Nature Songs ~~~~

JULY, 2001 ~ continued

Evening of July 4, 2001 - Some days must work out as planned for most people - plainly not for me. BingoKid gave me some advice today, “Momma Jeanne, I’ll tell you this, you shouldn’t ever make any plans. That way you can do whatever comes up during the day.” “BingoKid, yes I should make plans, but perhaps I should allow more time and always leave home a little earlier.” Would that only predictability could be a part of everyday living around in mundane existence part of the time ...

The thought was that I would use the drive-through at the drugstore to drop off my numbers of the refills needed and the drive-through at BoJ’s to pickup a ham biscuit for Mother and stop at the nursing center long enough to run the biscuit and her Cokes in for her. Then the boys and I would drive over to the pool to swim. I called to invite Wes and his family to join us. On second thought, we would need something to eat, so I call him back to tell them I would pick up something for lunch and bring it with me.

Suddenly, my time is all turned around for me. As I drive off from the house, a glance at the gas gauge, and I remember that I meant to get gas yesterday ... We are off to get gas first. A quick zig-zag across the road to BoJ’s for the biscuit and then the fun really began. We started gathering one of the infamous family picnic making of many experiences past. I planned as I drove. A big bucket of chicken from KFC along with a half gallon of tea and two orders of potato wedges and biscuits were first to be purchased. The drugstore had drinks on sale with a limit of six, so I took one shopping cart to get six bottles and NascarKid and DynoKid used a cart to choose some that they would drink along with drinks for the others that would be with us. That meant I took in my prescriptions to be refilled. (They also told me they close at 6 p.m. today.) Happening to think, ice! We looked around and saw a box on the other side of the store with some for sale.

Back at the car, I happened to have a small cooler and tried to put the ice in it. The bag was frozen almost solid. The only thing in the car to use for breaking it up was my cane. Cane in hand, the ice got several good wallops to break it in two pieces and some smaller chunks. The top almost closed, so I was happy and ready to travel. The boys ran the Cokes and ham biscuit into Mother while I put some of the ice in my cup I carried along with me. Finally, we were off to swim.

Our three cars all arrived at camp about the same time, so we decided to eat before going in the pool area. The paper plates, roll of paper towels, cups, food and drinks were carried to the picnic table for us to dig into and enjoy. It may have been one of our infamous last moment thought up menus, but all seemed to enjoy it. There was no fuss about what to choose to eat and how to go about eating it - and very little was left over - except for the drinks which were partly for using at home as everyone is always going and coming and want something to drink besides water.

Nine of our family members were at the camp this afternoon along with a number of others from church. There were roughly fifty or sixty round about the pool most of the afternoon and approximately thirty of those were in the pool. Knowing how chilly the water is, I wore my tights I need when working out and took my water jacket. It kept me warmer - in fact, this was the first time in my life I’ve been able to go in the water at camp without gritting my teeth as the cold water chills to the bone. I had no problem walking into the water without hesitation. Secondly, the jacket shielded me some from the rays of the sun. With several of my medicines, I’m supposed to keep out of direct sunlight. Par for me, when the green tube was pulled out of the back of the Explorer, it was not my chair to sit upon, but a folding table. The boys had taken my chair out and not put it back where it belonged. So much for always having my personal place to sit...

NascarKid had left his glasses at my house. Tbird and Hubby were taking the family to see the Crawdads Baseball game in Hickory and watch the fireworks that followed. I decided to take my puppies for a ride with me to meet halfway and give him his glasses so he could enjoy the game. In my haste with the dogs, I realized all too late, that I left my car keys inside the house where I laid them out ready to pick up after putting the leashes on the dogs. Luckily I had my cellular phone and Wes got that call I make all too often, “Wes, I locked myself out of the house. Can you come and let me in?” He always graciously comes to my aid as he did this evening. Ms. Jay is in Canada, so the key I left with her was of no use to me this time around.

Stopping by with the dogs in tow to visit Mother, I walk into an empty room. She is gone out. They seemed not to know where she had gone, when she left, or who took her. I would have been trying to find out a few things in a case like that. I took the dogs and visited a few of the others on the hall before coming home. A quick call from my brother and I find that Mother is with him. He said that she was signed out at the desk ... so ... As long as she is in good hands and safe ...

Even after the extra trip to the house to rescue me into my house to get my keys earlier, Wes calls to invite me to go watch the fireworks uptown. This is the 150th birthday of Lenoir and much of the celebration has been taking place all day today culminating with fireworks at the community center which is next door to the mall where Quest is located. We parked in front of Quest to watch fireworks. I was surprised when Wes took one of BusyKid’s walkie-talkies and talked over it as we neared the mall. Allan had the other one and was already parked. He told us where he was located and we came along side of him to park. While waiting for the fireworks to begin there was a regular family reunion taking place as cousins, second cousins and third cousins talked together. I got to meet one of my nephew’s new wife for the first time.

So ended a very full day that began with next to no plans made at all for the holiday ...

July 5, 2001 - HURRY! Hurry, hurry, hurry. No time to be dragging feet this morning. First come the three grandchildren for the morning since Mom has to be at school for an important meeting (she even gets paid for this one.) Quickly we leash the dogs, secure the carseat for Giggles, load Charlie in his crate between her and DynoKid, throw my gear in the back and take off. The grooming appointment is for 8:30 which gives us little time for dawdling. Oreo sits upfront as co-pilot and shares the seat with NascarKid.

The ride through the country this morning was a bit on the hairy side since we had ground fog as a result of last night’s storm that came through our area. At least this storm didn’t dump an official 4.3 inches of rain in two hours’ time like Monday. -- BusyKid’s Daycare Center less than a mile from home collected five inches of rain in their rain gauge Monday night. We were able to have our fireworks here in Lenoir at 10:15 instead of 9:30 due to the storm. The Crawdads explosion of colors and designs took place at midnight in Hickory! The Charlotte area not only had to postpone the Fourth of July Fireworks, but experienced major damages due to the storm this time.

Twas great to be back in the water this morning after my long hiatus. Twas great to be with the gang. All too quickly the hour passed and it was time to load up the grandchildren and head home. NascarKid resorted to living mostly on bread alone during his trek across Australia and was anxious to savor some pizza for lunch, so we brought some home for lunch. No sooner was our lunch done and the phone rang to announce that the dogs’ grooming was finished and they were ready to be picked up. Twas time to load up and be off again through the country. This time the countryside was glistening in the bright summer sun after the refreshing rain of last night.

With twenty-eight roles of film to develop between the two travelers, they lucked out to have the pictures developed when there is a special on at Winn Dixie. The only hitch is that one person can only have five rolls per day limit. Between myself, Tbird and her hubby, it won’t take long to get the rolls developed and have doubles of the pictures for only five dollars a roll. Twenty-eight seem like a lot of pictures at first until I think that it is for eighteen days and two people. Then it isn’t so many pictures taken of a foreign place to bring back and share with others.

Most of the group bought underwater disposable cameras for their pictures of the Great Barrier Reef. The park area in the water was planned so they could wear lifejackets and pull themselves along ropes secured along a path where Tbird and NascarKid spent two hours in the water taking in the sights. Those choosing to go in without the lifejackets only spent a short time in the water and missed much of the beauty of sea life. Seems that most of the beauty was enhanced by the sun shining down through the water. Tbird said that when you were deeper in the water that the colors were not as brilliant, but that there were more different types of fish to be seen.

After all were loaded up and gone this afternoon, I chose to zonk out for awhile. I ended up no even going over to see Mother. This makes two days I’ve missed seeing her since she was gone when I was there yesterday. Maybe tomorrow ...

July 6, 2001 - Voila! Almost a normal day for the first time in many a day ... and week ... and month, me thinks! Off to join the water workout was first on the agenda and I was only five minutes late. My goal is to get back on schedule and not miss any of the class. When I first arose, I decided to begin recording both blood pressure and sugar readings twice a day from now until I return to the doctor on the twentieth. This morning was a surprise when I took the blood pressure before getting up and it is high. That’s something I’ve got to watch out for - 137/108 and pulse 83 is not indicative of a restful night and as par for the course with my sleep pattern it was an up and down night. Blood sugar was 87, which means I’m doing okay with the pills cut in half. I have to ask myself, “Why am I going to all this trouble to find out these things?”

Ms. Jay’s son calls to see if I’ve seen or heard anything next door out of the ordinary since yesterday. He came by to feed Rebel, their German Shepherd, to find his chain hanging loosely on the run line and hooked back into itself. There is no dog to be found. I’ve not seen or heard him. My own dogs have not barked as they usually do when he is out on the run. Besides, when he does get loose and takes a gander around he always heads back to his own front porch to stretch out on the marble to cool off and wait for attention. Apparently someone has come by since he was fed yesterday afternoon and helped themselves to something not their own. Ms. Jay will certainly miss him when she returns from Colorado.

I mentioned to her son that he could call the animal control people to check and see if they may have him or have heard of him . He could also call the local radio stations and ask for assistance. Leaving his telephone number with me as well as his twin brother’s number, he was off to canvas the neighborhood with hopes of finding Rebel. That is very unlikely if someone did indeed decide to take him for their very own.

Taking care of business at the bank was a little out of the ordinary this afternoon. They are in the midst of major remodeling within the four walls with promise of all being completed by the end of July. There is only a skeleton office space for doing business as most official looking articles are packed in high stacks out of the way for workmen to spin their skills and designs. My piece of paper notarized; I was soon on my way to drop of five packages of film from Australia for developing before getting my nails worked on.

The tiny Chinese girl speaking in very broken English with heavy Chinese accent was not happy with the condition of my nails. She repeated told me, “You come back - two weeks! Two weeks and I redo nails.” One of my nails that I had clipped happened to chip on the edge and she had to remove the whole acrylic on it. I must had done a pretty good job on my clipping because she did not redo much more. Then again, they are sort of short by her standards and she may be waiting for them to grow out. I’m happy with this length and I love my color this time. They are cherry red and the color number is 30. Now to see if I can find the same bottle in two - or three - weeks when I return. I considered choosing an opal red color which seemed to be iridescent, but wondered if I would enjoy wearing it long term.

Fingers newly shorn and polished, Subway chicken breast salad in hand, my next stop was to visit with Mother. I also had some long tees like she enjoys wearing that I found on sell at Wally World for her. I had stopped at the store to meet my ex daughter-in-law as she got off work. Her mother has a book of poetry that she has just published and I bought one of her books. I’ve always enjoyed her poems and was happy to learn that she had put together many of them into one book and she took time to autograph it for me as well. Oh, of course, I forgot to bring in the book for Mother to look through it. That will have to wait for another time.

Back home with my newly groomed and still prancing puppies, we settled in for a leisurely paced evening together. I’m down to one active class on the web which is Lord of the Rings. One more week and it will end. Two new classes begin this coming Monday, one of them is a repeat of Understanding Poetry, so it isn’t actually new. Checking out the message boards didn’t take long for me to read and before long I was trying to do catch up with the puzzles in the papers that have stacked up over the past few weeks.

July 7, 2001 - Can it actually be Saturday? Already? How can that be? The week has only just begun or so it seems ... Time flies by when one is having fun, as well as keeping busy. Leastwise, I am lolling around and taking it easy this morning for a change. There is absolutely nothing that I have to be up and doing this morning.

I did take my blood pressure and blood sugar count first thing this morning. As yesterday morning, the BP is sort of high, but at least the bottom number is better than yesterday. It registered 145/99 and a pulse of 67 today. Blood sugar:117 -which is good. Time to start doing more deep breathing, relaxation and taking up more of the biofeedback stuff along with working out. Then again, I’ve not been doing the exercise regularly the past few weeks, and that may be making a difference. Let’s see how things go with regular exercising this coming week.

Before I can make plans to lay back and do nothing for the day, the phone rings. Tbird is leaving her house to go by and pick up the pictures dropped off so far to be developed of the trip. She has other plans for my afternoon. Seems she has an appointment to get her nails done and wants me to keep the children. Then she and hubby will go out for supper together before coming by to pick up the children. That turns out to keep me fairly busy since a certain young missy is in full gear and demanding to be center stage for the afternoon. That included turning the two bowls of dogfood over and spreading the dry food far and wide across the floor - all in the name of playing and maybe a little investigating. Good thing the dogs don’t mind eating up their food from the floor when she is around.

No sooner do we load up the car to run by Winn Dixie to drop off some more of NascarKid’s film to be developed since all of his is being done with my name inn order to keep them apart from his mother’s film - Giggles immediately drops off to sleep. She manages to sleep through our stopping at drive through to order food and while we eat our food. She is still asleep when we drive by the Nursing Center to take Mother a ham biscuit so I stay in the car with her while the boys take Mother her treat for the day.

Before the evening ends, Allan shows up with Buddy Boy and then there are four to run and play together. It isn’t long until the angel food cake is being eaten by the young ones. They are spreading chocolate icing on it before taking that first bite. I was beginning to think no one would eat the cake, but now most of it has disappeared. Next comes the call for peanut butter sandwich followed by, “Icee.” “I want an icee.” It’s time to head for the freezer to let each one select that favorite frozen stick of colored water filled with lots of sugar to top it all off.

Then all are gone and the quiet of the early morning once more returns for dogs and their master only to be disturbed by rolling thunder nearing to bring rain to lull us off to sleep ... hopefully ... at least the dogs are sound asleep ...

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