Lloyd

My good. friend Lloyd Bryant came to visit last Wednesday. It was wonderful to see him. We had a good time, but it was disappointing because it was so short. He had to go home 2 days early because his dog, TJ, got sick. TJ was home in Glen Allen, and Lloyd's partner, George, called with the news.

We did get a chance to go see Oklahoma at Arena. It was fun. The accessible seats are are in the back row - they just pull out some chairs and get the wheelchairs to pull in the empty spots, which was fine. The show is quite enjoyable. It got me in the mood to sing "Oklahoma" and "Poor Judd is Dead" all night, which did not gain me any brownie points with Lloyd... Or the Caretakers who helped me get to bed... Or the Metro Access driver. But I think the ladies I eat breakfast with might have enjoyed it.

Silly

Just quick note about yesterday's amusements... I went to Staples, which is across Wilson Boulevard. I found nothing there that I needed (I'd hoped to look at furniture, but it turns out that they don't sell furniture in that store), and I'd hoped to look at a tablet, like a Droid. Ron had advised me not to buy one because there is nothing wrong with my iPad that can't be fixed by taking it in to the Apple store (thank you, Ron. My appointment is tomorrrow.) I just wanted to look at one. Which I did, from afar, but no one would actually wait on me.

So, having totally wasted my morning, and since I was already on the far side of Wilson, I wheeled down to a new restaurant that has gone up next to Gold's gym. It is named "W", but it doesn't seem at all Presidential.. I turns out to be a really good grill, and I got a great burger there for not much money. It was a nice thick burger that they'd created themselves, not a pre-frozen, paper thin one.

The interior of the restaurant was just a tiny room with a counter and a jumble of tables. You order at the counter and then wait, which is kinda fun because the big, beefy, sweaty guys keep coming in from the gym next door.
I was sitting there waiting for my burger. Another customer waited next to me. All of a sudden a man carrying a box runs out of the kitchen and into the parking lot, shouting, "Sir! Wait! Wait! You forgot your ribs!"

The other customer then looked at me and deadpanned, "Wow! That was fast food!."

Roanoke

Hello, long neglected blog. I hope there is someone out there who is still reading me.

I started what was supposed to be a string of entries about the various parsonages in which I grew up, but I fear that concept must have bored me so badly that me that I didn't write anything at all. There were some amusing points to share, though, so maybe I'll try to cover it all today.

After Virginia Beach we went to Roanoke.. "We" consisted of Mom, Dad, me, Ed, (who was "Edward" then), and Granny (Dad's mom). It was a wee, tiny, totally inappropriate house - in response to which, Mom had another baby.

I barely remember that first house. After all, I was 5! I kow it had a big carport, because I remember being out there with Ed when Mom and Dad. called us in to watch the Beatles on Ed Sullivan.

Isn't it amazing that I remember that? Somehow Mom and Dad knew that the Beatles on Ed Sullivan was a major historical event, even though they had no idea what the Beatles would eventually mean to the world. I remember Mom saying, "Watch this! Someday you can tell your children that you saw this!"

I further remember that Mom and Dad and Granny said nothing about the music. They just laughed at the shaggy hair.

Hot

The heat has just been incredible this month. Today was a bit better, but it won't last. It is supposed to be high 90's again by the weekend.

I don't remember it being so hot in the past. Is it global warming? Or is my memory failing?


Heat is horrible for MS. Thank goodness for air conditioning.

This leads me to a discussion of the air conditioning status of the various parsonages we lived in when I was a child. It could actually be a quite short, succinct discussion, consisting of the phrase, "There aint none." Or, rather, more correctly, "There weren't none".

Francis Asbury, at Virginia Beach, is the first parsonage I remember. They had no AC. As a matter of fact, they didn't even have a church. Dad built the church building in the front yard of the parsonage... Which was not air conditioned.

We had a screened-in porch with an overhead fan. In summer months, that is where we ate our evening meal. I know it was still quite hot out there because I can remember my dumb little 2 year old brother standing on the porch in his dirty, baggy diaper. He was screaming over and over that he was hot and wanted water.

So Dad poured a glass of wrater on Ed's head.

I guess that incident was just yet another illustration for Mom and Dad of how silly it was for them to have produced a 2nd child when they already had a perfectly wonderful girl at home.

TO BE CONTINUED!

80th birthday poem

Sue, Ron, Ed (et.al.), Marthha, Shirly, & I got Mom a digital cameers for her 80th. Here is the poem I wrote.

"What can we get Mother?"
This question has been weighty.
We wanted something special, 'cause
This year you're turning EIGHTY!

And so we've thought of all the things
That you consider fun.
You had fun on vacation, but
Vacation now is done.

You have got your pictures, so
You always will recall
The happy time at Myrtle Beach.
(But please forget the fall!)

You've always loved your pictures. You
Take pictures with great glee.
"A camera is the perfect gift!"
Both Sue and I agree.

But Ron, alas, says, "Cameras
For film are now pass*.
That type of camera is not sold
In any store today."

"You are loonie!" we reply
And run off to the mall
Where we find out that he's right -
They have them not at all.

Like old Victrola radios
Are not in modern stores,
Cameras for film are gone.
They aren't sold anymore.

So a new-fangled digital
We had to get for you.
To take a shot, just point and click.
That's all you have to do.

And when the camera is all full
Call Ron or Deb, and they
Can take the disc to CVS
And make prints right away.

Your pictures will look just like now!
And though you have turned 80,
This camera will show all the world
That you're a modern lady!

Alas!

Oh, good lord!

The evening care manager helped me get from my wheelchair into my easy chair. That is fine, right? I wanted to be in my easy chair to watch. TV. It's 7:10, and Jeopardy comes on at 7:30. So she comes in and I get in my recliner. I like this woman, so we josh about a bit.

Pleasant, right?

I SHOULD NEVER LET MY GUARD DOWN

(this is a picture of people not letting their guard down)





















My call button ended up being left on my desk. This is across the room from the upholstered chair in which I was sitting. I therefore could not call for assistance, and might have been left sitting there until someone noticed I was missing... perhaps when the rent was due? So I thought about it for a bit, and realized I could reach across the table with my my grabbing device and snag my purse, which was on the other side of the end table, and use the cel phone inside to call the front desk and get them to get my care manager to come back and give me the button. So I did so. A few seconds later I hear the woman at the desk announce, "Will the care manager for room 101 please go to the room?"

Yikes! The problem NOW was that I shouldn't have been hearing this announcement, because it was coming in over the care manager's radio... which meant she had left the radio in my room... which meant that she had no radio with which to hear the announcement... which meant she was never coming.

I called and explained. Once the lady at the front desk had finished laughing, she found someone else to send.

coasters

Modern roller coasters are evil. Sue and Ron rode the one in Dollywood (actual picture above), and Sue threw her back out so badly that she's been in agony ever since. She's been to doctors and a chiropractor. Finally she went to a neurologist who gave her steroids - prednisone - and she says it is finally feeling a bit better. And not long after that happened, a veteran with no legs rode the same type roller coaster and fell out and died! So don't ride roller coasters!

Roller coasters used to be gentler. They didn't flip the rider upside-down. Examples were the "Rebel Yell" at King's Dominion, the coaster at Lakeside amusement park in Roanoke, and the little coaster on the beach in Virginia Beach. Those coasters were fun, not deadly.

When I was just ages 3 to 6, we lived at Virginia Beach ans went to that amusement park all the time. I, of course, didn't ride anything but kid rides, but I remember they had a row of glass boxes windows across the top of the arcade. In one of them was an animatedd doll of a great big fat lady who rocked back and forth and laughed and laughed endlessly. I loved her!