A Thought on Competency

Mom is doing better, in a manner far slower and less linear than she would like, but better. She doesn't need the walker in the house anymore, and just the cane when we go out. And we've gone out not just to doctor's appointments and the like, but out to dinner a few times, which is a very good sign!

As she gets better, there is less that I have to be the one to do around the house, the way it was when she was still so wobbly. And sometimes I have to remind myself of that, something I do know but can lose sight of, that she should do the things she can do. Even if she may do something that makes me a little jumpy, given her recent history. 

It makes me think of a situation in a book I read, where one character is asking another why he "let" a third character (an 80-something woman living on her own) do something that was potentially dangerous.

From: Wayward, by Mary Calmes

So that's the thing: as long as she is competent, she gets to decide things. It's a good reminder for me.

Please Continue to Hold

Blogging recently is just one item on my list of things that I need to do and fully intend to do but yet somehow just haven't done (see also: cut my fingernails so I can get my contact lenses out easily). 

And I will get there, sometime, I'm sure. But in the meantime, please enjoy this, which a friend brought to my attention when he saw it and thought of me:

Out of My Sports Comfort Zone

A surprising number of people over the years have thought that because I'm a hockey fan, I'm a sports fan, and that really isn't true. My dad watched football and basketball as well as hockey, but I imprinted on the Bruins like a baby duck, ignoring all else.

However, a friend of mine invited some people to come to a soccer game, and I decided to go along for the fun of the outing. The local team, FC Naples, is in a minor pro league, and is new to the area.

I drove up with one of the group, and we noticed a lot of smoke not that far from the arena. We weren't sure if it was a controlled burn or not, but we did see helicopters go by periodically with water bags, so it looked like they were trying to put it out. Happily for us, the smoke never got close enough to be a problem.

The weather was hot and humid, but there were some clouds as well as smoke cover, so at least the sunlight wasn't always too much.

Apparently my guess that this meant "fortune favors the bold" was correct! Fun phrase to put over a climbing wall.

We walked around the pitch before the game; it was lovely, but also very very hot, and very very buggy. Damned no-see-ums, get out of my eyelashes!

I was very glad that not only were we not at ground level, but our tickets actually included both inside and outside seating. That air conditioning was such a blessing!

The rest of the pictures I took were of warm-ups.

The game itself was fun. I did find some of the ways soccer is different from hockey to be confusing, but that's not a surprise, is it? (Seriously, though, their offsides is weird.)

We got to talk to a young man who watched part of the game in that area, who it turns out was the team's number-two goalie. He got a red card in the last game and had to sit this one out! He was very nice, and explained some things to us. 

Later on, a couple of young girls, maybe 11 or 12, were also explaining things to us: they both play soccer themselves, so they were a font of knowledge.

And our team won! Which of course made things even more fun. I'm not signing up for season tickets, but it was a very entertaining evening.

A Moment of Belonging

I had to go to a doctor's appointment this morning, and while it was nothing serious and it went fine, I still decided to treat myself on the way home and stopped in at a local bakery (they make a really good caramel latte). 

While I was in line, a woman I know through the Newcomers club came over to say hi, and ask about how Mom is doing, which was really nice. 

Then when she went back to her table, the woman in line behind me said, don't I know you from Newcomers, and I kind of recognized her too, and it turns out that we're going to the same event on Sunday. 

More to come about that, but I just wanted to remember this little moment of belonging here, and how nice it felt.

A Lazy Knitter's Way Out

I wanted to wind yarn to start a new project (because no, none of the projects I have going were crying out to be picked up again now), but I was too lazy to pull the swift and ball-winder out from under all the assorted crap piled in the corner.

So I took a look around and made it work another way.

The arms of the chair were the perfect size. And before you knew it, there was a tidy ball of yarn ready to go.

And after an evening hanging out with knitting friends, I had this.

Much more to come! In time.

Enjoying a Good Deed

Sometimes I'm lucky enough to get to do something that is technically a "good deed" but also benefits me, and today was one of those days, as I joined the regular beach clean-up on my local beach. They do it monthly, I think, but 8 AM on a Saturday is a time I would often prefer to be sleeping in. This time, though, I'd arranged to meet up with some friends, so it was time to set the alarm and go.

The weather was warm and humid, and the walk over was pretty, as it often is.

It's a beautiful beach.

We walked around for probably an hour, doing some talking in between picking up cigarette butts (ewww*) and bottle tops. We aren't supposed to be picking up anything natural, just man-made, but I did pick up a bunch of orange peels and a lemon wedge, figuring that they may be natural, but having them on the sand biodegrading for months isn't. 
*We discussed how doing this made us think both that people are pretty cool, because look at the crowd of people doing this, and also people suck, because look at the crap they drop in the sand.

I picked up one thing to bring home:

It may have been early for me to be up and out on a day off, but it was a pretty nice start to the day.

That Kind of Tired

You know the kind of tired where you've been doing okay, coping and getting things done and getting through, but then one more thing goes wrong and your body just goes, nope, I'm done? I hit that today.

Mom got home from rehab on Tuesday, and we're dealing with the unfortunately familiar merry-go-round of in-home healthcare visits and so on, on top of the usual groceries/meals/dishes/laundry/condo checks/mail/work, fine fine. Coping along.

Yesterday, the OT who visited suggested a half bed rail would help Mom getting out of bed, so today I ran over to the local church that collects various medical supplies like walkers and wheelchairs to loan out, and picked one up. It was partly assembled, and when I got it home, I tried to put it together the rest of the way. And I know how, I can see how it should go, but the second "leg" of the thing has two parts that have to click together, and the holes are juuuuuuuuust not quite lining up, no matter what I do. 

I'm that kind of tired. My hands hurt from fighting it. For tonight, I give up. But it's so frustrating.

Edited to add: today the PT person was here to evaluate Mom, and he was able to get it to lock in. Whew!

The Mom Situation

After I wrote last month that Mom hurt her back, and that she was getting better but really slowly, I didn't update more because that's where we were for a week or two: getting better, slowly, slowly. But last Wednesday she fell, the poor thing, and was off to the hospital again. It's really just one thing after another for her, the last few years, isn't it?

She had a big bump on her head and a black eye, and it turns out also broke her clavicle and scapula*, and a few ribs, all on the right side (already her bad side due to the shoulder surgery that went wrong a few years ago). 
*That's the collarbone and shoulder blade, for those of us who had to look the words up to be sure.

She was in the hospital for a few days, and then moved to rehab over the weekend, so they can work on her overall strength (on the left, and lower body) and balance until the right side is up to being worked on. The good news is that she's at the same place she was ~18 months ago, after hip surgery, and at the time she felt it was a good experience, as such things go, so hopefully this time again they will be able to help her. We don't know yet how long she'll be there, or what will be next. 

While I am very sorry she fell and hurt more things, I will admit that in a way, I am enjoying this period of time where I am not responsible for knowing what to do, if that makes sense. She is being well taken care of, and I don't have to worry that I'm doing something wrong or missing something important. Nursing is not something I'm good at, and I appreciate that she's in good hands for now.

On Friday night, I went in to the hospital to visit her after work, and took myself out to dinner after (so that I could go buy groceries without being so hungry I bought All The Food). Down here, "season" is finally over, the hordes of snowbirds and other tourists have vastly diminished, and it meant that I could walk into a restaurant that a month or two ago would have been crammed at 6 on a Friday night, and be seated immediately.

I got a fried rice dish with chicken and pineapple, and you can't fault the presentation:

It even had an umbrella!

On my way back to the car, I was overcome by the glorious scent of these flowers. I don't know what they are, but they smelled fabulous.

And looked good too. It was a beautiful night.

Anyway, now, I'm trying to accomplish things, whether it's laundry or dishes, or bringing things to Mom, or talking to medical people about her, or just getting things done that need doing. Which might be paying bills, or doing condo checks, or even things for my own sanity.

For instance, I have a few knit items that I've been meaning to wash and block, so I finally did the first one. This is the Swell shawl, knit in Mary Ann yarn from Wonderland (colorway "8 That first magical kiss," which is a colorburst/assigned pooling colorway with dusky pink/lavender as the main color, and bursts of blue and purple). Here it is laid out before its soak:

And then pinned out wet. It grew!

It wanted to curl up there at the top (aka the right corner), so I let it. I look forward to it being dry, so I can see how it falls. And then it will be on to the next!

Really Coming and Going

Each time I notice the new plate on my car (or even think of it, honestly), I smile.

It goes so well with this sticker in particular.

And of course with the front plate.

When I picked up the new plate, the woman mentioned that if my old plate was registered with any programs like Sunpass (the Florida toll payment system), to be sure to update it there. Since I only signed up for that for my rare trips to the east coast (we don't have toll roads anywhere I drive regularly), I'm not sure that would have occurred to me, so I'm glad she said so. I went online this weekend and updated it, which was a simple matter of deleting the record with the old plate and adding the new plate. Ta da:

It's like the batmobile, isn't it? 

Also, for the full image with the new plate, you can picture me driving along, windows down, cranking Imagine Dragons...it works for me.

Coming and Going

Guess what came?

My new license plate! 

The power screwdriver is charging, so I can put it on ASAP. Wave if you see me!

A Chair, At Last

Yes, over the weekend I finally just picked one of the office chairs at Staples, and now I don't feel like a little kid sitting at the grown-up table in my too-low chair. The height actually adjusts! It's funny how it doesn't look that much higher here than the old one, but it feels so different.

And if I find I'm leaning on the arms too much and borking my back sideways, I can make them go up, out of temptation's reach.

Phew, that's one thing off the to-do list, at least.

A Few Things

The news on Mom's health is that she is getting better, but much more slowly than she wants it to be going. Still, moving in the right direction is important. She saw her doctor yesterday and he said it's just going to take time.

A couple of images to share from the newspaper. For some reason, this one really made me laugh:

This photo, meanwhile...all about the cardinals, and no mention of the man whose uniform (I assume it's a uniform) looks rather like a court jester? Anyone know what that's about?

I went to the beach last night*, for the first time in a while, and although it wasn't the most spectacular sunset I've ever seen, it was pretty and very peaceful and I enjoyed being there.

*A friend had shared info on a "sunset sound bath" and I had to give that a try. I'm not sure I'm 100% a convert, but it was interesting, and very peaceful**; I would probably do it again.
**Though exactly how much of the peace was just being on the beach, listening to the waves, is hard to say.

A couple of unexpected-consequence things that have interested me recently:

• As I wrote about, I started making smoothies for myself recently, and now my mother, who really needs to be eating and drinking more, enjoys some when I make them. That's a win for both of us! (Though, whew, not so much a win when I drink too much of one at once and give myself brain freeze, ow.)
• I originally bought bendy straws for Mom to make it easier to drink when she was lying down--and then after I had the second half of the deep cleaning of my teeth, I was greatly relieved to be able to drink without things dripping down my face, while I waited (and waited) for the numbness to wear off. So for a while, we were both using them.

Have you had any moments like that, when things worked out well in completely unexpected ways?

Some Improvements/Updates

The first and most important improvement in terms of recent events is that Mom is starting to feel better. She's definitely not feeling well yet, but after the week we had, any degree of "better" is good. Phew!

I was back at the dentist this morning for the second half of the deep cleaning, which was very unpleasant with flashes of ow-ow-ow. Also, the hygienist applied some sort of fluoride treatment before I left that was sticky on my teeth, and that was just the icing on the cake of "I can't even feel my face, am I drooling" that lasted until mid-afternoon. Should you find yourself in a similar predicament, may I say that bendy straws are a lifesaver. Unless you enjoy dribbling drinks down your face.

Shoutout to my good friend Mary Ellen for this item, which I used like a stress ball through both appointments:

She made both these adorable things, and usually they are decorative, but the heart was also useful during my recent dental unpleasantness.

(Aren't they adorable, though, seriously?)

Also, just in general terms of dentistry, I always think of this Far Side cartoon when I'm at the dentist:

(You can buy a print of that one and others, btw.)

Next, it turns out that I missed my opportunity to update you on the banana situation on Wednesday, which the Sandra Boynton calendar tells me was the right day to do it:

Oh well, better late than never! I was able to get bananas on Sunday, so it looks like my Saturday visit was an aberration, not a new supply-chain problem. At least so far. My smoothie habit rejoices.

Final note that the bruise on my arm, from when I had bloodwork done on April 8, is not completely gone yet. This is why I say I have melodrama skin. It shows everything and hangs onto everything. Every papercut gets infected, and having a bruise for 10 days and counting is just a thing that happens. Silly skin.

A Funny Effing Story

The other day, Jenny wrote about swearing, and it reminded me of a story from when I was about two. My friend Ellie (not her real name) was visiting, and we wanted to "play" with my mother's button collection: spread the buttons out on the table and swirl through them, match them up, you get the idea. 

The things was, we were living overseas, and had servants, and they did not pick up the buttons from the floor when they cleaned, but swept or vacuumed them up and threw them out. My mother was tired of losing buttons, so she initially said no. I asked again, promising that we wouldn't take the buttons off the table, and she agreed.

She spread the buttons out, and Ellie swept her arms out, whoosh, and alllll the buttons were on the floor.

And little two-year-old ccr put her hands on her hips in disgust and snapped, "Jesus, Ellie!"

And to this day, over 50 years later, my mother does not like to curse.

I do think it's interesting that she didn't stop with my brother, who's four years older. Maybe he didn't pick it up the way I did.

Not One Thing (Almost)

It would be a slight exaggeration to say that not one thing went according to plan today.

My plan was pretty simple. After a noon dentist appointment, I was going to grab a quick lunch, then go into Staples to look at office chairs, and finally pick up a few groceries before going home. 

The first off-plan event was that Mom did something to her back on Friday and was in enough pain this morning to be willing to go to the hospital, so I got her things together and called the ambulance. 

I did go to the dentist, so technically that went to plan, but my idea was to have a simple cleaning, and instead they told me I needed a deep cleaning due to my gums. That requires numbing, and needs to be done in two parts (so that you only leave feeling like you're drooling on one side of your face, I guess). It's also not cheap, but the unpleasantness of having it done was far worse.

Mom called while I was waiting for them to start, to say that they were sending her home and to come get her when I could, so instead of getting lunch (which I couldn't have gotten then anyway, given that I couldn't eat with half my face numb), I drove to get her. Poor thing, she was still in so much pain: the ER said that it wasn't a skeletal problem, but muscle, and beyond giving her prescriptions, there was nothing more they could do. 

We drove home, stopping to drop off the prescriptions to be filled, and I got her into bed. I had a quick "lunch" (at 3:30 in the afternoon, that seems like the wrong word), and then went to the store for the drugs and those few groceries I had on my list. Item number one, bananas!

I can't ever remember going to the grocery store and seeing zero bananas on the shelf. I'll try another store tomorrow, but is this a tariffs thing, am I going to need to get used to smoothies without them?

And already, the word bananas is starting to look weird. Bananas bananas bananas. This day has thrown me for a loop.

Some Updates

Updating on a few things from recent posts:

1. The new fridge is in! After the failed delivery attempt on Tuesday, we had the plumber here Wednesday morning. In his opinion, the valve that the delivery person disliked had only surface corrosion, and he scared me by saying that he didn't have the right size of new valve and would have to order one, but he went down to see what he had in the truck and came up with something. Whatever he did worked, as the delivery driver yesterday (not the same person) was okay with it, and they got the old fridge out and the new one in. We are getting used to the differences, doing things like moving the height of the fridge shelves, and we need to get all our magnets back on it, but it started making ice last night and it is working, which is what counts.
2. Small update on my bloodwork, which I reported the same day had been painless: the next day, I noticed a large and vivid bruise in that spot. It's painless, so I don't really care (I'll take ugly but painless over an ouch any day of the week), but next time I'll keep the pressure bandage on longer than she said it needed to be, in hopes that it helps.
3. I'm still on that Imagine Dragons kick I wrote about after seeing the "movie" of their concert. I ended up buying the album, and while I'm still into Take Me to The Beach, lately I'm repeating Eyes Closed all the time. Will Nice To Meet You be my next favorite? Stay tuned!
• Interestingly, the official lyric video for Eyes Closed has a section in the middle in Spanish, which the song on the album does not--or, rather, the album has both tracks, but I like the first one better.

I do not yet have an update on the arrival of my KNITTER license plate, as it has in fact not yet arrived. Which is fine. I didn't even ask her how long it might take, since I figured, it will take as long as it takes, and one day I will have a happy surprise in the mail. Rest assured that you will know when it comes.

For Some Reason

I have to limit my news reading these days, since I just can't handle the level of insanity in the country and the world right now. But when I saw this headline in my inbox this morning:

I wanted to say, yeah, companies are not the only ones.

I've mentioned here before that my brother and I used to read the Doonesbury comic strip collections when we were kids, and even as I don't go deep into the news, I heard enough of things this week that I pulled out the big book and found the strip I was thinking of: Honey talking to Duke about working for Chairman Mao.

Yeah.

(I originally took a picture of the page, but it looked fuzzy when I published, so I scanned it Friday morning and put it in that way. I had to take a screen shot of the PDF to put it in as an image, but it looks better!)

Out Early; Upset Plans

One of the few times in my life that I will be up and out early in the morning without complaining is in order to do fasting bloodwork. I'm not a morning person, so I avoid having to be alert at the start of the day, but I'm even worse with fasting, so if I can make a 7:20am appointment and get it over with, I will do so. (The lab is actually open from 6 to 2, but 6 is a bit too early for me, even under the circumstances.)

So that's what I did this morning, bringing a smoothie with me to drink as soon as I was back in the car (the better to stave off the headache that I can get when fasting). It all went fine--better than fine, really, as the nurse was very good with the needle, and I didn't even feel it go in! I thanked her very sincerely.

That's the part of today that went to plan. Less successful was what was supposed to be the delivery of a new fridge. The Lowe's delivery person pulled the old fridge away from the wall, and said the valve has two problems:

• it's corroded, meaning they won't change it out because there's a good chance it would break and flood all over (wouldn't the person who just bought the unit below ours be happy if that happened)
• it's not the right size, and even without the corrosion, he wouldn't hook the new fridge up to it in its MacGyvered state (never mind that it was Lowe's who put in the fridge back in 2007)

So I called the plumber, they'll be here in the morning, and then the fridge delivery will be rescheduled. Let me tell you, after I took everything out of the fridge and freezer this morning, I was expecting to be putting it all into a new fridge. Putting it back in the old one, and knowing it will all have to be done again, is kind of annoying. In a first-world-problem way, at least.

On the other hand, after some rain this morning, things cleared up enough to open the windows here, and given the snow that some people are dealing with today, I can't complain too much.

Just a little.

That's one of the things a blog is for, right?

Making Smoothies

A few weeks ago, I had a craving to add more fruit to my diet, and decided to pick up a long-lapsed habit of making smoothies at home. I've been enjoying them ever since. 

How I'm making them:

• enough orange juice to cover the blades at the bottom of the blender
• two big spoonsful of vanilla yogurt
• a banana (cold from the fridge), sliced
• frozen fruit, some combination of:
• mixed berries (strawberries, blueberries, raspberries)
• cherries
• peaches
• pineapple

One blender full, more or less, makes two good-sized smoothies, and I find that the second one stays pretty good in the fridge for the next day.

I remember that years ago, I added protein powder, but I also remember having trouble finding one I liked, so I haven't done that yet. I wish I could get samples of ones before committing to the big-ass containers in the store. I think I used a vanilla one, after trying a chocolate one that was terribly fake-tasting. If I found a good-tasting vanilla one, I could use plain yogurt instead... but I need to watch out for artificial sweeteners, sometimes those give me migraines so I try to avoid them all.

It's all so complicated! Any suggestions?

Plates

There's a proposal in Florida to make it so that cars would have to have a front license plate, as well as the rear plate currently required, and while we don't know if it will become law, my mother and I were talking about it recently and I said that I would be sorry to give up my current, decorative front plate.

I told her that I knew someone in Massachusetts who had a specialty plate that said KNITTAH, which is pretty funny if you are familiar with the Boston accent, and I said I'd have to look into what I could get in Florida. The state has a website where you can check to see if a plate is available, which is nice so you can play around with choices before you have to go in. 

Just for fun, I checked on KNITTER, and hey, it was available! Because of the length, it's not available on all plates (of which the state has a million different ones), so I did go in to the tax collector's office to ask about it (as the sample plates online didn't make it clear how it would really look, most samples showing 6 letters, not 7).

The woman there was super helpful, and in about ten minutes, my "reservation" was in and she will call me when they come in. Here's what it looks like, in black and white, at least.

I told her my local knitting friends would be jealous, and she looked and said that KN1TTER with a 1 was still available, FYI. 

Anyway, if you're ever driving around Florida and see a Kia Soul with the KNITTER plate, give me a wave!