Fairly Good Day Today

Had a great PT session, including walking a long (ok, everything's relative) distance for the first time. I'm fine with the upper body stuff -- they have me doing handweights, pushing a box of weights back and forth, a hand-bicycle (which I did for the full time without stopping today) and other arm strength things.

But the fun came later when Gene, the singer to shut ins arrived, asking Miss Patricia for requests. I told him I am a child of the 60s and asked for some Dylan. Well, the closest Gene could get was Unchained Melody and it was damn odd to be sitting here on my bed while Gene droned how he  hungered for my touch.

I'm just glad someone hungers for my touch.

This is the best meal I've had so far -- macaroni and cheese and mixed vegetables... ate it all for the frst time since I've been here.

Toddling Along

Here I am, business as usual, doing PT, reading a great novel, doing work-work. Yesterday I had this super cheerful aide named Lisa who had this strong Canadian accent that she was surprised I could recognize.

Perky is her default setting.

And two meals:

Sunday lunch --  baked chicken; what a surprise! It looks better than it was. It's cooked so that one molecule of moisture doesn't reman. I ate the vegetables, and the so called rice medley or whatever was just mush

On the scale of blueberry pie, this is a zero. On a scale of rehab hospital desserts, this is a 10.

Today's lunch... yum, yum,., spaghetti and meatballs.., but imagine this on the cool side. I ate the pasta and I would have eaten the zuchhini but it was soft and unseasoned and cool. I took a bite of the meatball, and realized that if I dried it out, we could use it to start a fire == tomato flavored sawdust balls.

Princesses

I have an early memory of being at the beach, in the water, with a friend from second grade. The Long Island Sound could be as calm as a lake so we were in the water alone. She said to me, "Let's play seahorse princesses" and I had no idea how to play that. I was really never into the princess thing, or the horse thing most girls go through. It's funny, though, how enduring little girls wanting to be princesses are.

Here are two of Mary's grand-nieces carrying on the tradition although one of them is Cinderella.

Mary's Earrings

The earrings are a gift to Mary from her niece Amy and I'm supposed to guess what they are.

 

An elephant?

Getting by with Patience

So here's dinner... the beans have no salt, butter, pepper, nothing..... and the red stuff is some form of beef a roni -- way overcooked pasta and ground meat... again, so seasoning. One brown bowl is the twice daily soup which I wish I liked but it it routinely oily with some weird taste. Tonight the other bowl or "dessert" was canned pineapple which I actually enjoyed. I also get a piece of whole wheat bread and one pat of butter so my big decision was to have half a piece of bread with all the butter or the full piece with less butter per square inch. I decided to do the whole piece of bread, but then didn't really want the other half. I ate 1/2 of the pasta, none of the beans.

So here's my aide whose name is Patience, and she wll go looking for a sandwich for me and tonight she was successful with peanut butter and jelly. Actually her first offering was some unidentifiable "lunch meat" and you wonder do people really eat that? But I have to give a shout out to Patience. She really has been very kind to me.

You can see we eat early here, but I am grateful for the PB&J. Wish the PB was a little thicker, but I'll take what I can get!

Christmas Rescue Kitties

My sister's family got their dog Charlie from a well-known rescue place and they now have gotten two Christmas kitties. Believe it or not, these kitties were foster parented by Howard Stern (yes, THAT Howard Stern) and so Mary and Scott had to be willing to have their names used for publicity. I told them that they must have passed a bunch of tests to get kittens because that's what everyone wants -- and Howard Stern's kittens to boot. So there was a long questionnaire including a question about if Scott lost his job, how would they take care of the kittens? They also had to provide two references  both of whom were spoken to...

so now introducing the Christmas Rescue Kitties named...

HOLLY AND OLIVER

Holly got her name for Christmas and Oliver is just a name the kids like.

 

Christmas Tree

Here's the tree in my sister's home.

I still love old-fashioned live trees. Note the angels on the walls.
 

Family Visit

I've been hearing about some great dinners tonight -- Scott (brother in law) is making filet mignon with rosemary roasted potatoes and broccoli. We had a nice visit where Mary gifted me with this wonderful throw blanket with literary quotes on it.



Mary Elizabeth and Louisa (left), Clark and Charlotte

Clark caught in a candid moment



the twins: Louisa and Clark



more twins

Charlotte making Crystal Light for me

Clark really loves his Mom.

Christmas Flowers and Marilyn

A  company I do work for sent me this pointsettia with live evergreens -- don't know if they add fake fir smell, but I forgot how much I love that fresh evergreen, piney smell.

Marilyn stopped by for a visit and to deliver mail and more clothes.

Brad's Family

This is a post-church photo of Brad, Thea (pronounced Taya-a) and their kds Jake, Josh and Madison.  The little ones are twins. All I can say is that it's lucky for Madison that she has her mother's beauty.

Me and Charlotte

Barbara wrote me:
I saw a copy of Charlotte's Web at a shop today for $4, and decided to buy it, remembering how much I admired it as a child.  I read it this evening and it's quite good.  The penultimate sentence in the book reminded me of YOU so I had to send it:

"It's not often that someone comes along who  is a true friend and a good writer. "

I still love ths book; haven't read it in years. What a classc this book is

 

Civil and Me

I love the names of the ladies from the Islands who work as aides. This is the lady who was my aide this morning and gave me my first shower in a long time -- not enough hot water so it perked me right up, but I have clean hair and smell good now. She also "fixed" my slippers so that they fit -- by ripping the sheepskin lining out -- but now I have slippers. We high fived in the shower... I thought her name was Sybil, but it's Civil... I was kidding that she was my stylist -- picked out my dress, combed my hair, sprayed me with body mist.

My stylist Civil and me.

The red scarf was delivered by FedEx from Lane who suggested I wait until Christmas to open it. Hell, no. So it's this wonderful pure wool soft as anything scarf in Holly Jolly Christmas red along with a note to remind me tha the warmth of the scarf is likt the warmth of my friends around me.

I had PT this morning. Russell came for a long visit, and Mary came for a visit. All is well.

Two big differences between here and the Institution. The Institution did not allow cameras of any sort and had signs about it. Here they allow them, of course. Also, no family was allowed in the PT room but here Russ could come in the room and watch me struggle a bit, but I am open to any exercise, any task, any anything they want me to try.

Having a Holly Jolly Christmas in my brand new cozy scarf.

Accomplishment for Sunday

Have been here since Wednesday. Today I sat up in bed, swung my legs around to stand up. Prior to today, I'd have one person holding the walker, the bed raised the highest up and one person holding me on either side. Today I don't think the aide knew this and I personally forgot about raising the bed and I stood up totally by myself so that felt good.

Today wth Uncle Matt

 Uncle Matt with Derek and Evan in the US Capitol building:

What I Missed

This is pre-party on Saturday at Mary's where she says that Tom and Dave were watching TV and she and Michelle were puttering:

 

And here;s the meat and the finished table. All looks wonderful!

 

 

Catching Up

Tis the season to be jolly, and whatever it takes, I'm going to try to be. First picture up is Russell at a tourist place where Michelle and Mary and I ate a year ago when we went to the Outer Banks. Place is called Dirty Dick's and their slogan is "I got my crabs from Dirty Dick's" or something similar. I remember the late lunch as really good... and so when Russell mentioned he was taking his son for a few days in the Outer Banks I recommended it. I also highly recommended Apple Uglies, but they didn't get those either. Russ amd his son didn't eat at Dirty Dick's, but I did get this sourvenir photo:

John (left) and Russell

 

Congratulations, Dave

Meredith's Dave (Michelle's son in law) successfully defended his PhD dissertation today so now he is a full-fledged DOCTOR.  Congratulations, Dr. Dave!

Christmas Cards?

One card always hails for me the beginning of the Christmas card season, and I received it today electronically since they are trying to save on postage. I am thinking about how un-embarrassed people are these days about their finances. It never used to be that way, but it's totally reasonable with first class postage rates to send a card electronically. I know both sides of this couple and they send a yearly recap of their activties for the year. Am I the only one who likes Christmas letters? I don't even know most people mentioned, but I do like to read that Jim Jr.'s science project came in second to the volcano project; details of vacation ("and we had ice cream cones by the waterfall"), etc

Anyway, today's card came with a letter and a separate photo... Love this tree... the whole room looks like people should be sitting in comfortable chairs, with something good smelling in the oven while we sip something adult.

Lazy Saturday Thoughts

Got a big package of work to do from an existing client this past week so that's been reassuring. Wish it were something I could be excited about doing, but as Lane says, "Mr Paycheck is our friend."

I also bought two pieces of furniture this past week. Remember the homicide perpetrated on my sofa so I've been doing without for some weeks now. I have to say I've come to enjoy my minamalist room! Anyway I bought one loveseat in yellow-gold nubby linen and this loveseat that is in the "apple" color.



And here's the yellow loveseat that's in "goldenrod" color. Then I have an old-fashioned floral print on an overstuffed chair. I have better/more interesting throw pillows. I don't like the ones that come with this sofa -- looks like some 1960s redo, so of course they come free with the sofa... but I have others that I think will look good.

This is the first time that I don't have a sofa bed... I hate them, I hate putting sheets on them, I hate taking the sheets off, I hate the mess of them. So eventually I will buy a daybed for my smaller bedroom/office/laundry room.

That's the news from rainy New York City.

Angelina, Hanging Out

It doesn't look comfortable to humnas, but maybe it is for cats.

Monday, again

I was disappointed last night that my guilty pleasure TV show -- the one where they track down the crappy construction guys was not on. That's the problem these days -- I don't know what's on, when it's on, or how long the shows are on for... Instead I watched this program on one of the History Channels about stolen artifacts and documents -- everything from Moon rocks, to the gun that killed President Lincoln, to an original copy of the Bill of Rights, etc. They give interesting stories about these items and offer a $10,000 reward for tips -- sort of like an America's Most Wanted for artifacts. It will be interesting in they find anything.

They had the guy who stole the Moon Rocks -- he actually worked for NASA  -- total amateur job but he got away with it for a while and spent 8 years in prison and is now out.

What struck me is how tremendously selfish it is to steal something for your personal collection. Oh, another thing was the Austin Martin with all the whizbang gadgets used in Goldfinger. It was stolen out of a hangar in Boca Raton.  This one had a revolving license plate, a passenger ejection seat -- really very cool.