finished shedding the dream. First, I was glad it was a nice call with my parents.  The sudden change in head position produced a bit of vertigo, where I bounced into the wall next to the door frame and had to cling for a couple seconds instead of falling, coupled with it occurring to me to recall my actual age and wonder if I'm this old, how old can my parents be? Now stable in balance and again walking normally toward my first morning goal, I realized  both of my parents had died over a decade earlier.  Our phone call hadn't happened.

Yep, there it was. I was now fully awake, back in the real world, aware of the needs of this particular day, and enjoying listening to rain on the roof. It was still in the one-o'clock hour though I'd never remember just where, my shoulder ached, it a was time I could take my thyroid pill but still had to wait for my Tylenol another hour to kill the ache if still needed, and wait for daylight to check the rain guage to see how much rain we'd have gotten by then. Since I was now fully aware, what was on the TV, recorded since I went to bed? I needed to change position to a sitting one, meaning the room with the television. Or maybe back to sleep?  Or maybe I should blog first, since I had a topic? If I went back to sleep it would have vanished in its entirety.

Hey, at least it wasn't one of those dreams where I couldn't find where the car was parked! Even while in bed during those, a part of me knew I wouldn't be able to walk that far in order to locate my car wherever it was, as these dreams happened before my knee replacements. Those themes were the usual way my brain was getting used to my retirement, taking away my car, my ability to identify streets and towns I needed to go to, nor could I read the labels on the packages so I could tell where to deliver them. I still recall one in a dream going to Appleton but nobody would tell me if it was the one in Minnesota or in Wisconsin, and I needed to hurry! And whatever building I happened to be inside of, there was never an acceptable bathroom to be used, lacking stall doors or anything more than an open hole on the floor, a broken pipe protruding a few inches. I just couldn't go there!  I decided, as the shock of waking from those dreams happened, that was a very good thing!

Oh No! Not Betty's Pies!

The news has been full of wildfires in northern MN these last few days. One is north of Brainerd, the other north of Two Harbors.  Since we love the North Shore, both for long day trips and camping occasionally, we frequently stop just north of Two Harbors. That news immediately caught our attention.

First thing I noticed about the area decades ago was a nice pullout shortly past Duluth from the highway along the shore with great photo opportunities of Lake Superior and land jutting out, tree topped rocky cliffs, wildflowers for foreground, and of course waves. Then there was the Stewart River dumping into the lake and the shots it enabled. Finally, after repeated stops and an urge to explore more, there was risking crossing the bridge over the Stewart River while hugging the low railing, making our way carefully down to the other side's shore, and discovering an abundance of Lake Superior Agates. 

Oops, now everybody knows where to find them! Then again, they get picked over soon after ice melt. It could take another big storm to bring more agates ashore. After road construction/"improvement" a couple years ago, crossing the highway in that spot can be extra risky since the former pullout is inaccessible by car, traffic is faster there, and the new bridge no longer has a safe raised margin along the railing for crossing the river. One has to cross the busy hiway on foot, or take a steep path along the river bank under the bridge, or start from a different pullout, the only one left. 

That's also the large parking lot for all the customers for Betty's Pies, or as our favorite metro news station puts it, "The Iconic Betty's Pies". The road improvements have made it safer for vehicle traffic, getting in and out, but not so much for pedestrians with old bones and joints trying to reach the shore. Parking has expanded, porta potties are lined up for the people waiting to get in or to hike. One can even hike upriver to a falls, I'm told. Since it's a 9 mile round trip, I don't plan to do so. The place has really grown over the years.

Because Betty's Pies is iconic. We stop there every trip, either to have a single slice each, with or without an order of a full meal,  or order multiple pies to go in a prepared cooler over ice. Sometimes all of the above. Note those pies aren't just for us. When we know we're going up there, we take orders from people who can't get there themselves. We'll pay up front, they pay before they get their pie(s). We arranged to do so for our planned two day trip to Duluth last fall, which turned into swapping vacation plans for 4 days in the hospital. On the plus side, once health returned, we did manage lunch and picked up pies for the trip home. The boat trip didn't happen. Agate hunting didn't happen.

And now, Betty's Pies might not be open again this summer when we plan to head north again. That one fire damaged part of the restaurant, and as I write this, still is not under control though planes are scooping up water from Superior to drop on it. The staff has said they will be back in business as soon as they can. Since we plan to head back up with better luck to take advantage of the boat trip we paid for last summer, we hope to time it out for when they are open again.

Best of luck, folks! We'll be waiting!

Anybody want to put in an order for pies again?

$$$$$ The Real Medical Bill

 It only took four months to get here. That's how long since my first shoulder replacement surgery with one night in the hospital, until seeing an actual itemized hard copy of the hospital bill. It has helped me make a decision.

I've been on Medicare since the day I turned 65, which was a good bit of planning ahead since - unknowing while I made the arrangements over the phone ahead of time - that was the same day my heart landed me in the hospital, the beginning of a long series of hospitalizations for various procedures. Since that time I've gotten 2-page quarterly mailings, listing my medial charges, how much of those Medicare actually allowed me to be charged for, how much they cover of that, and what the balance is. Within a year I signed up for Supplement F, a second plan which covers all the rest of the costs for what happens. It's not cheap, and I've watched its monthly cost creep up, but I was promised a deal, since I signed up so early, of a total cap on the price tag. It is nicknamed "Cadillac insurance", both because it covers pretty much everything else, and it's a bit high priced. It's also no longer offered to new retirees, in lieu of other supplemental plans which cover less, but remains available to those of us who signed up for it years back, so long as we pay the premiums and continue breathing. We're "grandfathered in" if we so choose.

Medical service providers, for those who don't know, get a carrot and a stick if they agree to take patients on Medicare. There is a limit to what can be charged per procedure. But they get paid reliably and promptly. The upside is lots of patients for whom they get paid promptly. Other insurance plans are notorious for fighting charges, and IF finally approved, paying really late. Even after that, the Docs have to wait for further payment from the patients themselves. It can be a long slow trickle, taking up lots of staff hours pursuing payment, and can even include legal costs. Most accept Medicare patients because overall it is to their financial benefit.

Lately I have been wondering if it was worth keeping my supplement F coverage. Was the monthly bill still worth it? The heart's all fixed except for replacing a pacemaker battery, estimated in three more years. The knees were replaced and doing well. The Type 2 Diabetes is well controlled by diet alone. As I put it to others, all the bad spare parts have been removed and the needed ones replaced. Of course, I said that before finding out what shape my shoulders were in while simultaneously finding out just how necessary to quality of life they were. Or discovering what living on NSAIDS for several decades can do to a pancreas.

The bill/report came in a packet of individual pages so thick that I somehow thought I had been sent one of those booklets detailing what is covered and not, like one gets after the annual insurance sign up reminding you of rules and coverage and how to access benefits. Usually that's a full magazine! Steve's annual new insurance plans come like that. My quarterly statements tend to be two or three pages, including one listing all the languages this could be sent to you in, many of which I'd never heard of until those statements. Nearly all the time I pay nothing more, unless somebody in a medical office makes a coding error. Then we have a chat, their office and I. Last time it happened, my annual exam got scheduled 3 days early and I was stuck with about $500! They need to be 366 days apart at least. Visits in between need a different reason, and apparently you can't go back and relabel the bill to Medicare. Their first reaction isn't that it was a mistake. They think fraud.

I started going through the pages, curious about pricing as well as checking coverage. The first item was the hospital stay, one overnight: $60,000! All the numbers are followed by what Medicare allows to be charged, what got paid, what was sent to the Supplement F folks and paid. Finally there's a line of how much I might still owe. That's routinely zeros. I was still in shock over just the hospital costs this time. The surgeon was an extra cost from the hospital, along with the PT, the OT making sure I could take care of myself once home, the meds and supplies used during surgery, separate from those given me in my room, all separate from those sent home with me so I didn't need to hit my own pharmacy before I had access to, for example, the narcotic I already held 30 pills of in my hand. Of course the single allowed refill of that would be from my own pharmacy, and as usual would need to be called in and picked up after signing for. (I didn't bother to refill it.) Those were just costs from that surgery. All other medical costs for a quarter year filled up the rest of the sheets, except for pharmacy, dealt with at the pharmacy per visit per usual.

Of all those things, I owed a bit for the meds I took home since they did not come from the pharmacy my Part D required. I plan this next time to refuse the ones I don't/won't be using, like Tylenol. I still have parts of two bottles! These days I only take it for pain from the second shoulder, presumably to be fixed post surgery and post PT. It's worked that way on the first shoulder, though still helpful while muscles are getting stretched into new positions, and maybe at bedtime when I roll over onto a shoulder in my sleep, waking me up.

I discovered that the PT I had been doing after my arm was out of the sling was not paid for by anybody. Medicare didn't allow it! For whatever reason they were not allowed to charge me for it either! So now I feel guilty about all those weekly visits working to get it back into usable shape. The staff there are such nice people! I had inquired once months earlier after needing to cancel one visit whether that cut into my therapist's income if they couldn't fill the slot, even despite the usual need to make appointments four weeks ahead. She informed me that she was paid on an hourly basis, so cancellations didn't cut into her income. I'd felt better from knowing that after one icy day when nearly all patients cancelled last minute due to roads, especially since I was one of them. But if nobody is paying for me going there, how do they get paid? Should I feel guilty for going there, especially since I plan to go again this summer after the other shoulder? After all I know the exercises and could do it at home.

(As a side note, my therapist and I had long chats during the PT. Once you get directions for what to do and are simply repeating a movement a number of times, it can get boring otherwise. So we discussed gardening, among other things, something both of us do. Her garden is much larger, and she likes many of the same flowers I do. But it turns out I have a lot more color varieties in some plants she likes. I promised when my two purple daylilies bloom again so I can tell which are which, I'd get her one of each, a Grapette and a Nosferatu, one short, one tall. Both came over from Paul's house last year  from where I'd planted them several years earlier. They can use thinning occasionally anyway. Hey, I brought some balloon flower seeds into their office a couple weeks back and the staff all wanted to share. Since there were a couple hundred tiny little things, I trusted them to leave some for my therapist, and later heard they had. So.... maybe not too guilty about my insurance not paying.) Still....

As for that decision, I had been wondering if it was still worth it to carry my "Cadillac" policy. I'd never gotten such a complete listing of my medical expenses. Had I listed them here we'd still only be on page 3. As I said, there were many more pages, and I was only on the hock for some pills, which I promptly paid. I still have the same thing, opposite side, coming up, next week in fact, as well as a couple diagnostics my Primary doc still wants me to catch up with. (I will after mobility returns. Who wants a mammogram requiring one to lift arms way high, before the surgery that makes that bearable?) And who knows what might be next? Now that I have some hard numbers, you can be assured the extra coverage will remain on the monthly bills list.

I do still wonder what those 4 days in the hospital for our "vacation"on the North Shore last summer would have cost. Never did see a summary bill, telling me I owe nothing, all was covered. Having seen this one, I'm not in a big hurry to ask.

Thoughts On Health On A Cruise Ship

I have been on one. Overall it was fantastic. The experience was a gift to me from my mother-in-law, a retired teacher/librarian who spent her healthy retirement years traveling the globe. We'd routinely get small presents as souvenirs of the places she'd been, like carved ebony from a trip to Africa, tiny baskets woven from pine needles from a visit to the Copper Canyon, small framed needlework from China from a trip including a visit to the Great Wall. As a retired teacher she had access to group travel discounts, and was blessed with fairly good health until extreme old age.

One of her trips was a combination cruise/land trip in Alaska. She had planned to share the experience with a friend but that woman became ill and had to cancel. She invited me to accompany her instead. I actually had to think about it! At the time I was divorced from her son, working a low paying job, not getting child support for three kids, and couldn't figure out how to afford it even with her paying all my trip expenses. My parents stepped up in taking care of the kids, I scheduled the vacation, and wound up with the experience of my life! We flew into Fairbanks, and did land activities as a large group from there to Seward, boarded a cruise ship, and enjoyed some kind of off-ship expedition at every port stop until Vancouver, when a bus took us across the border to the Seattle airport to fly home.

I had little in the way of properly thanking her, until I got my pictures developed. Yes, digital cameras were newly available but I had a Pentax K1000, budgeted buying 36 rolls of 36 exposure film, somehow managed to afford developing them all before Christmas that year. I divided them into two piles of nearly identical photos, split each half into a photo album, and gave her one for Christmas to enjoy our trip over again as many times as she wished.

That is my one experience with a cruise. The cruise line was Holland America, the ships were enormous, and the only illness we heard about was when a couple members of our group became a bit seasick after a couple days when winds created barely perceptible motion on the ship. Mostly the route was along the inside passage, so it was actually quite sheltered from waves.  Knowing I had gotten seasick as a young teen on a family trip along the west coast including being out on a small fishing boat (caught a small shark instead of the wanted tuna), I'd started the ocean part of the trip with medication to prevent a repeat of that misery, and had my sea legs by the time any waves kicked up. I was fine.

This was long before anybody heard about the norovirus. Years later when my best friend and her husband took a cruise west coast to east via the Panama Canal their trip was made miserable by that, a combination of cabin quarantining and sick guts for days. It became common in the news, and even if I could afford such a trip, I decided it was not my choice to go on any cruise again. Occasionally one hears about it again, often enough to confirm my choice. 

When covid made the news, keeping ships offshore until somebody decided passengers could finally leave, I was simply confirmed in the wisdom of my decision. As a snowbird, travel was limited to automobile and either motels or family visits. The first year vaccinations were available, national parks were all but deserted and photography opportunities were exceptional. Covid is still with us, but so is norovirus, occasionally making the news for plaguing cruise ships. I still treasure the experience, but with no plans or wish to repeat it.

Now there's hanta virus reported on cruise ships. Everybody acts shocked by such an unlikely thing. 

Unlikely? Seriously?

We all heard about hanta long ago, spread by rodents in the dry desert southwest. It wasn't reported in rainy climates, or if it was, no longer made headlines. We  knew how to treat it... most times. It could still be a killer. But it was "over there," not "around here." True, cruise ships are in wet areas, if that is the only consideration.  But rodents? On the ocean?

Apparently everybody has forgotten our history. From the time humans set sail their ships were plagued with rodents, aka rats. I use "plagued" advisedly, since they literally spread plague from port to port, carrying fleas everywhere they went. I also have a friend whose ancestors came to America long ago in a rat-filled ship and "lost" all their children to rats. They managed to restart their family once on land and were able to work their farm in central Minnesota.  We want to believe we've "fixed" that rat problem. But we happen to be a pretty arrogant species. Perhaps it's time to start keeping cats on board ships again, eh? Not the spoiled ones overfed on special kibbble, but the proven hunters. 

Or at least until somebody comes up with a hanta vaccine and people aren't too stupid to take it.

Happy Mother's Day!

 To all of you mothers out there who visit my blog, whether or not you celebrate Mother's Day on this particular date that America set aside for it or not, whether you still have a mother to share these with or not any longer, I wish you the best for this day. 

 

A bit of history from my personal perspective: it was designated as such back in 1914 to fall on the second Sunday in May. That happened to be the 10th. The reason I will always know that as long as I can still keep track of any kind of a date is that a particular woman, Jane Elizabeth Maxson, gave birth for the 7th (?) time on that particular day... to my father, John Dufty Maxson. It just happens that once again it rolls around to the tenth of May.

I thought I'd send you all, whether you celebrate or not, whether you be mothers or not, some flowers, all of which have meaning to me, since at one time or another I had a hand in planting or growing them, and of course in shooting each picture.

May these give you as much pleasure as they have to me over the years... and still do, thanks to a camera. I don't still live in all the places these were shot. But I can carry these around with me wherever I go, and share with whomever can appreciate them. The critters some of them come with today are long since dust, but still yours - and mine - to find.

Crex In Early May

 May the 4th be with you. Of course, that was yesterday, but it was a busy day, starting with checking on the possible need for a building permit for some specific repairs (no), waving at local union strikers, getting my super-short haircut before upcoming surgery when I won't be messing with it for a few weeks, and getting my spring oil change. OK, clowns, the car's oil change!

In the middle of all that I took a friend up to Crex to check out which critters had returned, what changes had been made since last time, and just taking a few hours to relax. I drove, she made lunch: chicken salad on a bun, swapping some kind of tater topper for boring mayo. Yummy!

Our first stop, as always, was the information center. It's always good to talk with staff and find out what's unique this day, as well as hit the restrooms before a couple hours without any access to them. Photos were different from last month's visit, of course,  with different cloud cover, high winds most of this visit, roadsides starting to sprout the tall grasses soon to lower visibility of water birds, and a very recent controlled burn of the oaks sprouting up so the needed prairie/marsh habitat could be maintained. It needs to be stable for certain birds, including my favorites sandhills,  among others, and an increasingly rare butterfly, the Karner blue. (No. I've never seen one.)

First stop was behind the information center, where a path and bridge always frame a different mood.  Mostly I love fall shots here. High summer turns the water surface green and mostly non-reflective. This day the water surface was clear and reflective, showing much of the cloud formations overhead. Ripples in the water were the most different this time, not just for their strong presence, but because the wind was moving them west to east. The stream runs east to west. A video - could I put one in here- would make you think it was two different locations. I'm not that tech savvy...yet. Maybe in a different life? Hey, I only recently found the trick to inserting a photo, needing to insert it between lines of text instead of just text ahead of it and empty space below. And even then it was an accident.

If the background isn't unusual enough to make the photo, sometimes just the water is. 

Somehow I never use the energy to follow the path in the first photo as far as it goes. I save it for driving and shooting as much of the rest of the 30,000 acres as I can, and by the time I near the end I'm both out of energy and time for the day. Or maybe just hungry and needing to pee? TMI. This view is always different, from the vegetation to the water, and I try to catch as much variety as I can before the block walk back to the car.

Weather can make a ho hum photo different, if one takes a second to look when weather doesn't seem to even be a factor, even if it includes a very boringly common pair of birds as the assumed subject, Canada geese. It's not the sky reflections that give this water its color. It's the fact that this little pond has been so churned up by the wind that the water is all a creamy orange tint, visibly impenetrable with the mud churned up. Ripples try to reflect sky, at least for the camera, while the naked eyes just catch the muddiness. The color lines up on either side of the wave ridge as each has different sky it faces.

Out on dry land, in the neighborhood of Dikes 4 and 5, there were clumps of sandhills hunting for whatever they can eat, which, being omnivorous, is practically everything. Most are too far from the car for my zoom, but we counted perhaps 40 in this general location, after having already passed pairs here and there and widely scattered clumps. Photos with a better bird count swap birds for dots: pointless pictures. You will notice browns and greys in their coloration, an indication of how much of which color dirt they had preened through their feathers to rid themselves of hungry mini hitchhikers before settling on a nest. Those we that did see nesting were so brown that one was actually mistaken for a deer in tall grass with her fawn, until its head poked up from the grasses. Yes, they are that big.

I did mention locations in the refuge by the number of a dike. The water levels are managed over the years by opening and closing the dikes at junctions with streams. Occasionally an entire area is allowed to drain almost completely, while other places are flooded as much as the weather and a pumping system allow. I asked once in my early visits why that happened. Phantom Lake that year was mostly mud, with sandhills strolling around where lake had been. Not that I minded the sandhills, but usually it's full of geese, swans, loons, ducks, and so forth. Even occasional strays arrive for a bit, like an ibis one year, while everybody with a tripod supporting a huge lens clogs all the shore space around for unrepeatable shots. That dry summer there were eagles, herons, and ospreys strolling through the mud or perched on branches formerly underwater. I was told the purpose was basically a change of habitat, mimicking natural processes  when nature doesn't cooperate. Apparently the same old same old for too many years isn't healthy enough for the variety of plants and critters needed in the long term.

That's why this sight  surprised but didn't shock me when I saw it. In early April it was a well flooded lake with beavers moving in. Most of the area trumpeter swans have collected there the last couple years, enough off the beaten path though managed by Crex, that numbers were way down in the usual locations. As such a big draw, especially with cygnets in tow, I expect numbers of visitors were down, meaning donations were also down.  This is the view yesterday morning from Grettum Dike Road, a few miles south of Grantsburg, and west of the highway. Strips of water remain, mud flats stick up here and there. Most years it's been solid blue water plus rushes from next to the dike road to the trees way in the background, with the swans way back against the trees, little white dots on the landscape, so far away that nothing entices photographers to show up. The two beaver lodges I saw last month were missing. Water was still flowing rapidly out of the lake to the point where a usual blue heron hangout across the road and lower, a stub of land where a gentle stream curved where it could stand eying passing small fish for its next meal, was flooded and washing out. No heron in sight. That was a dependable photo op. I'll have to be checking back later. I've seen deer watering there as well.

You might think those relatively close large white birds are the swans still choosing to be here and be closer to the road. It may be hard to tell the shape is wrong, the bellies too thin, the necks too short. As more birds flew over, some settling in, some passing, I didn't manage to get much of a decent shot of the several I tried for. Once cropped it was easier to know what they were, even more so when I had to turn the car around a bit down the road where a nicely filled pond exploded around me in startled birds, white, black, and pinks, chaotically filling and setting off the clear blue of the sky to the northwest at that moment. Actively driving through that turn, I had no chance to capture them, a major disappointment. I memorized in my mind the image missed forever, grieving the lost chance as I drove on.

I had to wait for my laptop at home to do some severe cropping of the best of the earlier shots to capture a few of the hundreds or so, now identified as pelicans which were formerly strangers to this part of the refuge.  I'm not going to argue the dike system of property management Crex uses. 

I will be heading back to try to locate breeding swans, however. Maybe next month when I'm legal to drive again and Steve is more independent after his surgery. Ever notice how things flip after retirement? Before, you have bosses who pay you for things needing to get done. Afterwards, we pay the docs for things needing to get done.

Why Haven't I Read These?

 In the move two years ago we went through the entire home library, three walls of shelves floor to ceiling (or window in one case) and sorted out the ones to keep from the ones for a garage sale or donation. There were boxes and boxes of them packed up for the move, though they turned out to be a minor fraction of the books we had collected through the years. Mostly I selected by author: who did I want to read again and again, especially when they wrote with a continuing character or set of characters. If I hadn't gotten bored with the author, often by a character's failure for any personal growth however badly needed, as did happen, the books were packed for the trip north. The unpacking took a while, not just from higher priority items topping the to-do list for sheer comfort and practicality of setting up a new home, but also because the old shelves had been built in, so left in place as part of the home. Buying new shelves was something put on the back burner with all the other needs of a major move.

Eventually we purchased a new shelf unit once we had our furniture arranged in new spaces and could tell what we needed that could fit what space was left. Most of the shelves had books crammed in them until they were hidden behind a front layer of books, either by the same author or by the same topic. There they sat.

For those following this, you are aware it's been a very inactive winter for us. It's been a fairly boring one in terms of TV offerings as well, with many favorites getting discontinued, a plethora of new sitcoms trying to impress us with stupidity as something funny (epic fail in this family), and a super-abundance of sports programs spoiling the way our timers were set to record the shows we have enjoyed watching. We still get timers that are supposed to adjust for actual air times but pick former times to record, or even when the timer starts later the sport program delaying their start lasts even longer than planned. Who cares about half a program when it's a mystery and you want to find out who-dun-it and that last half is lost unless it pops up in reruns... if the DVR system even records reruns, or the program hasn't been replaced by something else for the summer, some breaking news, or permanently?

Back to the library then. Pick a favorite author, dig out a list online showing what order the books were written in, save the list, rearrange the books to match, and start plowing through from the beginning. One such set is the Hillermans' series, started by Tony and continued after his death by his daughter Anne. If you get the right TV channels, you can find newer stories (to us, not the timeline as they go back before the books started) under the title "Dark Winds". There are deviations from some of the characters' story lines from the books, some cultural mores lost, but they're still enjoyable, and a great encouragement to dig back into the books, in order written of course.

Another favorite set of books (with no TV spin off that I'm aware of) are by Dana Stabenow, mysteries set in Alaska, with Kate Shugack as the primary character, Mutt as her loyal dog/wolf hybrid,  protector & problem solver with her sharp nose and teeth, together in a community of continuing characters throughout the series... with the caveat that some die. They are set over a number of years, have some elder characters, and even without a crime or mystery, old folks do what all old folks eventually do. Every death has repercussions of course, from needing to solve a mystery, or learn history of the area and how it made them who they were, or the story of how those left behind need to heal and adjust... or don't. The mysteries change in every book as do the people dealing with them, and I highly recommend these to those who haven't had the pleasure of reading Stabenow yet. If you can, read them in order. I've read the first 20, and still find some parts of them hilarious, especially "Breakup" where certain logical consequences are unforgettable.

What surprised me in going through them this time was finding several books I had managed to collect but never read. I don't know how that happened, but it turned out to be a gift! For a few weeks there were new Stabenows to discover. I know it wasn't that I'd read them and forgotten them, which can be easy enough with a lot of authors. But there was new-to-me history, new characters, different slices of subsistence culture I'd no familiarity with, changing challenges as traditions warred with western ideas of progress. And with mysteries the second run through, I usually know what the ending is in general terms, and along the way there recall who might have a baby or moved or found a new romance or a new career. For several books there were none of those familiar hints I'd been here before.

Today I ran out of her books. It's not that she stopped writing, it's somehow that I stopped buying. I looked at the book list I'd printed out.  I ran out with 6 left to go, to date anyway. I could hit her science fiction books, I also owned,  remembering I enjoyed them, but DARN IT! I was in this series and want to finish what is available.

OK, then: eBay! I looked up the missing titles, found and ordered them, and should have deliveries in a week or so. I won't read any till each is the very next one in order and in my hands. I promise! There is one new one this year I didn't order yet because I prefer the prices of gently used books. I will also have to look up another of her Alaska series with a different main character, but first have to decide where on earth those can be housed, or whether to just hit the library, put in requests and wait weeks for each next one to become available. Besides I could dig back into James Doss, or Rich Curtin, or see if Spider Robinson still holds the same appeal of decades ago.

I should have lots of time in the next few months for sitting and reading, despite already making some new changes in my small gardens. I'll still be able to pull a hose around in dry spells, pick up leaves blowing through, and bend over to pull some of the weeds out. I'm not sure yet about follow through on cutting back the huge blossom clumps on a couple bushes that invariably flop in a storm and stay bent till fall because some idiot bred that variety for flowers too big for their branches. The idea of cutting the huge ball of petals in half before they reach full size is easy. The need to reach up 6 feet to do so in time to make a difference so soon after my second new shoulder is daunting. Calling it a new variety of PT just won't make it any more likely to be successful this year. Maybe ask for help? Though the prime helper will be building a new set of stairs plus the replacement porch they attach to, since the furnace installation broke the anchor point keeping the railing sturdy and safe.

 I'll probably personally settle for reaching down to plant, relocate, and weed between ground level flowers - meaning the rest of my gardens - being more possible. I did just pull a dozen weeds and plant two pots of red tulips  - Steve's favorites - in a new spot earlier today, where Steve doesn't have to try to walk over uneven ground to the far end of our place to be able to even see them but simply step out on the front porch. Last year's planted red tulips, also blooming right now though much bigger than the ones sold in tiny pots, are quite a hike for him with the bad hip. Now he can still see some. In a couple weeks he'll also be able to see his favorite blue columbine next to them bloom, as they're forming buds already and lasted all summer last year. There is more space there for more ideas. After all, one can't read ALL the time! Not for lack of trying anyway.

Teleported To Waffle House?

 How do I get on that bus? Do I have to go get so drunk or otherwise impaired that I have a lengthy blackout while also managing to, say, take a cab there? Or walk there? I'm hoping you can really teleport there because I don't know where to find one anywhere near here and it might be fun to hitch a teleport ride.

Also, inquiring minds want to know, once teleported in, does that mean the food is free as a reward for the accomplishment? Or perhaps does that mean that such power bequeathed upon one means you also have the power to pick up all the tabs of the patrons present? 

If Waffle House claims that responsibility for you, first could you let me know in advance so I can go order something expensive I don't have to pay for? I'll happily let you teleport me once you've proved it works. There's got to be some fun to be had from such an experience, right?

Second, if you know how to teleport full bodies, can you adapt your machine or whatever it is to just teleport away all the thousands of extra calories one gets from all the carbs and syrups and butter from stuffing oneself with waffles? Be sure to leave the flavor in though.

Third, could you possibly get away with teleporting everybody's Waffle House bills out to the moon? Surely if so, there would be a team standing by to weave all the bills into a brand new flag to be put up where earth mounted telescopes could locate it, get photos of it, and publish them for the next generations of "smarter than their elders" disbelievers to scoff at? They'll be sure to claim nobody ever got to the moon to plant a flag, not the first time with that "giant leap" nonsense, not the next time when one got pieced together from Waffle House unpaid tabs. They'll argue that nobody can teleport, nobody ever did teleport, it's all CGI or AI, and after that nobody who claims they've been teleported to any Waffle House any place on any planet or moon can ever be believed about anything they ever say again just because the doubters weren't watching the TV themselves when - according to them - it was "supposed to" have happened.

Oh, and can I get strawberries in my syrup please? Maybe a little high quality chocolate as well? I mean, teleporting is free, right?

Missed Opportunity

You know there's never a camera around when you really really want one, right?

Like yesterday afternoon when I was returning home from a birthday party for a friend, for example. It was at a good restaurant, so I had a large bag with a couple boxes of leftovers in it. Across the top of those was my purse because I needed my driver's license and credit card, plus bunches of other stuff for "what iffs". The large bag I'd had to walk around the car to pick up since they were on the passenger side floor with the bag handles looped around the parking brake so a quick turn or braking wouldn't spill food all over. You never know what nearby idiots are going to do or when a deer might run out. 

Hmmm, I guess that might be redundant if one considers deer who cross a highway in traffic are by definition idiots. Puts true meaning into thinning the herd.

I was a bit tired from a non-stop day, which included a stop at a favorite garden center on my way home, just to see if they had iris in yet, and if so, what colors. Online searches the day before of a couple large metro garden centers had no iris listed yet, but this more local place I stopped at has always had a great selection of plants and whatsits, as well as helpful staff. After looking at the amount of walking involved in searching through tiny tags to see what species they even were, much less varieties, I opted for heading inside and talking to the woman at the counter. She looked up their inventory, showed a couple photos of current stock, and then offered to head out and bring me a nice pot of the one I liked best. She actually brought two pots so I could see there was a definite "best" in her choices. It's one of the things I like about these people.

The gallon pot of tiny iris leaves was, like all pots,  tippy, so she gave me a small box to put under it to catch any spilled dirt, which it did. I still had 25 miles left to drive home after buying it, and stoplights were included. So was a gas fill-up. (The pot of iris with seven separate tops poking up was less expensive!) I know you haven't asked, but the iris will bloom mostly pink, with a bit of white and yellow. Look up "Pinkerton".

Anyway, I was just loaded up and ready to lock the car doors when a neighbor stopped to chat. She was hoping I wasn't offended that she stopped by to look at my flowers. Right now there are lots of daffodils visible behind the home, but clearly visible from the paved path that goes between the streets as a shortcut to the community center. I assured her that not only was I not offended but I considered it a compliment! But my armfuls were getting heavier each minute and I needed to excuse myself.

Just as I turned, a little bird I was unfamiliar with hopped across the grass and up into my raised circle bed, looking for his next meal. Seeds? Bugs? The leaves from iris and day lilies are up about 6 to 8 inches at the moment. No clue what this bird was except it was startlingly different and gorgeous. And then gone!

I made a point of noting all the details I could in those ten seconds or so, before heading inside and taking care of what I was toting. Refrigerator for one part, water and a catch tray on the porch for a short time for the other until planting in a newly opened bed now that most of the rhubarb plants have been gifted away. No chance at all for any camera in all that activity, just trying to multitask by remembering the details of this strange bird.

Later I tried looking it up online. I knew what it wasn't. With no name to search for I started with colors and patterns. It was about sparrow sized, larger than a finch but smaller than a robin, mostly black with bits of white scattered through it. Had that been all there was to see, I wouldn't have looked twice. But when its wings were folded down, like they were when it was hopping across the ground, there was a bright stripe of a golden orange - or orange-ish gold - under the wing most of its body length. Not on the chin or under the tail. The effect was spectacular!

Google offered me a robin. Then a Baltimore oriole. I know those birds well, having lived with them most of my years in Minnesota, and as close as in the yard, a nest in a tree or over the front door, or even an oriole encouraging its newly fledged young to hop-fly over a fence and into the branches of a cherry tree for some yummy fruit.

Sorry, Google, epic fail! I tried other ways of describing this bird, different things to stress first, and nothing helped. Not a sparrow, a finch, a meadowlark either. Time to contact a human expert. Considering the time of year and the possibility this bird was strange because it was migrating much further north, I emailed my sister-in-law up in Bemidji. Between her and my brother, they know birds. Lots of other things as well, but between educations and occupations, if it's outdoors, somebody there will know. I just needed to do my best version of describing this bird and what I know it wasn't, however much Google might argue.

This morning I got a quick answer back, looked it up in sources with a lot of photos, and while I found a lot of examples with very inferior coloration (females?) I did find several good photos in the bunch, enough to verify that the bird stopping by was indeed a yellow rumped warbler.  Thank you!!!

But damn, I wish I'd had my camera ready! I might have gotten a shot in during those 15 seconds, right? Let's see, 5 to drop the bundles, or ten to do it without damaging them, 5 to pick up the camera if it had been, say, in an accessible pocket, 3 to turn it on, 4 to aim it, 2 more to zoom, and twelve to make sure it had already left the yard the second I scared it by dropping my armfulls.

Sigh-h-h-h......

Fixing the Repair Of The Replacement

I woke at 4AM this morning, chilled despite being fully under my very thick bedspread. I've been spending more sleep time in bed lately instead of all night in a recliner, something I consider a major gain, but soon to be offset by the second shoulder replacement. Knowing I'm tolerating it better gives me hope that about 5 months after the next one I might actually be spending whole nights there again. Being a side-sleeper puts all kind of pressure on new shoulder joints, hence the switch to recliners which keep me still while asleep and painful pressure off the new joints.

But it wasn't shoulder pain waking me this morning. The furnace had quit. My usual first stop is normally the warmest spot in the house, as the floor register warming my bathroom is just a wall away from the furnace... my brand new replacement furnace! It was really cold in there! I had no hope of a sufficiently hot shower without getting even more chilled while drying off.

Next stop was the living room to check the thermostat. It's completely unreadable except in full daylight except for the large numbers, which still need the overhead room light to read. While it was still set at 73 degrees, a comfy enough temp for two Arizona-adapted inactive geezers, the actual temperature was just 64. I tapped it up a degree to see if that kicked the furnace on. Nope.

At 4AM there's not much to do aside from get mad, dress in multiple fuzzy layers, and burrow in as many blankets as one can find, at least until one recalls there is a gas stove a room away, which, upon checking, works just fine. We have both working electricity and gas, so neither of those is the problem. No need to call the utility company. We just need to wait for the stove becoming effective... in a few hours.  I turned two burners on, and repaired to the family room to see what might have been recorded by the DVR overnight that might be worth watching until it's time to call into the recording in the office of the furnace company. The new one is barely a week old after all.

The well-recalled forecast is for a chilly week, and it's still raining outside, finishing what in daytime inspection shows as an accumulation of an inch and a half in the new rain gauge. Best estimate was a high in the low fifties or worse for most of the coming week with lows just over freezing.

I left voicemail with the  furnace company, giving my name and town, the failure of home heating (aside from the stove top), and my firm expectation that I would not have to pay for the usual fee to have one person come over to check things out. I was as polite as I could manage but didn't even pretend to disguise the tone of anger for this failure on such a new and expensive piece of equipment.

By this time Steve was up and came out to join me, both of us now dressed for winter and under blankets, plus in Steve's case using his back heating pad. He'd cooked an early breakfast for himself but I can't eat so soon after one of my morning pills. The burners on the stove were set back to a safer level than was needed for cooking while we moved to another room waiting for heat to arrive. In the meantime, there were books, laptops, and some TV to keep us entertained. My cell phone had become hard to hear ringing, so he looked it up online and figured out not only how to fix that but what I'd done to make it nearly silent. I've been missing calls lately. Now they are almost deafening! It's an improvement. Really.

The furnace company finally called back half an hour after they officially opened, assuring me there was no charge to come fix the new furnace, and one of their staff would be out some time between ten and noon. OK, not ideal, but we knew help was coming. He only arrived about 40 minutes late, but went straight to work testing everything that could possibly be causing the failure.

When we finally heard the motor come on, for a change not as loud as it had been when first installed, he poked his head in and gave the explanation that a pair of exhaust pipes had been angled wrong, and the recent rain had come down into the pipe from the roof and flooded it, preventing proper air exchange. Better no heat than CO filling the house. 

Oh yeah, and the floor was wet too. Did we happen to have a small pail he could borrow? Maybe an extra rag? He had a large pail but the furnace was already crammed into a very tiny space, so his wouldn't work. No problem. I handed him a steel bowl, which had gotten ruined during the first installation when "somebody" had decided when seeing it outside on the porch with some potting soil in it that it had been meant to be an ashtray and the metal had heated to brown in several places as the combustible parts of the potting soil had burned. I'd had to throw out the potting soil and ashes, now unfit for the designated garden spot they were intended for. I'd gotten sidetracked, that day it got set out, by the unexpected early arrival of the replacement furnace. Put a workman in my house and I stay inside with them. I'd had to leave for a medical appointment later, leaving Steve behind to mind the house, and returned to see a coating of white ashes on top of the soil. 

The bowl should still be useful for, say, catching dripping water, or more potting soil projects, though not for food. I mentioned it to this workman. He may have thought I was going to complain to the company, and insisted it couldn't have been their people who'd done it because "nobody smokes here". There had been no other visitors that day aside from the two who installed the new furnace, and no other explanation for what had occurred, but I chose not to argue the point. We have another steel bowl that size as well as a couple of plastic ones, remnants of combining kitchen sets over the years. It's not like I ever plan to buy another one. I just needed my furnace functioning again.

At any rate, after about three hours, he announced both the cause and his fix for it, and collected his things to leave. His phone rang, and in close quarters we can hardly prevent eavesdropping, at least not enough to miss he was talking to the boss about what was taking up his time. Despite his starting to pack up, he came back in, this time saying he was still concerned he'd missed something, and went back into the innards of the furnace for about another half hour. This time he informed us that it wasn't the angle of the exhaust pipes that were the problem, but he'd found the "REAL" problem, fixed that, and returned the pipes which collected the rain water to their former position.

The furnace was now running, much quieter than before, thankfully. He never did say why the next rain wasn't going to collect the same way it had last night and stop the furnace again. Fingers crossed, I guess. I also don't know how long we can allow for a possible fail of the same kind in the next heavy rain, should it happen with those pipes angled "wrong" like before, and still get them to come out without a charge for a diagnostic visit. If it happens, they will hear from me.  

Does Yelp offer a minus 50 score? One does want to be prepared, just in case.

More Redundant Forms (Rant)

 First, my medical stuff is in a particular medical system which covers a large chunk of Minnesota around the metro. It has been for years. Even when we lived out-of-state they emailed me reminders for shots or mammograms when they hadn't seen me for years. Of course we moved to AZ and a "disadvantage " Medicare system, insurance only good in AZ except  for emergencies, but quickly changed after a year of inconvenience. With the last and permanent move, we're back in the old system full time. My primary insurance is now standard Medicare, good everywhere in the country, and has been except that one year. I have a secondary insurance, also very long term. There has been a lot of use put on those cards since retirement. The home address has changed, parts of my health status have changed, which doc does what changes with each specific "what" we're talking about. But all the rest is the same as the last time they asked. My upcoming shoulder replacement is with the same doc as the last one, in the same hospital, with all the rest of my personal details the same, aside from some additional information from a battery of new kinds of diagnostic tests mostly because my primary has been paying attention to my advancing age and noticed some thing have never been done and somewhere in her training there is some kind of "but they should be, sooner than later" caveat affixed to each of them as time marches forward. Bone density is  one example. Apparently they're fine. Also not relevant to the upcoming surgery if they did the last one in January successfully without that test result.

One result of that is I keep getting emails requesting all kinds of data from me that are already in my records. I don't mind humoring them to a point. My name is the same, my birthday hasn't changed, my address is in their records along with my phone number, SS number, insurance numbers, husband's name and phone number. No, none of this is in any way related to some work injury or covered by company insurance. I'm still retired, and even though the wear and tear on my body has accumulated over the years, and somewhat attributable to working as hard and long as I did, none of it counts as a work injury any more. There was one of those back in '84 but it no longer counts, and I worked many years after that anyway for a different company. (Yes, that company fired me after I filed workman's comp. Best thing they ever did for me.)

All my medical stuff is available to me and my docs via computer. I can type in a question addressed to any of the docs and get an answer in a few days, whether it's a specific kind of answer like "change medication X to this amount" or "make an appointment for that in time frame Y" or even both. I regularly get a request to go over the list of meds they have for me before any major appointment and make any changes since last time. I often ignore those when nothing has changed, particularly when it takes them a couple months to notice any changes, but do confirm my intention to make it to a particular appointment made earlier. For example I've been having weekly PT since last fall, some pre-surgery, some post surgery, and each week I get an email request to confirm or cancel whatever is upcoming so they know if there's an opening in the schedule or not. No biggie. Just three or four key strokes and it's done. There was one morning when I had to call in anyway to cancel, after watching neighbors work to scrape ice off their cars in order to open doors. I knew I wasn't going anywhere until it melted on its own. Apparently about half their patients cancelled that day. I presume most of them had better arm movement and strength than I did but cancelled anyway. I did feel less guilty for cancelling on them last minute after hearing that.

But every once in a while they send out a 10 page questionnaire they want me to fill out when nothing has changed since, say, my last appointment, including with them a short while earlier. My insurance cards are proffered for proof at the beginning of each year and entered into the system. No changes. I verify my address again each visit, along with all the attendant stuff. No changes. I've been running through a diagnostic whirlwind for a couple months, and no changes aside from them being now on record, the same record they all have access to when I'm their patient.

But they are asking for stuff that has long been on my record and remains so, and I just get tired of it. Can't they just type out a list of, say, a dozen categories and simply ask if there are any changes? I have no problems with a "yes", where applicable, followed by a space for clarification. But no, they need all the details going back a ridiculous distance. On the same form they ask the same question several times, which is even more annoying.  Yeah, guys, I'm still at this address from my last visit here three days ago: how many back addresses do you need? I no longer recall the exact street numbers for Georgia, sorry. 223? 232? I can recall that doc's lobby with the wild baby coral snake in it that my middle child found while he was bored and I verified the identity of, reported it to the check-in desk and got dismissed as a nut. (I do hope no other overactive kids explored the space and risked a bite.) I can visualize the house we lived in there if that helps? It's not like I didn't have my much more recent AZ records all transferred up. I am getting fuzzy on that doc's address but know exactly where all the handicap parking spaces in their lot are. Is that helpful? It's not like my appendix isn't still gone and for more than 60 years now. Those don't tend to grow back.You want the date? Are you shitting me? I can give you my age when it happened. If you need a date, call an escort service. I hear they oblige for a significant price, though that's only hearsay from my perspective, and that's all I've got for you.

Today they asked for the date I retired. They will only accept it in the form of a two number month, two number day, and four number year. You know what? I can't tell you any more. It no longer is relevant in my life. I know it was to my boss at the time, but that company doesn't exist any more. I know it was shortly after I qualified for SS and Medicare and just before I knew I'd fail my next DOT physical. Good luck getting ahold of them for that information, especially since DOGE did all they could to destroy those systems from a we-will-communicate-with-you standpoint. But you need a date? Read the above paragraph again.

Meanwhile Steve just baked a cake and went to bed, asking me to frost it. Any more questions whose answers are already in your system, go look it up. That cake is chocolate, with chocolate frosting waiting to get out of the can, and some coconut in a bag just aching to get sprinkled over the top. Bye!

And Yummmmm!

"Go" For one, "Slow" For The Other

 I'm talking surgeries here. Steve was supposed to have his behind him by now  and be doing his PT on a new hip. Instead it's been a busy week driving back and forth to a metro hospital for various cardiac tests. While he's feeling somewhat better, and most of the tests have come back with no issues, his newly diagnosed A-Fib has shown up on the monitor he wore for two weeks. I fully expect that will have to be corrected before hip surgery will take place. Based on my combination of experience and research, it could be any or all of medical, surgical, and pacing procedures. He's already on medication to prevent blood clots, so we're not worried about stroke as a side effect. From the reports we have seen, though not discussed yet, the hip may well wait till midsummer at the earliest. Kind of crimps the fishing season.

Meanwhile I'm doing well. I finished my last set of PT from the first shoulder, both the pre-surgical stuff to prepare the muscles and aid in range of motion, and now the post-surgery exercises which aid in movement now that I'm minus one of the rotator cuff muscles.  At least the fixed shoulder is pain free without the bone-on-bone motion, so I'm just dealing with the lesser pain from muscle stretches where newly needed for getting the first arm back to useful. I can even dress myself most days, so long as I carefully choose the clothing to be loose enough.  I also need to put my head through first, then each arm, one at a time. The old method was thrust both arms into sleeves and then stick the head in. The new method usually works but there are times when the head gets lost somewhere, especially if I'm doing two layers at a time, the exact reverse of how they got taken off the night before. 

It's good to be able to laugh at yourself. It's even better to have willing assistance, for payment of a kiss or two.

Late next month I go back in for the second shoulder, and get all the fun again of six weeks of one arm only while the other heals. The problems dressing in winter clothing from the first time mean I'm expecting to be much happier with this one scheduled in warmer months. I'll still need Steve's help of course for a few weeks, possibly more. However I should be able to drive after three weeks with care, especially expecting not needing any narcotics.

The best news is my surgeon assuring me that the longer lasting nerve block should still be available for the second shoulder. It made recovery so much easier and less dependent on narcotics. I had heard from local docs out of the metro that it still isn't available in this area, so the 120 mile round trip is worth it, despite higher gas prices, and especially in a hybrid vehicle that my driver uses. 

My surgeon also clarified why I needed to sign for permission to use the new long lasting block: if administered imperfectly it can paralyze one lung for a few days. The lung should recover, but it complicates things of course. My "worst" side effect the first time was not knowing where my arm was, getting the wrong signals from its location and not finding it there with the other hand. It was much more funny than problematic. I'm interested in seeing if that works the second time with the other arm. Of course, if they need me to sign anything at all for the following  few weeks while it's in the "sling" contraption, it's lucky if I can make an "X". Even now, signing on a touch screen for using a charge card is a gawdawful mess and that hand/arm hasn't been touched yet.

I'm also getting information I hadn't had the first time around on the actual surgery itself. It's called a reverse shoulder replacement. Seeing the x-rays of the metal ball/socket pieces with their screws into bone don't quite give the story. It's the PT who explains why I can't quite do things I used to do. As she tells it, we normally have 4 rotator cuff muscles on each shoulder, giving us the ability to move it in all directions.  This reverse surgery removes one of those muscles, at the very top of the shoulder. Moving it back and forth afterwards isn't bad, though they stress moving it behind you is to be avoided for a couple months, and likely will be a challenge afterwards even with PT. Moving the arm high, especially while holding any weight, will be the challenge requiring lots of PT and home practice. Eventually the three remaining rotator cuff muscles will take over the job...with work! In a lot of cases the fingers crawl their way up a surface and bring the arm along behind them. 

Whatever works, right?

Right now I'm busy getting the gardens ready for showing off while both arms mostly work. The round one has had its scillas bloom, and already are producing seeds. The balloon flowers and peony bush just got their dead stems removed, with the last of the balloon seeds distributed to fellow gardeners who want to give them a try. I brought dozens to my PT this last visit and the whole office offered to help take some home themselves. I'm not sure if it's the name or the fact these get 4 - 5 feet tall that got them all excited. I shared a bunch with neighbors last fall who liked what they saw in my yard, and scattered more along the sidewalk. For such a tall plant the seeds look like grains of black pepper.

The daylilies'  old flower stems got cut after flowering to prevent going to seed last summer, putting energy into roots instead. Now showing as grey sticks as they peeked up above emerging green all over, those got pulled with just the tiniest effort. The iris sharing their bed all survived and those leaves are growing much faster. I'm hoping for more blooms this year since only two varieties bloomed last year. I'm still thinking about replacing where rhubarb plants got dug out of a different bed with some of the circle garden iris but I want to see what blooms and mark each for color first, so maybe a fall project, while spending much of the summer eyeing that empty bed to make sure the rhubarb is gone for good. Today one of the holes from a dug out plant is showing a new bud ready to make a new plant. Its predecessor left a big hole but here it is.  I'm thinking chemicals... provided it stops raining a couple days. There are still two plants left on one end for all my anticipated needs, and the friend who received the dug up ones is already drooling about her first recipes with her new plants. My plans for the remaining two are still for rabbit repellent for the asiatic lily bed. Everything except two tulips survived squirrels over the winter, but there are bunny nibbles on some early leaves. I still have a bunch of repellent rhubarb stalks in the freezer, so that will be doable with only one working arm as I recover. In the meantime the crocus and daffodils haven not disappointed as a first showing in that bed, but the rabbits are awake and hungry, so I have a task for this day, thawing and strewing pieces of rhubarb stalks from last year. It works.

Easy peasy.

But Can We Keep the Box?

Thursday: 

Last you read, we were awaiting a decision on whether we needed to replace the furnace.  The decision came down to a choice between just replacing the thermostat now plus several minor parts, with the knowledge that the furnace motor was on it's last ... legs? That choice would mean we'd just push the need back a year or so at most, much more expensive than doing it all at one time. We'd pay all of what we would pay today plus every expense from smaller fixes added onto the total. In addition, while we waited for a full failure, which no doubt would come at the worst time in the busiest season because that's always the way it happens, it would also increase our utility bill from poor performance from the lack of putting in a more efficient one now. The motor runs both heat and AC, so the higher cost to run the system would last year round.

We discussed it, looked at the budget, and ordered the replacement furnace. The thermostat was replaced immediately so we'd have heat in this unpredictable weather, included in the final price of a new furnace anyway. The old thermostat, when removed from the wall, showed two double A batteries inside, one of which had "exploded" - their term but it fit - and leaked acid onto the wiring connecting it to the furnace. Now we'll have to remember those things have their own batteries and the batteries have to be replaced regularly. We just don't know yet what "regularly" works out to. Annual replacement? Assuming the one in place was new when we bought the place to aid in the home getting sold, it was there untouched for two years. So definitely less time than that before we do the next battery replacement.

The new furnace was ordered, to be ready to install next Tuesday. We could have gotten it done next Monday, but too many medical appointments are scheduled then which are hard enough to get that we are unwilling to set them aside. Tuesday was available for installation. So this morning (Thursday) the company truck rolled up instead, ready to pull out the old furnace and replace it.  Good thing we didn't have appointments today, right? Well, OK, I do, but it's PT and only about 3 miles down the road. Unlike, say, tomorrow where my entire morning is taken up at the hospital for a couple different tests. But you'd think they could have called to say they were coming days early, right? Lucky for them we happened to be dressed when they rolled up.

Then again, the weather is pretty nice today, so we won't be miserable without any heat. Maybe an extra shirt under the sweatshirt does seems sensible though.

Second thing was their truck parked right behind my car instead of next to the grass. I had to request they move it so I could get the car out if they were still there when my PT appointment was. (They were) They cheerfully complied. Maybe it's just me thinking it would just be common sense. All our other visitors have it figured out. Either you pull in on the parking pad next to the car already there, parked so there's room for a second vehicle as long as they're capable of parking sensibly, or park next to lawn where there's room for one truck or two cars. You just don't park across the street end of a driveway.

As they work, we can hear everything they do. Our TV room is next to the utility room and the door between has a grill in the panel for air circulation. We hear their choice of music (honkey tonk country & western). We hear all their conversation, and right now are left wondering just how a pipe got cut wrong and what their plan is to fix it or how serious it might be. This is a gas furnace, so air quality counts. Was the referenced pipe one dealing with the gas? Or how it blends with air to burn properly? We have concluded, since the utility room is at the end of the double-wide, that it likely was originally put together before the end wall on that half was in place. I would have done it that way rather than have a tiny walkway and a small door to have to work around if there was a choice. I'm just hoping the badly cut pipe merely is used to thread the gas pipe through and otherwise keeps it securely placed and away from bumps. 

There is an empty box on the grass next to the truck. It looks to be about six or seven  feet tall with over a two foot square footprint. There are a few cuts in the box walls, both large and small, meaning visual access to the contents as well as usable entrances and exits along its length, all of which translates to this great grandma as an ideal plaything for when the kids come over. They range from 12 to two right now, and boxes can keep them going for hours while the grownups do all their boring things like talking and eating. This would be the largest box ever to inhabit the front room. Perhaps if all five were here at  one time they could even all fit in at once. It would be seven kids but one family moved to New Mexico.

So of course I asked if they needed to send the box back or could we keep it? They'll know when they're done installing. I suppose, if for any reason including the badly cut pipe we heard them discussing, that they had to send the furnace back, they'd need the box to store it in for a while until either it got returned or a different customer could use it. 

So we wait.

And listen.

And wonder.....

Maybe I'll go water the houseplants while we wait. I'm starting to get chilly in here, so moving should do me some good. So will another layer of warm clothes. That outside door is being kept open while they work. It may be going up to 80 outside but it's still just 65 in here for now.

                 *              *             *

Friday:

I'm still up after midnight, and finally comfortable enough to sleep. So I'm blogging instead, of course. They finally got it installed. It's a monster! I'm amazed they got it to fit in the spot for the old one, and  from snatches of conversation, they are too. It's also noisy, more than the previous one. Getting the thermostat back to where we wanted it was tricky. They left it on AC when they were done, and I tried to get it back to heat. I had to call Paul to help figure it out. Turns out I was treating the controls like a touch screen, but there was a flat unmarked rubbery strip below the screen which was hiding buttons that actually do the work. We're good now... I hope. We will also know when it's time to replace the batteries inside this thermostat so they don't die and leak, killing the wiring controls. Those things are pricey! There will be some kind of notice on the screen. Of course they didn't tell us what it will look like, or how to pull the thermostat off the wall to replace them. But the house is comfortable now, and that's the important part.  The price was as stated, with military and senior discounts, so I had plenty of room on my plastic to get them out of the door while I decide which accounts to juggle to pay it off with the least interest charged.

Oh, you're wondering about the box? Yes, it's in the living room. I'll have to move it to get at my printer. It's too tall to store upright so it's laying across almost all of that wall between the window on one end and the hallway in the middle. It will give the kids all kinds of play options. As heavy and sturdy as it is, they might decided to try walking on it, which is to be discouraged. We might get a saw and cut it into sections, but that's a future decision. Eventually it will have to be cut up just for recycling anyway.

The bonus with the box is that the crew hauled it up the front stairs, turned it to go through the doors, and got it flat on the floor for us to position. It took them both to do it. If you want something to give you the scale, the walleye mount on the wall is 31 1/2 inches, nose to tail.

That was the last thing they did before they left... without one of their tool boxes. I went into the utility room to shut doors and lock the exterior one, and nearly tripped over the thing. Of course I called the office, and they returned for it just as we were heading out to the store. I had the foresight to set it out on the porch for them. This time they managed to park without blocking my car in.

As for the success of the install, the temperature is more even through the house than it used to be. I used to sit here in my recliner and be chilly even under my double polar  fleece throw. At this point I've been proofing this post after the interruption of morning medical stuff ten miles away, followed by lunch, and I'm cozy enough in my chair without needing the blanket. We're watching a thunderstorm pass through so not even getting nature's solar heating through the south windows. usually flooding the room. My bathroom used to be the hottest spot in the house, just fine for early showers of course. This morning it was cool there until the shower warmed it up. I'm not sure what changed and why, but it works just fine for comfort. We'll see if the bill agrees next few months.