Things are still going well here. I spent a large part of the day sorting through a gazillion emails and practicing using a wheelchair..I like the walker a lot more. And I actually have the Olympics on now. I hadn‘t watched TV in years, and I still prefer Roku and my Netflix programs with Spanish subtitles.
I hope you all had a great day!
July 26, 2024
OK, I’m at a rehabilitation place in Albuquerque, and they do have internet. Everyone was right about that. Why Albuquerque, 100 miles from home? Because there were no beds in the one in town, and I was assured if I came down here to a facility of the same company they could move me to town early next week. We decided to try it.
So anyway, around three yesterday afternoon ambulance transport whisked me from the hospital to a facility down here. It wasn’t promising. The ambulance driver had a hard time finding someone to tell him where to put me, then when we started going there we encountered double doors with the sign, Covid patients behind here. Say what? We went back and said we didn’t want to go there. The woman we talked to looked annoyed and said, “There’s Covid everywhere!” She handed him a mask. He still looked hesitant, but no problem. I said, “I’m not staying here!” Needless to say there was a lot of drama, and fortunately Kaitlin had been proactive and had established herself as the person to talk to. The upshot was the company had another site that was Covid free at the moment, and it’s smaller and friendlier. So they moved me here. The place in town is also having problems with Covid, so Kaitlin has been dealing with an assisted living place that Andy and I visited months ago and were impressed by. Bless Kaitlin!
She was also the person who got me to the ER when I fell. I couldn’t walk on my leg and look up phone numbers so I phoned 911 for advice. The fellow was very annoyed, told me not to call unless it was a true emergency, but he gave me the number of the hospital. They couldn’t give me any advice without looking at me. So I phoned Kaitlin to let her know what was going on. She knew exactly what to do, phone police dispatch, the non-emergency number. So after a short while about six firemen came over to access me, then they had me sit in a little chair-like thing, carried me down the stairs, put me on a gurney and drove the couple of blocks to the emergency room. Since the pain wasn’t severe everyone thought it wasn‘t serious and were surprised it was a broken hip.
More later!
July 25, 2024
A fracture of my right hip. The choices were (1) try to put a pin in it, possibly dicey because they say I have severe osteoarthritis in that hip, (2) a complete hip replacement, or (3) put no weight on that leg for at least six weeks and let it heal by itself. There is no guarantee I won’t need a complete replacement in the future, but that’s what I’m trying. It means I can’t go home to my apartment during this time because we live on the second story and I can’t walk up the stairs. I will let you know how it turns out. I’m leaving the hospital today for a rehab facility and suddenly realized it probably won’t have WiFi, so no blogging or email for a while. I’ll touch base when I can connect again. I’ll miss you! I’m glad the hospital had it at least.
Take care. Love you!!
July 24, 2024
‘
Why? Because I was having a grand time Sunday morning using my stair stepper and watching an interesting series on Netfix and reading the Spanish subtitles. I wasn’t watching where I put my feet and fell. I landed hard on the floor and couldn’t put weight on my right leg. More details later, I’m writing this from my iPad, and it’s time to go to sleep.
July 23, 2024
Homer was a much beloved goose over at the pond.
Homer
He was all alone for years, so a lot of us were excited when he had a companion. The local paper asked for suggested names, then they had people vote. The consensus was the new goose should be named Edna.
Edna
I have a lot of Homer and Edna pictures in these Flicker albums: 6-12-21 Homer, Edna, and the Pond and 9-06-21 Homer and Edna
It turns out Edna was a great choice for a name, because when Homer passed away they realized Edna was male, not female. So his new name became Ed.
Then Ed got a companion, so far unnamed, and they had goslings. One of the goslings survived so the three of them now hang out together. I took a few pictures last Friday:
And here’s a video of them taken Saturday night:
July 22, 2024
Who made it home? Why is it worth mentioning? “Who” is Torben, and it’s worth mentioning because he was in the San Francisco Bay area with a flight back to Massachusetts yesterday. Because of the massive CloudStrike outage it wasn’t clear for a while what would happen to his flight. It turned out fine, and he was lucky it wasn’t worse for him, but still….
In case you haven’t heard of it:
July 21, 2024
Kaitlin sent me this video her iPhone made for her yesterday.
Some of the pictures are a bit dark, but they bring back memories. Thanks, Kaitlin! Clever iPhone!
July 20, 2024
We had another thunderstorm and brief downpour yesterday afternoon.
It even got our sheltered porch wet.
And made some puddles in the dog park.
This is what July used to be like before the rainy seasons stopped. It brought back great memories.
July 19, 2024
Click on picture for higher resolution.
National Weather Service
We have gotten some rains.
Tuesday afternoon:
Notice the lack of parked cars. They’re repaving the parking lot and started with our section. They were about to start painting the stripes when the rain came, so they couldn’t do that until yesterday morning.
Then everyone had to move their cars back so they could start working on the next section.
Fortunately yesterday’s rain didn’t come until after they had finished for the day.
July 18, 2024
I’ve posted this post several times in the past, but it’s refreshing to read it again.
If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happened better than all the riches or power in the world….
—Mary Oliver
I’m all for finding joy as a way of fighting back.
This one I posted last February:
Instructions for living a life.
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.
—Mary Oliver
“Tell about it.” Hurray for blogging and sharing.
July 17, 2024
