New Slipper Sox

Mom's still in the hospital on a respirator. It's been almost a month since she had her surgery. Has had two respiratory arrests probably from a reaction to some medicine. Not as serious as a cardiac arrest, but serious none-the-less.

Her sense of humor is still there, however. She asked me to bring some slipper socks from home. She's tired of the icky old red ones they give you at the hospital.

I decided to make her day and bring her SPECIAL ones. BOught a pair of florescent pink one with heart shaped gripper thingies on the bottom. On the top is a picture of Ehyor, the donkey from the Winnie the Pooh stories. Just above his picture it says, LOVE ME.

I brought them in and said....don't feel like you HAVE to wear these. But she grabbed them and hugged them to her chest, her eyebrows wiggling their approval emphatically. It's so hard to talk when you have the equivalent of a fist stuck down your throat. Hard to read lips that way.

She's the talk of the ICU now. Gggrin! I don't suppose very many 82 year old ladies wear Ehyor socks up there. But then again, most 82 year old ladies don't wear ball caps with the caption ......
"Don't let the hallo fool you." (I'm not sure how to spell hallo...it's one of those round shiney rings that angels wear above their heads. gggrin)

Anyway, it made my day to see her eyes sparkle when she saw them.

One more thing about mom

One of the male nurses who had taken care of her earlier stopped by to ask her how she was doing. She opened one eye, arched her eyebrow at him and squinted her infamous "How the *e*l do you think I'm doing, you big dope" look at him. When he left, she looked at me and shook her head so hard, I could almost hear her brains rattle.

If she hadn't been tied down so she wouldn't pull her breathing tube out, she would have taken the palm of her hand and thudded it up against her forehead several times. But then she just shrugged and grinned.

Setback on the Mom front

Mom suffered a setback in her quest to get out of the hospital. She's been in the ICU for 10 days since her respiratory arrest. She started getting so lethargic that she would forget to breath so they ended up putting a breathing tube back in last night. Her fingers were quite blue by the time they got it done. aCk!

She's back again. Last night was a little worrisome but my ex-boss's dad had just had open heart surgery by my mom's doctor and he (the doctor) got outa surgery just in time to go put a breathing tube in mom. PErfect timing, I guess. My boss was there for me and gave me hugs and talked to me till I could deal with things.

My brother is coming back from Denver by Saturday night and my sister will be here all weekend. Yea me! Yea mom! Thanks for all your prayers.

Selling books before they are published

I made another sale for the novel my writing buddy, Joe, and I have written and it isn't even published yet. Whilst sitting in the ICU watching mother sleep, the nurse asked me what project I was working on.

I explained about writing the novel and how a professor had offered to edit the book for free. I decided to make her a beautiful hand embroidered crazy quilt quilt in return for her kindness.

The nurse then asked what the book was about and with very little explanation about the details of the book, she said...well, just let me know when it's published and I'll buy one. Ggggrin! Even gave me her email address so I won't forget to contact her. She was so impressed that a REAL person, someone she'd actually met, had written a novel.

I'm planning to publish on demand after the professor is done editing. Sooooooo, things are moving closer. I even had someone show up in my life who had self-published before and offered advice on things to ask so I make sure the the final product is made with quality paper and printing. Amazing how people keep showing up in my life to help me along the way.

Ain't life grand?

OOOOOOH by the way, Mom had had a relapse last week and ended up back in the ICU for the past 6 days. Not going to get out of the hospital any time soon, but she's getting slowly better.

When do our parents become our children?

Mom had open heart surgery two days ago. There were a few unsuspected complications once they got in there but she's doing okay considering. There were calcifications in her aorta (the major blood vessel coming off the heart) which looked like stalamites, sharp, pointy rock formations that develop over years of liquid dripping from a cave ceiling onto the floor.

The only thing now is that she won't wake up. SHe's ultra-sensitive to pain meds and I have to keep prodding her to wake her up. I have to nag her to eat. I have to boss her around like she's a small child.

I was never a parent, but if this is what it is like, I"m kinda glad I din't go through it. I know I've missed a few of the warm fuzzies that go along with parenting, but this is one of the hardest things I've ever done.

I"ll take a deep breath, tuck my head down and keep plugging along. I knew this day would come. We all gotta get old sometime, but it's giving me more and more thoughts about how to plan my own future for when I get old.

That includes more exercise now, eating less chocolate and caffeine, less fatty foods, more vegetables, less red meat. Now wait a minute!!! Did you just read what I wrote? WHO am I kidding? Gggrin!

Whew...glad I got over that insane before I went too far.

What Bugs Bunny taught us about classical music

I bought a CD of popular classical music. I love it. My husband doesn't. One day however when we got in the car, it began playing. I figured he would turn it off.

After twenty minutes, I commented on how odd it was that he was actually listening to classical music. He said ... "oh, is that classical music? I thought it was the soundtrack to Bugs Bunny cartoons."

Rossini, Mendelson, Straus, Wagner, Stravinski, and (if I could spell it right)...Betovan, Bethovan, Beethovan...you get the picture. It's 4:30 in the morning and my spell check is still asleep.

The background music for cartoons I'd listened to all my life were all there. I hadn't realized it until he said something.

As Richard Wagner's song, The Ride of the Valkyrie, played in the background, I could just close my eyes and "see" Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny dressed as vikings with Elmer proudly belting out the tune, "kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit, KILL THE WABBIT".

Hard to believe, Bugs Bunny is good for something other than a laugh. He helped me learn to appreciate classical music too.

Squatter's Rights for Frogs

Is there such a thing as Squatter's Rights for Frogs?

Somebody moved in a few days ago. He may be
little and green, but he's a persistant little buck. My
husband keeps finding him hiding in various
places around our garage. It seems our
log cabin is his favorite place to vacation and hang
during the summer months.

Mr. Frog's favorite hidey-hole is under the lawn mower
hood. Good thing, dear hubby peeks underneath every
time before he starts the darned thing. Otherwise.......
Ewwwwwww!

Funny thing is, it seems to be the same frog each time.
I guess nobody's gonna tell HIM where to live.
Ggggrin!

Living in the country is fun. If you don't
have deer in the driveway, frogs in the lawn mower,
chipmunks chirping so loud they wake you up out
of a sound sleep, turkeys in the back yard taking a dust
bath, hawks circling the woods in back of your house,
racoons pooping on your back deck, squirrels getting
trapped inside your house and chewing a hole in the
window screen so he can get out, woodpeckers trying
to drill a hole in your house cuz it's a LOG cabin and
Gee...that's what woodpeckers do, and various and sundry
ground bee swarms to drive over with the lawn mower
and get attacked by, miscellanous bugs and once finding
a brown wolf spider in the middle of your bed when
you walk into the bedroom to go to sleep, life just ain't
worth livin'. Ain't life grand?