Silver Linings

 

The 21st night of September?  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gs069dndIY   September was HOT—temperatures in the 90s and humid, thanks to Kay, a hurricane that traveled up the Baja coast of Mexico before it weakened and turned west. We didn’t get a lot of rain or wind, just clouds and oppressive humidity. And thunder, far in the distance, which rattled the windows. Thunder is rare in these parts. I am where the red dot is.  Then the weather system broke and we have been rewarded with glorious, perfect weather since. I am eager to get back to golf, but I’m not there yet.  Around here, we had railings installed on our front steps. It’s not that we need them, not yet anyway, but when we have guests for dinner, it’s dark when they leave and they may  have had a glass of wine or two. I would hate for someone to fall. Falling could be very bad. We have a wonderful young handyman, he’s very popular and very hard to get. We arranged this job in February. (Railings from...

This was my big event for the month.  Ruptured appendix, emergency surgery. All day I thought I had indigestion—by late afternoon I was in more pain than I had ever experienced. Jim said, “Let me take you to the hospital.” No. I settled on going to urgent care and they told me I needed to go to the hospital. They would call ahead for me. When I walked through the ER doors at around 7 PM, they were waiting for me with a chair. The details are fuzzy, but I had surgery at 9 and was in my room by midnight. Pretty amazing.  Now I am home and recuperating, but it is slow going. The doctors and nurses at Mission Hospital are fantastic, every last one of ‘em. Here’s an interesting gadget: It’s an infrared vein finder. The only downside is they can’t tell how deep the vein is, only that it’s there. So some probing (i.e. digging) has to happen when your veins go into hiding, as mine did.  I’m fine now, feeling good but eager to get some energy and get moving!  Well, that’s all...

While most of the country has been sweltering we have had mild coastal weather. Which bummed me out because I prefer cool weather, especially on golf days, but I could not play because of my injured big toe. My big accomplishment was going to the supermarket—which completely wore me out, I must admit. My toe doesn’t hurt so much now, but I am unsteady on my feet because of it. I am finding out that the big toe is a very important digit.  So, in July I pretty much sat around and watched the scale inch northward.  I celebrated my birthday with lunch at the local winery.  Which was made even sweeter by the presence of these lovelies; Michelle and Savannah.  And there was dinner at a steakhouse with a luscious wine from Jim’s cellar.  My next door neighbor brought me these. What a lovely surprise!    I played some of my favorite adventure games. I admit it, I love these. They’re interactive mystery stories with beautiful graphics and lots of challenging pu...

Although not as high as I once did. I’ll be 73 in less than a week. When I started blogging ififteen-plus years ago the topic was all about quilting and techniques. It was never to be a treatise on aging, although it seems that is what it is morphing into. My quilting studio has become an exercise studio. The exercises I do are for strengthening my shoulder and neck muscles. I had/have an impingement that makes golf painful and, as anyone who knows me will tell you, golf is an essential part of my life. So I went to physical therapy, and when I got tired of getting up at 7am I started doing it myself at home, adding a few things I learned from the internet. I’d say I’m 99% better. What are the golf clubs for? Weights.  With my new and improved strength I was really looking forward to getting out there and crushing the ball again, like I used to back in the day. But then… It was July 4 and we had our next door neighbors over for wine & apps—it has become our annual tradition sin...

The weather—what can I say? Last week it was 88° and too hot to sit outside. One week later it was 62° and too cold to sit outside. But today it is beautiful, 72° and sunny.  We had our landscaping redone last winter and it’s looking great now. We love this cheery little corner.  Over in the other corner, the bougainvillea is going gangbusters. It was almost a goner a couple of years ago, some bugs ate it, but we nursed it back to health. I see it from my bedroom window every morning and the color makes me happy.  We had our neighbors, Cliff & Barbara, over for happy hour. Here’s Cliff and Jim looking at something in the atlas. An atlas!—How quaintly old-fashioned. I have no idea what they’re looking at, but aren’t they cute? Jim had been having chest pains, which alarmed him (understatement), so I suggested we go to the ER. We didn’t feel like we needed to call 911 as he’d had these pains for a week, so I drove him. Because of Covid, you can’t go in the ER waiting ro...

As usual, there’s not a whole lot going on with us old folk here in Geezerville. How’s that for a captivating lead-in? Really makes you eager to read on, right? That’s my life lately.  But—things are about to change. I have begun PT and the prognosis—and the progress—are excellent. I do not have a torn rotator cuff (yay) but the tendons in my shoulder are getting pinched between the bones (“impingement”) so I need to strengthen them. It is improving already. I’m playing golf again, and there just might be quilting in my future—if I can find the muse, that is. I’m going to be better about keeping up the exercises this time. They are painful to do but they do make everything better. Today was a perfect day for golf, I had trepidations but it went well. Until it didn’t. I took a couple of shots out of the bunker, which is hard on you to begin with. So, I took myself out of the game at hole nine. I didn’t want to push it. Incidentally, below is where I got a hole-in-one recently—hole 5...