Culture Clash

In the midst of all the preparations for the estate sale last week, I took a break for a baby shower for an acquaintance. Julie (I can't begin to spell her Tibetan name) fled Tibet years ago when she was studying with the Dalai Lama, spending several years in India before arriving in the U.S. Although she has lived with an American family for a couple of years, the difference in cultures was made evident at the baby shower given in her honor. Julie works at the Chinese restaurant run by a friend of ours and the staff hosted the baby shower for her there. Because everyone was officially on duty at the restaurant at the time, no presents were wrapped (except mine and those of her American host family) and the spread of food was distinctly Oriental (and yummy!). When shown the baby shower cake we had to explain why there was a picture of a stork and baby on it and what that represented, which was a bit of a hoot. We also had to explain several of the gifts, including receiving blankets, "onesies" and pacifiers. I don't know if all that was a cultural thing or just a young lady who has never been around children and doesn't have a clue. Either way, it would be interesting to be a fly on the wall at her house after the baby is born, watching her trying to figure out what goes where and why with all her gifts.

And it certainly was an entertaining break for me--I haven't laughed that much in a long time. Friends and laughter--it doesn't get any better than that.

Taking a Moment

Before the air conditioner is turned on for the day, I'm taking a moment to breathe fresh air and listen to the crickets and tree frogs. My brain had me awake at 3AM, worrying about the large number of antiques belonging to my mother that did not sell. Next is photographing them and putting them on eBay, I guess, because I hate to see them all go to charity.

The town of Dayton has been hard-hit over the last decade, losing many of its large businesses and factories. Most recent was NCR (National Cash Register) which is moving its operations to Georgia after being started here in Dayton over 150 years ago. So many people are either out of work or fearing for their pensions or jobs, including some in my own family. Not a good time to be trying to sell items that exist simply for their own beauty, much less necessities.

The good news is that a lot of nice pieces went to friends or a good home. We have most of the things we're giving to charity packed up, we can see the floor in many rooms once again and I'm hoping to get a second wind by spending the weekend at the trailer with Denny and Patches. Then I'll be ready for phase two of clearing the estate.

If I am to keep to our planned schedule of having the house on the market by the first of August, then Denny and I will be spending a lot of hours at the house and not online blogging. Or taking pictures of tiny living things instead flowers painted on porcelain. Therefore, blogging here will still be erratic at best and I won't be checking in on my favorite bloggers quite as often. Soon.....

He's Back

The Wagonteamster is back on the road. Follow him here. Talk about true grit!

Organized Chaos

And we're still not done.

Ten Days Late.

And no, it's not THAT--I'm too dang old to be pregnant! It's just been ten days since I've posted something, which was brought to my attention this morning by a friend checking in.

The trouble is, how much can you write about dragging out box after box of china, porcelain, cut glass, carnival glass, doodads and gewgaws? Maybe tomorrow I'll take some pictures of the chaos that is currently my mother's place, although we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Good thing, as I'm having some of my mother's antique dealer/collector friends over Monday night for a sneak preview of the sale.

In the meantime? I'm snappish and crabby and cantankerous and belligerent and right now I'm not suffering fools gladly either. Put tired on that list, too. Denny says we've fought more since Mom's death than we have in the last 27 years of our relationship and he's right. Put two bullheads together with totally different ideas of how to do things and you have two people clashing big time. But Denny and I also know it's just because of the stress of dealing with the estate so we're okay with each other and we're shrugging off the snappiness as a temporary aberration. Today we're at the trailer, just hanging around and chilling (as much as one can chill when the heat index is supposed to be 100 degrees today.) Gah!

So all is well, just nothing to write home about. Next will be the excitement of painting, refinishing floors, ripping off the kitchen countertops and much, much more. What are you people who own houses THINKING???????

Remiss

Indeed, I have been remiss in posting. My time online (except for brief periods of madness playing Bejeweled Blitz on Facebook in an attempt to keep up with Deana) has been spent researching collectibles rather than reading blogs and updating my own.

Yesterday my cousin Datha drove over from Indiana to help with the unpacking, sorting and setting up of multiple crates of well-wrapped goodies. These were things my parents had purchased back in the day they were antique dealers. That was pre-1994 so the prices that are currently on the items are sadly out of date for this economy. Antiques and collectibles run in cycles like clothing styles, and so what was popular when they were buying and selling a decade or two ago simply is not of interest to the current group of collectors. Thus I am trying to figure out what the market will bear price-wise and tag things accordingly.

Because Patches is starting to get a bit neurotic from traveling back and forth to Grandma's house, I am staying here and Denny is commuting from the campground. At the house, Patches has a cat door and free access to the fenced backyard while at home she has to wait to be walked on a leash. I don't think she likes the aroma here at Grandma's house either--a mixture of stale cigarette smoke and musty basement dust currently from all the things we're hauling out, brushing off and moving around. Denny left after dinner last night, which meant Datha and I could relax with an Amaretto Sour and talk the night away. And we did.

Today, we'll do it all over again.

To Post or Not to Post

A blogging friend who is ill is questioning whether or not to blog about her bad days or if she should maintain a cheerful facade for her blog followers. And that got me thinking about the way I've blogged over the past year.

My original intent when I created my blog was to document our travels after I had written the umpteenth e-mail to friends and family reiterating the same information for each one, yet trying to make each e-mail personal, also. That's when I decided to start a blog so that I could share the sights we'd seen and the things we'd learned and I would be able to keep my e-mails short and personal. And that's pretty much what the blog was about until late in 2005 when my mother had a health issue and we flew home on an emergency basis. And then there was my shattered kneecap and recovery in mid-2006 and then my FIL's death and dealing with his estate last year and now my mother's death and dealing with HER estate right now. So the blog became my catharsis and my way of sharing what was going on when making a phone call would have been too much to handle. And the support I've gotten from people I've never met has been wonderful and has buoyed me in ways I could never have imagined.

Maybe some readers have disappeared because Denny and I aren't traveling and the blog at this point isn't a travelogue. That's okay, because at some point this summer or fall it will be once again. But for now, as my sister-in-law likes to say, "it is what it is". Good, bad or indifferent, this is where we're at right now and that's what the blog will document. But I know that there will be pictures of mountains and lakes, tales of geocaching and stories of flat tires and minor disasters related to the RVing lifestyle in our future. And there will be cheese with my whine. Bet on it.

This Tickled My Funny Bone

see more Lolcats and funny pictures


I love Lolcats--the imaginative captions amaze me sometimes with the inventiveness of the captions. Plus there's no such thing as a bad picture of a cat.

Today Denny will have finished painting the master bedroom and I hope to have all the old wallpaper adhesive scraped off the bathroom walls. I have to start setting up display tables and bringing things out to tag and price if I'm going to have this sale by the last week of June, especially since we'll be out of town for a week in June. No pressure! Time to start calling friends and family in to help drag stuff out and stick price tags on things and figuring out how to price antiques in today's depressed market. Because 60s and 70s items are the new "antiques"--Mom's collections are all actually too old for today's buyers. Because antiques are out, collectibles are in. *sigh*

Heigh ho, heigh ho, a winnowing we go

I've already explained that Denny and I stay at my mother's house several days a week to avoid the 50 miles round trip commute from our campground. When your truck only gets 10 mph per gallon it's an expensive round trip. The new Ford diesel is more green emissions-wise, but it sucks up more fuel. Did we get anywhere with that?

Anywho, as Denny and I have been working on the house, things are starting to disappear. Not by theft, but by inheritance and by selling items. Yesterday the desk left, so I'm now working on a tiny plastic desk left here by my niece who had lived with Mom for a while. The same niece who took a lot of the bakeware, so that when I made some brownies the other week I had to improvise on a baking pan, forgetting most of them were gone. The casserole dishes have gone to another niece, Denny took the silverware to our son in New York when he delivered a band saw and a metal storage cabinet up there so we're eating with plastic forks and spoons. When family members ask for things I say "sure", forgetting that we're living here and might need them. I did ask that my brother-in-law leave the glider out back for Denny and I to sit in and relax after a long day working here but--I gave the blender/food processor to Darb and his wife. Now THAT was a mistake. Because now there are no frozen margaritas to sip while relaxing in said glider after a hard day's work. **SIGH**

Dumb, dumb, dumb.

Too Much Stuff

Denny and I are back in Kettering, trying to do ten things at once. Or rather I am; Denny is motoring right along with the painting. I'm having him stop after this bedroom so that I can set up for the estate sale. I'm hoping to have it by the end of June and it will take me every bit of that time to pull things from boxes, research them and set reasonable prices on everything. I know I won't do justice to the effort Mom made to collect all these things, but I'll do what I can.

Keys. How many boxes and bags of keys can one person have? Eight, minimum. Skeleton keys, clock keys, music box keys, NCR cash register keys, desk keys, luggage keys, who-knows-what keys. Brass, steel, and other. Price for collectors? Scrap metal? Combination of both? Sigh. That took hours today, sorting and separating. I was also working on her jewelry box. Gold, sterling silver, collectible costume, regular costume. And keys in the bottom drawer of the jewelry box. Did they go to something special? Who knows?

I swear I am getting rid of everything I have stored at Mom's for the last ten years. It all goes. I won't do this to my kids. They took what they wanted when we first sold our house--the stuff I stored was "my" stuff. Now, it goes. My brother found a piece of my art glass in the garage and said how beautiful it was. Yep, it IS beautiful but I've done without it for almost eleven years so I guess I can do without it forever. Purge and cleanse is going to be the name of the game before this is all over.

And then I can cry.

Hot and Grumpy

I've been spinning my wheels a bit this week, trying to put things on eBay for the estate. I did get ten items online, but it's a laborious process when you have to research to see what it is you have and what it might be worth and if it would do better locally with a dealer rather than online. And there are still piles and piles of things to sort through.

So once we arrived back at our trailer for the holiday weekend (and boy, we should have gone to Mom's house for the weekend and stayed at the campground during the week) I decided that I'm going to concentrate on setting table up at the house and getting "stuff" out to have the estate sale instead of trying to do research, gather items together all while washing walls so Denny can paint and trying to clear out a room at a time for said washing and painting. It's time to gather some help so we can have the estate sale so Mom's stuff can find a good home and so that I can arrange with the carpet installers and kitchen counter top installers and floor refinishers to come in and do their jobs. There's way too much here for Denny and I to be able to get the sale set up by ourselves. Summer is fast approaching and it's time to focus on one thing at a time instead of going off in six different directions at once. That is my pep talk to myself. Now we'll see how it goes.

This weekend we're seeing the "occasional" campers; those who don't know the unspoken although sometimes written rules of camping. One is; don't drive above 5 mph on a gravel roadway within the campground due to the great amount of dust stirred up by higher speeds. Another is; teach your children (and yourself while you're at it) to respect the boundaries of other people's campsite--you don't cut across campsites en route to your destination. Third; if you are planning on leaving at 5:30 in the morning, back your truck up to your rig the night before and don't turn on your rattletrap truck until you are ready to hitch up and leave.

Hmm, I think a nice glass of a 2004 Shiraz Grenache is called for at the moment--I seem to be a tad wound up tonight.

Happy Memorial Day weekend, Happy Anniversary Darb and Net and safe travels this weekend everyone.

Nostalgia

I was cleaning out a cabinet when I came across an envelope of photos. Inside I found some pictures of The Nickelodeon Soda Fountain, the ice cream store my parents opened after months of hard work. The Mexican onyx soda fountain was originally displayed at the Chicago World's Fair and eventually made its way to Middletown, Ohio where my father discovered it. My parents took the marble bar apart piece by piece, spent hours cleaning years of melted ice cream and syrup goop off the onyx and eventually created a small piece of restored history to a shopping center in Kettering. It's where I learned to make a nectar soda and the world's best chocolate malt.

In the picture you'll see an early 70s version of my younger brother. Sadly, most of the pictures were lost and those that are left are blurry and dark. It was a fun place with nickelodeons, penny candy, stained glass lamps and a good neighborhood crowd of customers. Lots of memories....

A Trip Back in Time

Friends Don and Vicki had recommended Wagner's Village Restaurant in Oldenburg, Indiana as having a terrific family style fried chicken dinner, so tonight Denny and I took a drive that way. Entering town we noticed right away that the street signs were written in German first, and English in smaller letters underneath, an indication of the pride the townspeople have in the German heritage here.

Oldenburg was settled in the 1830s by German immigrants and 1851 the Sisters of St. Francis convent was founded. Denny actually has a cousin here at the convent although we haven't seen her in years due to her advanced age. The town of Oldenburg itself was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983 and has the nickname "The Village of Spires" due to the tall church spires along Main St.
It's a quiet little place, but there are some neat buildings if you enjoy various styles of architecture and well-preserved buildings.

Wagner' Village Restaurant

The Sisters of St. Francis Convent

This fire hydrant painted like a nun was across the street from the convent


This attractive pub would have gotten my business if we hadn't just eaten. Look Don--taco night!

I couldn't decide if this had been an old livery stable, an inn, or a firehouse.

The main storefront here was "The Guten Tag", but I loved the architectural details of the building.

This sign on the side of the building with the Guten Tag store provided historical information. Guess there were no unions back then, huh?

The current firehouse in Oldenburg.

Rain, Rain, Rain, Rain

Boy, have we had rain, with more predicted for the next two days. It's pretty obvious that we are not going to be playing golf or geocaching this week. I figure we'll come back to this campground possibly one more time before the summer is over and the estate business is done, so we'll get a shot at both then.

Patches was dying to go out for a walk yesterday but this is what we found when I opened the door yesterday afternoon.

Notice what a smart cat she is; Patches didn't even ATTEMPT to get down off the steps. I figure there was a good inch and a half of water outside our door. And it rained a lot more last night.

So Denny and I are getting our rest and relaxation in, come h*ll or high water. Heh.

Rain, Sun, Wind, Rain

It's a day fit for man nor geese beast. Denny and I had planned to play golf today but rain combined with a strong wind does not make for fun golf, so we're indoors today. I figured this meant I was supposed to get some housework done, so I tossed a load of laundry in the washing machine, pulled up Pandora on the computer for some housework music and started scrubbing the floors. Don't have Pandora on your computer? Go to http://www.pandora.com and create your own play list of songs simply by typing in an artist name or a song title and Pandora will create a "station" of songs of a genre similar to your song/artist. For this morning I went with Neil Diamond since I have a small floor area. Back in the day of the big house, I would have inserted Sly and the Family Stone and bebopped and hip-slung my way around the house getting my chores done.

It was more fun with Sly.

A Walk Around The Campground

Spring has finally arrived and I for one was more than ready for it. Denny and I took advantage of the sunshine yesterday and today to start exploring our campground as this is our first visit here. So far the only drawback is lack of clear cellular phone coverage, but then again, maybe that's not such a bad thing.

My friend Vicki always does a picture that she calls "the view from our front door" when they arrive at a new campsite. The picture below is actually what I see looking out our rear living room window of the trailer. The air is crisp and clear here--the Midwestern heat and humidity of summer has yet to arrive to blur the edges of the scenery.

Most of the private membership campgrounds have cabins available to rent to members and their family and these have a nice view of a channel off the main lake.

If there is a lake or pond on the grounds, then there will be Canada geese. Not all of them return to Canada, Coll! This pair was watchful, but not too concerned by my proximity.

Walking near a covered pavilion near the clubhouse I noticed a robin on a picnic table with a worm, so I assumed there was a nest nearby. Checking the rafters of the pavilion, instead of robins I saw this mourning dove on her nest.

Knowing that the robin was there for a reason, I continued to scan the rafters and found the robin's nest and three impatient little robins awaiting that worm.

Even past its prime, a pink dogwood tree is beautiful.

I'm still learning the new camera--what appears clear in the viewfinder doesn't always come through as a sharp image on the computer. More practice is required. But dandelion fluff is always fun--how tempting it was to pick the stem and blow the seeds away.

A Happy Mother's Day to all. Love you Mom.

Feline Alarm Clock

Ownership of a cat (is there such a thing as owning a cat?) insures that life is never boring. Patches entertains us in myriad ways but she also has her not-so-cute quirks and the one that is most irritating is her alarm clock mode.

I set my coffee pot to go off at 6AM each morning, even though I'm usually awake well before that. I lay still, because I know that restless movement will activate the alarm cat into full on "get up" mode.

It starts with Patches coming in and using the litter box for #1. Much scratching in the litter ensues and then she disappears into the living room. Ten minutes later, she returns to use the box again, this time for #2. If it's particularly aromatic, there will be little scratching and a hurried exit from the room, running as if chased by the Hounds of H*ll.

Next, the alarm cat returns to the bedroom to scratch at the day-night shades over the windows, knowing that will garner her a quick "no" and the first indication that Mom is awake and capable of getting up to feed her. This is followed by the delicate tightwire walk up my side, starting at the ankle and moving up towards my hip, as she somehow changes those soft little kitty pads on the bottom of her paws into pile driving pointed pistons with a force of 50 pounds behind it. As I roll onto my back to knock her off and ease the pain, Miss Patches then sits on my abdomen, supplying just enough pressure on the area of my bladder to make it absolutely imperative that I get up immediately. *sigh*

I stroke her head to deactivate the alarm and get up. The system works.

For My Women Friends

This was sent to me by my ex-sister-in-law, Phyl, who I've always loved as my own flesh and blood. I post it here for those of you who have become my "virtual" friends and family. Fair warning--you will cry.

People, People, People

Buy a Class C motorhome for $70,000 to $90,000 and add a membership to a private campground organization that specializes in natural forest preserve settings for another $1,000 to $14,000. Pull your new RV into one of those member campgrounds, hook up your utilities and then proceed to close every blind over every window so no one can see in and you can't see out.

You'd be surprised at how many people do this, too. The Class C pictured below with the windshield covered and the blinds drawn in the middle of the day is not unusual in this lifestyle. It makes me wonder why they even bother to come here?

Onward and upward. Denny and I decided to single handedly do our part to stimulate the economy by spending our tax refund, plus a little more. This is what we treated ourselves to: new LaZBoy recliners in a material that won't show claw marks like our previous "pleather" rocker/gliders.


Ah ha! The first hummingbird of the season just lit on my window feeder. It is now officially spring--the heck with robins!

Lastly, Patches hiding in the flower bed foliage at Mom's house, trying to catch a squirrel or sparrow. Actually, Patches has become quite timid, possibly from us moving her back and forth between our trailer and Mom's house. She goes from having the freedom of being unleashed in Mom's backyard to having to walk on a leash at the campground and I think it is getting to her. That's all I need on my plate--a neurotic cat.

Th-th-that's all, folks.

Why

...when a cat has to vomit at 6 o'clock in the morning, it is always on the carpet and never on the tile or hardwood floor?

Just askin'.

Down and Out

High winds blew down our Internet dish last week and apparently messed it up to the point we couldn't get a good signal with it. It was frustrating since I have a lot of research to do to find values on some of the items my mother had collected over the years. Instead, Denny and I worked around the rig, getting it washed and cleaned up some and I started the lengthy process of winnowing down our possessions.

The satellite dish wasn't the only thing down this week--I was too. So much that I did absolutely nothing for Denny's 70th birthday, which was horrible of me. It just so happens that his birthday fell on the one month anniversary of Mom's death and I had spent the last couple of days catching up on my journal for the months of January, February and March and it all came crashing down. And Denny was the one who suffered. He has asked me to take advantage of Hospice's grief counseling and I'm going to make arrangements next week to do that. In the meantime, we'll be starting to paint, catalog, sort and get estimates on refinishing the hardwood floors underneath the carpet in the living room/dining room and bedrooms since that's apparently the preferred flooring nowadays. There's a ton of work to be done, but I just heard from Vicki who says she and Don have changed their minds about an Alaska cruise and instead they'll be going to Myrtle Beach in October. Well hello, good times! I'll be making my campsite reservations this week, I do believe! Knowing we're going to Myrtle Beach is a terrific incentive to get all the work done.

Nothing like coming back online and being a downer, huh? That's life.

And it's going to get better soon.

Back to Being a Buckeye

We're back in Ohio, parked at a campground and living in our trailer so that we don't allow working on Mom's house to overwhelm us as we did with Denny's dad's house last year. It will be a 50 mile round trip drive to get to Ketterburg, so we'll spend a night or two up there while we're working and them come back to work on the rig which has been sadly neglected. I've already scheduled a carpet cleaning, after which we'll haul in the two new LaZBoy recliners that we've had sitting in Mom's garage since March. Then we'll wrassle the mattress and memory foam topper from "our" bedroom at Mom's and switch them out with the set here in the rig. All sorts of muscle-y work will be going on here at the campground, plus whatever work we start doing on the house itself.

The trip up was uneventful, thankfully. In Kentucky we passed the remnants of a horrible accident involving a semi-trailer and by the looks of the cab of the truck it may have been a fatality. Crews were picking up whatever it was the trucker was hauling while a wrecker tried to deal with getting the truck and trailer off the roadway. Surprisingly, accident scenes like that have been rare for us, despite many miles on the road over the last ten years. For that, I'm grateful.

We also had lovely springtime scenery on the way up. Gardeners are aware of "growing zones" or "planting zones"; areas of imaginary demarcation for the best plants to grow in a particular area based on their hardiness and ability to withstand whatever temperatures are in that general area. Driving from the Gulf of Mexico in southern Alabama up to southern Ohio you can see the different rates of growth in the same vegetation; redbuds that were almost totally leafed out in green foliage in Alabama were just starting to bloom in Kentucky.






My favorite spot along I-65? Between milemarker 77 and 78 on the northbound side of the interstate where you'll find this sign: It's not the world's best shot, but at highway speeds the sign is hard to snap clearly.

Tonight, we're dining alfresco; steaks cooked on the grill and a tossed salad. Simple and simply divine. A nuthatch searches for his dinner on a tree nearby and an early butterfly provides a spot of color among trees still bare of buds, much less leaves. We may light the tiny tiki torches this evening and enjoy the stars before the temperatures drop too much. Life feels good right now.

Not to Be

The idea of the Horse Park sounded good to us, but it is not to be. The very nice people at the tire store tried very hard to get our tires in early but it was afternoon before they arrived. By the time we drove out there and had three tires mounted and the new spare put in place it was too late to drive to the park. I was not in the mood to be setting up camp at 8:30 at night. So there will be no horse pictures this trip. We WILL get to the Horse Park though. Someday.

We're camped on the grounds of Mammoth Cave National Park. We've done one of the tours in the past (there are several to choose from, including one where you have to wiggle through 12 inch high holes--no THANK you!) so we're thinking either a round of golf or perhaps a tour of the Corvette Museum a few miles down the road. Horsepower of a different kind, as it were. I think golf will win out, as it's been several months since we've played and the forecast is for a little sun. It feels so good to be outside I don't think I want to be underground in a cave or even inside a museum. Beating a small white ball with a large club is also very good for getting frustrations out and methinks that would be a good thing.

But I have to admit, it would have been nice to have seen all the foals at the farm. The Horse Park now officially goes on our Bucket List.

Blowout

Ah, the joys of being back on the road. About two and a half hours into today's six hour drive a car passing us started honking their horn and pointing at the trailer. Oh boy--that always means a blowout and sure enough, they had seen it on the right side of the trailer, even though they were driving on our left side. Thank goodness for alert drivers! We pulled over and saw that the tire was starting to shred so it had blown a few miles back. We were fortunate to have stopped before the shredded tire started whipping around and taking out the fiberglass side panels and even the underside of the slide-out. Been there, done that before and it's expensive. It would be even worse now since the company that manufactured our trailer went out of business last year (along with four other RV manufacturers.)

Anyhoo, we called our roadside service (boy do we get our money's worth out of them), they sent someone out and an hour and a half later we were back on the road. I called the campground where we were planning on staying the night and asked the man who answered if there was a Goodyear Tire store anywhere nearby and explained what happened. This nice man took the information about the tires we use and called his local tire store and made arrangements for them to order us three tires (we're switching out our special trailer load D tires to special trailer load E tires for more weight bearing capability) As the tires blow/get punctured we have been switching them one at a time but we're biting the bullet and will have them all switched including the spare, which is now seven years old and a different type of tire from the rest. Wes, the campground owner, has arranged everything and our tires should be in tomorrow. If not, the Kentucky Horse Park is out for now. If the tires come in early enough and we're able to get in and get them installed in a reasonable amount of time, we'll trek on up to Kentucky and take pictures until the battery runs out. Yes, I left the spare battery in our newly repaired old camera and the charger in the old camera case. Too much on my mind. So the new camera battery is down to one click; I'm hoping that's enough for a few pictures at least. But the way our luck is running, that's not going to happen.

But for now, there's free Wi-Fi at the campground, I have a glass of cabernet in my hand, there are cows, pigs, goats, sheep and horses here at the campground and the lonely sound of a train whistle in the distance. This is RVing and we take the bad with the good. And for the moment, it's all good.

Sad to Go

No pictures today. Denny and I headed to Gulf Shore State Park after the sun broke out through the clouds up here in Summerdale, but once at the beach the clouds let loose with rain so there was no beach walk nor pictures for us. And naturally, as soon as we arrived back at the campground the sun came back out again. *Sigh*

It's been nice to relax and not think for the last three days. I sat at the computer and realized that I had not worked on my journal since late September (!!!) so I started working on that when the skies clouded over again in the afternoon instead of soaking up some sun as I had hoped. I'm so pasty white I can't stand it but a tan will have to wait (skin cancer be d*mned) until sometime later this summer, I guess.

Tomorrow we'll head north, stopping near the Tennessee/Alabama border for one night, then continuing on to Lexington, Kentucky to visit the Horse Park. It's a lot more driving than we normally do when pulling the trailer, but we want to spend a day at the Horse Park since we've been driving by it and talking about it for the last ten years. This year we'll do it. Because from this point on, if we want to do it, we will. If nothing else the last month, I've learned that life can be too short and that there are no guarantees so we're going for the gusto from here on out. Once we take care of our responsibilities, that is. Always a caveat. For now.

P.S. In reading the fourth to last sentence I wondered how many cliches I could fit in one sentence? Too many apparently. Snort.

Lions and Tigers and ...Bugs, oh my!

After a thirteen hour drive from Ohio to southern Alabama, it would have been nice to be able to say that hitching up to our trailer and moving it out of storage into a campsite and setting it up was a smooth and easy transition.

Not so.

I've already mentioned that we were out of our routine, but there was also the fact that Denny dragged the outdoor grill out of the trailer instead of picking it up so that when it slid off the carpet runner it gouged a long scratch into the wood floor. And despite leaving the refrigerator doors open to air, there was mildew in the refrigerator and the spider webs? Gah! The good news is that there are no signs of mice so far.

But as you can see from the picture above, eventually we settled in and settled down. Shorts were put on, frozen margaritas were blended and as we sat under the live oak tree enjoying the sunshine and the warm Gulf breeze Denny and I remembered why we love this lifestyle so much. It's pure laziness!

We'll enjoy it for a couple of days before we have to return to Ohio and begin to work on Mom's house but I have to say we'll hate to leave here. Sometimes being the responsible one is the pits. But eventually we'll be able to respond to the call of the road and that's all good.

Almost On The Road Again

As I write this Denny and I are sitting in our rig in Summerdale, Alabama. It was a long, hard drive of 13 hours to get here and it was also 80 degrees and humid. When my friend Vicki called to check on me I was griping about sweating and it being hot--this from the person who was complaining about the snow we had three days ago! I'm never happy.

The worst part about being away from our trailer for three months is that we had to be very careful to think about what we were doing because we forgot our "routine", plus Denny started doing my jobs so we were all discombobilated. The two of us had to step back, take a deep breath and stop to think what we should be doing next to get everything set up properly. Eventually we got it all done, leftovers from Ohio were warmed up (there was no way we were going to get into that truck again to drive to a restaurant) and the dishes were washed. The refrigerator hasn't cooled down yet so we may lose the food we brought with us, but the satellite TV is set up so Denny can watch the Masters Golf tournament this week and my Internet satellite is set up so I can surf and e-mail. Patches has had her walk, has been chased by the neighbor's dog and in general is making a nuisance of herself because THIS TRAILER IS TOO SMALL FOR A CAT AFTER SHE'S HAD FREE REIN IN A 3 BEDROOM RANCH WITH A FULL BASEMENT! Major adjustments are in store for all of us. We'll spend a couple of days here and then take at least three days to return to Ohio since our campground doesn't open up until next Friday. I'm thinking a visit to the Lexington Horse Farm would be nice, although way out of our way since we're in Alabama. Hmmm, perhaps I'll check to see if their campground is open yet--I'm always up for being around horses.

And now it's probably bedtime since we got up at 0 dark thirty this morning to hit the road. We're such wimps. Old wimps.

Walk on By

An early morning dental appointment for Denny meant he treated me to breakfast afterward. Shortly before we finished eating, a woman at the table behind Denny got up and helped her mother into her coat. The daughter appeared to be about my age and the mother was older than my mother had been. The daughter carefully adjusted her mother's coat and at that point tears came to my eyes because that is what I would do for my mother this winter as I took her out on various errands. I so wanted to get up and tell that woman to enjoy her mother's company because you never know when that opportunity will be gone forever. But I figured being approached by a blubbering idiot would be just a little intimidating so I let them walk by.

But oh, how I envied them.

Finality

Yesterday we placed my mother's ashes in the mausoleum. Well, some of them anyway--Denny and I are also taking her to Myrtle Beach and Las Vegas since those were two places she loved best in this world. I included Mom's gambling boat "comp" cards and a very large shark's tooth she had found on the beach with her urn, envisioning her perfect place as a long shell-encrusted beach with slot machines. Why not?

The picture above is the view from the mausoleum. This summer my aunt and I will take the guided tour of the cemetery to look for the Wright Brothers, Erma Bombeck, John Patterson (of National Cash Register fame), Paul Lawrence Dunbar (the poet), Charles F. Kettering and many more well-known Daytonians (including the famous Gypsy family the Stanleys which my great-great-aunt married into). My parents are in good company there.

It's the Little Things

I had my brother over for dinner tonight as he needed to sign some official documents for me. I mentioned that his daughter (my niece) was coming over tomorrow to pick up Mom's recipes and OMG! I WAS GIVING MOM'S RECIPES TO ELAINE????????

So tonight I am scanning recipe cards into the computer so that any and all family members who want Grandma's recipes can have a copy. *sigh* I did not need this extra work.

Apparently we're not going to fight over the antiques but over recipes. I have a feeling I'll be pulling my hair out over this estate stuff before the end of summer. I wish Mom had sold it all and taken a month long trip to Las Vegas on the proceeds. We both would have been happier in the long run.

Don't mind me, I'm still fighting this crappy cold/cough/flu/whatever the heck I have and I'm incredibly grumpy about it.

Is it Spring yet?

Day Trip

Okay, so it turned out that Mom didn't go to Massillon, Ohio with the funeral director after all--he must have heard the anger in my voice during our phone conversation so he turned around and brought her back. That really wasn't an April Fool's Day post.

Once that was taken care of it was time to take a break from all this estate "stuff" and drive down to "the boats", which is what we call the gambling casinos on the Ohio River in southern Indiana. Mom, her friend Dottie and I were going to drive down on President's Day for a day of losing money at the slots, but that's the day I ended up taking Mom to the hospital so our excursion never happened. Denny and I decided it was time to take that trip for Mom, finally. I ended up gambling for two hours on the same $20 which is some kind of record for me.

I wish I had taken my camera along with us because Spring is finally showing up in southern Ohio. The daffodils are out, tulips are starting to bloom, weeping cherry trees are a vision of flowing pinks and whites, huge magnolia trees are filled with brilliant pink flowers and the Bradford pear trees look like brides swathed in satin and lace. How Mom would have loved that drive!

We finished off the afternoon by having lunch with Denny's sister Connie, sharing our "usual", deluxe pizza and house salad at La Rosa's. Life is getting back to normal, at least for this day.

Bang, Bang

I have been waiting for the funeral director to contact me about several issues, not the least of which is the return of my mother's ashes so that we may place them with my father's ashes at the cemetery (where all the famous Daytonians are buried, ahem!)

This afternoon the funeral director called to tell me that he was mailing the death certificates to me and oh, by the way, was it okay to deliver Mom's ashes on Monday because he was on his way to visit his parents and he forgot that he had Mom's ashes with him and he was already an hour away on I-71.

WHAT?????

I won't go into the ensuing conversation, but in the end I told him to go on to visit his parents and I'd get the ashes from him on Monday. In the meantime, my mother is on the road and I'm not. How funny is that?

It wasn't an hour later that an unnamed cell phone company called to conduct a survey since I had canceled Mom's cell phone service. I told the girl whose first language was obviously not English that Mom wasn't available because she had passed away but she still wanted to do the survey so off we went with it. Breaking into her own spiel midway to explain that she knew my mother had passed on but IF she were to once again contract with a wireless company would she use "unnamed cell phone company" yes/no, I played the game and answered all the questions for a shot at a gift card for a dead person.

You just can't make this stuff up.

Pure and Utter Crapitude

The last few weeks came crashing down on me yesterday. Darb, Steve and Angela met Denny and I for breakfast and came home with us to visit before having to return to Delaware (OH) and Buffalo respectively. My aunt walked up the street to visit also and then my favorite (ex) sister-in-law dropped by so it was a nice way to spend the morning but after they all left I crashed and burned. The cold/flu/whatever that I have been fighting really kicked in with all the achiness, coughing, snotty nose, etc. and I gave in to it for the rest of the day.

Today I'm better, which is good since I have to meet with an estate attorney to start all the legal aspects of dealing with Mom's affairs. Busy-ness is good; I think less that way.

L'Chaim

Today is my mother's memorial service. Friends and fellow RVers Bill and Diane sent me this and I thought it was appropriate today to share it with you.

Peace be with you.

Something Different

Stole this from Kim to use because I'm out of words for a while.

I'm Learning

I'm learning that one of the best gifts Denny and I can give our sons is to have all our affairs in order, documented, in lists, in folders, easily locatable (a word?) in one place, instructions clear and concise, all "i"s dotted and "t"s crossed. Of course, that will never happen, but I can see now that it would be a terrific gift that would help in what is a very difficult and emotional time. One should be able to grieve before you have to deal with all these details.

Maybe it's better this way, because when the grief really hits, I'm not coming up for a while I'm afraid.

Blogging buds, I love you all. Every comment buoys me. I really will come stalk you all when we finally get back on the road again...kidding!

Maybe ;)

It's Cryin' Time Again

Last night I lost my mother and my best friend.

Thank all of you out there who kept Mom (and me and Denny) in your prayers and thoughts.

Good Morning

A gift for you this morning.

The Next Step

A representative of Hospice of Dayton met with me today to talk about palliative care for my mother. We discussed some options and for now have worked out that Mom will be released from the hospital tomorrow pending her surgeon's approval and moved to Hospice for evaluation by their staff. After a few days if it's deemed reasonable, we will move Mom home where I will care for her with the assistance of a variety of Hospice staff. While Mom would prefer to go straight home, she agreed to go along with this plan (hey--anything to get out of the hospital!)

Yesterday I arranged with Mom's attending physician to stop any further intrusive testing. We are keeping her on her oxygen, her antibiotics and her TPN, although the goal is to wean her off that as it is the possible cause of the yeast infection. She is no longer being monitored continuously and I have stopped nagging her to eat. From this point on, I will return control to Mom (and boy is that hard for a control freak!) She still has no appetite for solid food, although my brother's girlfriend brought Mom some of her homemade cheesecake in the form of tiny tarts and Mom said she ate two of them so "hurrah!" to Deb for bringing those. Mom is only able to whisper now for some reason--her oxygen levels are fine but I guess her energy reserves are shot. Last night I took her her favorite robe and soft throw and she seems to be sleeping more comfortably in them.

Me? I've succumbed to a cold and have started to droop a bit. But tomorrow's another day.

Normalcy

Normalcy

Pronunciation: \ˈnȯr-məl-sē\
Function: noun
Date: 1857
:the state or fact of being normal

Normal: everyday, humdrum. How I long for humdrum. How nice it was the other evening after a long day at the hospital to run to our favorite pizza joint for dinner and just sit and people watch and make snarky comments about the behavior of other people's children instead of discussing Mom's condition. How relaxing to sit for a few minutes playing mindless games on Pogo rather than make phone call after phone call updating friends and family about how my mother is doing on this particular day. How enervating to discuss the possibility of going on a cruise to the Panama Canal or spending another month at Myrtle Beach rather than thinking about the medical decisions I'm going to have to make in the not-so-distant future.

I had an almost normal day yesterday and it felt good.

At Yeast We Know

The yeast has been identified as candida blagrata. Still unknown is whether the fungal infection is coming from the TPN/PICC line or if it is the type of systemic fungal infection that affects the heart valve. The infectious disease doctor wants to try using a different type of antifungal medication (voriconazole) to see if it has a better result than what he's been trying. Mom had a echocardiogram the other day but it didn't positively rule out an infection to the heart and the doctor doesn't want to subject her to a Transesophageal echocardiogram as her health is too fragile. So he's going to try the new drugs, then remove the PICC line (and thus also removing the TPN as a possible source of infection) once Mom can swallow pills safely (it's a problem right now) and then if none of that works, will diagnose it as a systemic fungal infection of the heart valves by default and we will transition into making her comfortable from that point on. Whew, what a sentence that was!

At least today Mom was more talkative and alert. There were still periods of confusion and off-the-wall comments, but she ate some ice cream and pudding without too much nagging. Mom still is refusing all solid foods, saying her stomach is growling too much. We tell her it's because her stomach wants food, but on this point she adamant. No solid food. So be it.

I'll cross my fingers for another good day tomorrow.

Back Down

Last night I spent the night at the hospital again; Mom's temperature was back up to 102 degrees and she was very agitated. Neither of us got a lot of rest, but she made it through the night okay and even was able to eat a few bites of ice cream this morning. I went home to get some sleep and returned this afternoon to find that she was once again kind of out of her mind and very hot and agitated. Her infectious disease doctor explained that the central IV line cultures were clean so her current PICC line was not the source of the yeast infection and that the results of the echocardiogram hadn't been returned yet. I questioned him about the yeast infection effects on her heart and he said that if the infection was in the heart that she was not a candidate for valve replacement and that the staff would simply make Mom as comfortable as possible. That was a kick in the stomach.

A little later the pulmonary doctor came into the room and he was obviously taken aback by her condition. He pulled me aside and we discussed Mom's history a bit and the fact that we had altered her original DNR orders. His advice to me was to reinstate the original orders as a kindness to my mother. Another kick in the gut.

So for the moment, we wait to hear what the echo results are to know where we go. A simple yeast infection means treatment at a local extended care facility and an eventual return home. Or there is the other.....

It's the Yeast of My Worries

The doctors ordered more blood work because my mother started running a fever again and this time they found yeast in her blood stream. Not a good thing to have to fight when your body is already worn down from trying to recover from surgery and other infections. So there will be no going home for a while. Today Mom was really agitated when I arrived at the hospital and was making no sense at all when she said something. She finally fell into a more restful sleep around 10AM and the surgeon who wanted to examine her incision actually walked away to allow her the rest. That was a surprise.

The Megase hasn't kicked in yet to increase Mom's appetite, but I got her to eat a few bites of cheesecake at lunchtime. The infectious disease doctor wants the TPN line out and a feeding tube in but not until she gets another abdominal CT to make sure there are no abscesses there. It just seems like it will never end. It's hard to watch Mom try to sleep when she seems so miserable and I can't do much to help, other than to hold her hand and make soothing sounds.

And what goes through my mind are the lyrics "My heart went up, down,
Like a merry-go-round and 'round,
Like a falling star, down, down,
Oh, oh, oh, dum-didly, dum-didly,
Dum-dum-dum dum." (Do you know where that's from? It's Dickey Lee's "I Saw Linda Yesterday")

A Picture for Mom

Since my mother is in the pulmonary care unit, there are no fresh flowers allowed as they are possible allergens. This evening after dinner I glanced out the back door at Mom's house to look for Patches when I saw a flash of yellow in the corner of the yard. There among the dessicated remains of last year's flower bed I discovered two small patches of these yellow flowers which I know that neither she nor I planted. I've been gradually adding perennials to Mom's flower beds in the backyard as she has gotten older and weaker and less interested in tending the flowers. This way the flowers simply come up every year and she doesn't have to mess with them too much. We've tended to purchase lavender colored flowers, along with the occasional white or pink plant that tickles our fancy. Some make it, some don't, as Mom has a heavy growth of wisteria that she loves that climbs the privacy fence and it tends to shade a lot of the flower bed. So these cheerful little lovelies were a pleasant surprise and tomorrow I'll take a print in to show Mom to brighten up her day. And maybe I'll even figure out what they are for when she asks their name.

Looking Ahead

Yesterday was a better day for Mom. She was able to move to a chair to attempt to eat (eating is still a problem) and she stayed awake a tiny bit to talk to my aunt. When Mom dozed, she actually went into a restful sleep.

The doctors are still clueless over the source of infection and they have backed off the antibiotics to avoid making them ineffective. All we can do is wait to see how Mom's body responds this time around.

In the meantime, Denny has a bad cough that I'm afraid will turn into bronchitis; it's something he gets occasionally when we return to Ohio. So no more sharing of glasses and kisses for a while as I don't need to catch whatever he has and take it to the hospital with me. Bummer.

In an effort to make life seem more normal for us, Denny has decided to start making a spreadsheet of some interesting sounding places to eat from the "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives" show on the Food Network channel. While we won't travel to an area simply to eat somewhere, if we happen to be in or near a town on the list, we'll make a point to try it out. Yesterday I used some of our rewards points from our credit card to order a metal detector, figuring to use it to look for gold flakes and nuggets when we're geocaching out in the mountains of Arizona as there is still gold in them thar hills. The two of us decided that we would be optimistic about returning to our lifestyle of travel and this is one way to create some new goals for when we once again hit the road. I have no clue as to when that will actually happen, but happen it will.

One step at a time.

Downward Spiral

I guess I jinxed Mom by saying how well she was doing yesterday. This morning I received a call from Mom's nurse saying Mom had spiked a fever again and wasn't doing well. She's receiving the most potent antibiotics that she can get by IV and they just don't seem to be working. Lab tests show negative for c.diff, urinary tract infections and infections in the central IV line. Chest x-rays shows fluid in the lower lobs of the lungs but her lungs sound fairly clear. The CT of her abdomen didn't show anything obvious so the doctors are stumped. There is talk of more tests and more labs but Mom is so tired and so worn down that I don't know how much more she can handle. I've told the doctor that there won't be anymore surgery and he agrees that she isn't strong enough at this point and he's willing to make her comfortable and leave her alone if she doesn't improve soon. And I think that's where we'll leave it.

Today was a family day; one of Mom's sisters stopped by with her husband and Denny came to the hospital when I couldn't hold it together during a phone call. Later my sister and brother stopped by along with my brother's girlfriend. I think Mom appreciated it, but she was in and out of consciousness all day and very obviously in discomfort if not distress.

The bad days are beginning to outnumber the good.

On the Upswing Once Again

Yesterday when I arrived at Mom's room she was awake and getting ready for a sponge bath. Yay! Her fever was down and I managed to talk her into sitting up in the big chair in her tiny room where she stayed during breakfast. Mom even managed to walk out into the hallway with the physical therapist when he arrived. Double yay.

There's still no word on what caused the massive infection to return, but a CT seems to rule out another abscess or leakage in the colon. The doctors seem to be leaning towards blood poisoning/infection from the central line IV but the lab results aren't back yet for that. Whatever caused it, my mother is once again in a weakened state and she'll have a longer hospital stay because of it.

And so the fourth week begins...

Long Hours and Anger

Yesterday I was very encouraged about my mother's condition; she was alert, watched some TV and read a little bit of the book I brought her. She ate several bites of each meal and made sense when she spoke.

Today? Bad news. Mom's condition deteriorated once again. She wouldn't wake up, was once again a little out of her head and with six blankets on her was still chilled. It was obvious to me that something was badly wrong but I couldn't get anyone at the hospital to realize it or to care. I was *this* close to standing in the hallway outside of Mom's room and screaming at the top of my lungs to get someone's attention. The nurse finally called the attending doctor for me who realized that Mom was worse than yesterday and that something was not right. The doctor noticed the ostomy bag had not been emptied and I explained about the bag leaking badly two separate times last week, each time leaching into area of Mom's surgical incision. Blood work was ordered, blood gases were done as well as a chest X-ray and the doctor said she would order a brain scan if nothing was found in the blood work. Well, apparently infection was found after I finally went home (I was too close to exploding at the staff at this point) and according to my brother who took over in the afternoon, Mom is now back on heavy duty antibiotics. Blood gases were in the normal range with no word on the blood work but Don's girlfriend (a nurse) seems to think sepsis is a concern. So here we go again. And I'm wondering how much of this could have been prevented if the staff had dealt with the ostomy bag situation properly the first time.

The picture above? The Dayton skyline at night as seen from the hospital parking garage, something I've become quite familiar with over the past three weeks.

Appalled

Hospitals are for healing. That's what I thought. Today I was shocked to see how this particular hospital seems to be doing the opposite for my mother.

I've already mentioned she had a colostomy. That means she has to wear a bagging device to collect her body wastes. The device consists of an adhesive disk called a "wafer" that the collection bag snaps onto, rather like a Tupperware lid seals to a bowl. This evening when I was getting ready to move my mother to a chair so she could eat her dinner I noticed her bedding was wet and thought she had an accident. It turns out her wafer was loose and leaking into her open incision and that someone in the hospital had papertaped the wafer to Mom's skin rather than put on a new wafer. WTF??? There were no ET (enterostomal) nurses available to put a new wafer on, nor were any of the more experienced burn unit technicians around (they had all gone home for the night). My brother was told that someone would fix it in the morning. GAH!!! It's almost as if the staff no longer cares about Mom's care now that she is scheduled to be released next week. To say I am furious is a bit of an understatement right now.

Okay, deep breath. But if an infection develops in the incision because of this you'll be able to hear me all the way to Maine.

Stay tuned.

I Hope It's the Drugs

Today when I was trying to get my mother to eat her breakfast she kept staring over my shoulder. I finally asked her what she saw back there and she said "your dad". "My dad is behind me?" I asked. "Yes", she said. Okay. Never mind the fact that my father has been dead for twelve years. So there is still weirdness going on even when the nurse hasn't given my mother any pain medication. That's a bit worrisome considering the fact she's an alcohol abuser.

Mom slept through breakfast today when I was there and according to the nurse she slept through lunch and she was trying very hard to sleep through dinner when I left (it was time for my brother to be the nagger). Social services has sent the paperwork to a local nursing home that can and will handle Mom if she still needs the TPN IV for nutrition. The hospital would prefer that Mom was eating solids when they release her but I think they will release her regardless. The nurse was able to get Mom up to walk to the hallway today which is good, but the mental confusion she's still suffering has me really concerned. But it seems I'm the only one who is bothered by it (maybe it's just the idea of my dead father looking over my shoulder--ya think?) I'll see what happens over the next couple of days. Friday would be the earliest the hospital would release her according to Social Services with Monday being more likely. So Mom is improving physically but declining mentally; not the win/win situation I was hoping for.

On the bright side, our temperatures are supposed to get into the 50s tomorrow. I'm ready for sunshine, daffodils and the smell of freshly turned earth in the flower beds. Yep, I'm definitely ready for Spring.

Sleeping Beauty

Five phone calls and two Cosmos into my evening and I'm thinking I need to get something into my stomach here. Mom slept the day away and I had to oversee a scary-weird PCT (personal care tech) who was male, semi-gay and WAY too weird and rough for my liking to handle my mother's bath and personal care. I realize times are hard but don't hospitals have an obligation to vet these employees? Wow. Okay, I need to eat.

My brother had to leave the hospital because the hospital room is claustrophobic (you have all of 18 inches of room to move around in, literally). He and I have been estranged for years, but he is finally coming around and we are connecting. So something good is coming from all this. Mom is still only semi-conscious today even though she hasn't had dilaudid since 1AM this morning and she's still saying things that scare me. I'm hoping that the sleep she's getting will do her good, but the fact that she's only aware for about ten seconds at a time worries me. But her heart rate is better, her oxygen levels are decent and her pain levels are down. I just don't want her to choose sleeping over life.

We'll see.

Again, many thanks to those who have written with love, care and support--I love you guys!

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

This week my emotions have been on a merry-go-round. We get good news followed by bad when it comes to the status of my mother's health. Friday she was moved from cardiac intensive care to pulmonary care and she was almost chatty at times, albeit a bit goofy from the new pain meds. Yesterday after my Indiana cousin and her daughter left, Mom went into afib. At one point during the visit Mom didn't know who the three of us were, telling the nurse she assumed we must be relatives since we were there visiting her. There was talk of "people out to get your dad", someone might be after Datha (my cousin), gila monsters and that I should put the little tequila bottles in my purse when I go. Okay, so some of it was funny, but most of it was worrisome because I had no idea of where all this stream-of-consciousness was coming from.

The good things this week: being moved, being allowed solid foods, having her digestive system start functioning. The not-so-good: the cath stays in, the afib, the mental confusion and my impression that Mom might start to give up soon. She is very, very tired.

This journey's final destination might not be where I thought it was.