Yesterday, Karen called and asked if I would like to accompany her on a visit to Annie, who is in University Hospital at this time. I was very pleased that she had thought to ask me because I have Annie on my mind so often these days. Annie is one of Karen's closest friends, they went to high school and college together and have remained close throughout the years. She has been quite ill for the last six months. Karen either didn't know yet or just failed to tell me that she, Karen, was having 'one of those days'!
Our trip downtown was fairly uneventful. We entered the University Hospital Parking Garage and drove clear to the top, maybe six or seven floors, but found not one parking place. As we exited the garage, the attendant gave us a paper with instructions for getting to another garage on Chestnut Street. ((A deer was running loose on Chestnut on Wednesday and it growled at a news man trying to take its picture.) Anyway, Karen said, "Why don't you just get out here and wait for me?" We were just across the street from Univ. Hosp. entrance so I got out and she drove on in her quest for a parking place.
I am a people watcher so I rather enjoyed watching the people come and go. I saw a lot of blue scrubs, the predominant dress for the day, and a lot of people with back packs, one person walking a dog,must have been a downtown dog, and a number of people who were pale and wan and looked like they needed attention. The streets were filled with buses, trucks, taxis, and cars, some of which were Jaguars or Mercedes (doctors) and some junkers (patients). I was very entertained.
After a prolonged length of time, I became concerned, I had visions of the headlines in the paper or the lead story on the 6 o'clock news: "Woman abandons mother on street corner in downtown Louisville!" I didn't even know which direction I should be looking to see if I could spot her coming for me. So I looked in all directions, a bus pulled up to the corner and I, for a nano second, thought she might get off the bus. The taxi cabs didn't even slow down so I didn't expect any thing from them.
Suddenly, rain drops appeared on the sidewalk in front of me so I ducked around the corner of the building that I had been leaning against. Large pillars surrounded me but I thought I was under cover and would be protected there. Not! The rain quickly became a deluge and the wind picked up and the pillars only protected me from being blown away. As I left my house this morning, I ran back in to get a light sweater in case it turned cool but I failed to pick up my ever present hat. I had a few biopsies performed on my head a few days ago and I was angry at myself for forgetting the hat when I felt the pain of the rain drops falling on my head. Actually they were not falling they were pelting my head.
The sky had darkened and the situation was looking quite grim when Karen came hurling around the corner, shrieking,"This is a nightmare! I swear to you I had this nightmare just the other night! I was lost downtown and it was storming..." True deja vu!!
Water was dripping from her hair, from her nose, she looked like she had just stepped out of a swimming pool. I fished ,no pun intended, a kleenex out of my wet purse and gave it to her to help dry her face and eyes. We took off running across the walkway to the hospital. The water was coursing down the street, it looked like a stream, we waded through it at full speed and finally reached the marquee where we were protected from the 20 or 30 mile an hour wind. I just barely made it because the wind almost blew me off my feet, my wet feet!
The dry people on the elevator remarked, "Is it raining outside?"
We stopped in the restroom on the 7th floor where Annie's room is to repair some of the damage. Karen was wet through and through! She combed her hair and sopped some of the water off but she still looked pretty miserable. I fared much better than she because she had walked about four blocks in the deluge. She did get a parking place in the garage but took a wrong turn when she left, on foot and realized her error when she arrived back at the garage. She had apparently walked around the block. Needless to say she was pretty mad, I hesitate to say, 'mad as a wet hen'.
When we got to Annie's room we informed her that,' greater love hath no...' She meant no offence but couldn't help but laugh her head off. Oh,boy.She said ,"Why did you come in the rain?"
Her lunch had just arrived and so while she ate she regaled us with an account of her room mate. The room mate was a bit bizarre. She started telling Annie about some of her friends or relatives and she kept getting phone calls. She would yell at the caller and tell them not to call her again and then she would cry aloud. For some reason the phone did not ring on her side of the curtain, it only rang on Annie's side, so Annie would have to answer it. Someone named Joe kept calling. We were having a conversation on our side of the curtain and she would join in and laugh when ever we laughed and be generally disruptive, in between phone calls.
We had some very serious, personal discussions with Annie and had a few tears but then some conversations that were very funny. A nurse that had been in the Army with Annie and now works at University brought her own lunch and came to visit with Annie while she ate. She is a psyc. nurse and since they are doing some remodeling work in the usual psyc. department they have temporarily moved to a trailer out in the back parking lot so she finds it more relaxing to eat in Annie's room. Good visiting with her.
While we were visiting the nurses and aides came in and moved the off balance room mate out. We were so interesting in our own selves that we didn't even notice what was going on until a nurse stuck her head around the curtain and said, "She's gone! We moved her to a private room!"
The Psyc. nurse left and we went on with our visit but I did get the other chair in the room and move it over so we could both sit down. Annie, with former room mate in mind, was recalling a time when Linda Mansfield went to a mixer at Central State Hospital during their high school days and at one point when one of the guys she had met there made an absurd comment Linda said without thinking, "Are you Crazy?"
In the middle of our laughing the person from housekeeping came in to sanitize the vacated section of the room and simply joined our conversation. She shared 'war stories' as Annie called them. She, at one point asked if Karen and I were sisters! Annie said," no, its mother and daughter." From that point on she referred to me as "Mom". She was about 5'8" tall and was African American and felt very free to be a part of our gathering. Sheez!
Shortly, thereafter when Annie was telling us about the last time she was in the hosp. One of her friends took her soiled underwear home to launder it for her and she hasn't seen it since. Once again we were laughing and a nurse's aid walked in and said, "Each room is only supposed to have two chairs so I will have to take one of these chairs because the room over there has six visitors in it and they only have one chair." I suggested she could have waited until we left to take the extra chair out of the room and she said that the person in the room was not going to 'make it' and her visitors needed to sit down. Unbeknown to Karen, she must have rolled her eyes, because as the girl was removing the chair from the room she snarled, "And you don't need to roll your eyes!" Now between the time they moved the off kilter room mate, who was laughing and blabbing on the phone and butting into our conversations,and the chair incident, she must have had a sudden down turn. The chair was going to her and her six visitors that had suddenly showed up. Rude behavior on the part of the aide and me thinks she was stretching the truth just a tad!
By this time we decided to end our visit and as we were starting to leave Karen mentioned the fact that the next time we were going to come on a sunny day. Promptly, Annie burst into song and without losing a beat we joined her singing a familiar tune: "We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when, but I know we'll meet again, some sunny day...."
The housekeeper said,"Goodbye Mom." and we left. Our shoes were not dry yet and Karen looked not quite as bedraggled but we walked the few blocks to the parking garage and used my old trick of hitting the panic button on the remote to help us locate the car and we were off. There was a small glitch when Karen couldn't recall where her ticket was but it was easy to find and we were on our way.
Karen called this morning to say when she got home she could not get into her house at first. They have a new lock and for some reason the key wouldn't work. She was at the point of taking some drastic action but decided to try the back door and finally got in. When she has a bad day she doesn't mess around! We're hoping she got it all out of her system!
You might want to visit the sick and do your corporal work of mercy It is refreshing! Ciao
Epilogue
Annie called Karen and pretended to be an administrator of the hosp. and banned her from coming again to the hospital in her "drowned rat" condition and giving the hospital a bad name!
Friday, May 27, 2011
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Wild Birds and Beasts
I have an affinity for birds. I am facinated by them and enjoy watching them. I'm not what you would call a 'bird watcher' with binoculars and a membership in a 'bird watching' organization. I just like to observe the birds. I do have bird feeders and bird houses and bushes that attract birds and some that accomodate them as building sites for their nests. I particularly like humming birds and have a very unique humming bird feeder that Gregg got for me. I like to think that the birds know that I'm their friend. If the feeders run out of food they all chirp and 'yell' at me if I step out onto the porch. They are not shy about coming around when I am sitting out on the deck. The doves will even walk right past my feet as I sit there.
I have a book that helps me identify the birds that do come to the feeders and houses. I am pleased when a rare bird stops in for a bite to eat when it is migrating. I make note of the time and date so that I can look for it again the next trip through. I have a "Bird Inn" you might say.
I've won some money a few times at the Track because if I'm at the track and a horse with 'Bird' in it's name is running, I bet on it. You may recall an Oaks winner a few years ago that had Bird in its name and Derby 136 had Mine That Bird with fantastic odds, and another Bird, I believe Summer Bird, showed in that race and I came out with over $300.00. Good Birds!
Occasionally a bird mistakes my glass door for free air and flies into the door with quite a crash. I think they are kamikaze birds,I hate dealing with the little corpses; on one occasion a bird hit the door with it's wings spread out and left an imprint on the door glass that resembled the Holy Spirit! (Or could it have been the Holy Spirit paying me a visit?) There was no corpse left behind! Mayabe that was bird rapture day!
A bird seems to think that my mail box would make a good nesting place. Every day I've had to clean the makings of a nest, out of the mail box. I finally told JoAnne about it and she said that Jay loved devising things to thwart the wild animals from infringing. He put an elaborate devise on the box and now the mail man has to unhook a hook to put the mail in and then re-hook the door of the box. (I considered just putting the recycle bin out there and telling the mail man to just drop the mail in there. It would save me a trip.)
On Monday I was not having one of my better days, the electricity had gone off and it wasn't even storming, the CO warning devise was bleeping every 30 seconds and I could not figure out how to make it quit nor could I figure out why I had no power. I came down to find LG&E's number so I could call and report the outage and discovered a baby bird trying to fly out of its nest above my kitchen window. Its little foot was caught and it kept trying and trying but became exhausted with the effort and would stop and rest for awhile and then try again. I could not reach it because the nest hangs from the eave so I called Jay and JoAnne and asked for assistance with all my problems. We never did get the bleeping bleeper to stop, we had to take the battery out and abandon that task, Jay got the electricity back on, I don't know how or why it was off and then he tackled the task of setting the bird free. JoAnne and I watched while he climbed up on a stool and loosened the chain that was holding the foot. The bird flew up when it was freed and scared all of us. Fortunately, Jay did not fall, the bird was crippled but managed to get away and all was well again.
I bought two tomato plants to plant in containers on the deck. I am tired of the store bought tomatoes and hope to grow some 'real' tomatoes. I planted the smaller of the two plants and kept the other one in the house until I can get the necessary items to plant it. The planted one was only about 4 or 5 inches tall and I had it in a clay pot... for one day! A squirrell had breakfast the next morning! He dug the plant up and ate the roots. Poor plant never had a chance! I'm holding off on the other plant until I can get to Home Depot and get some screen or something to ward off the tomato invador!
Today there was an "on the scene" reporter on the news at 6 AM when I turned on the TV. He was very animated because he was reporting on some deer that had found their way into downtown Louisville, on Chestnut Street. As he and his camera man approached the deer, one of them GROWLED at him. He was astonished. He kept saying,"I didn't know deer growled!" Who knew?
Life is not only curiouser and curiouser it is also tediouser and tediouser. Ciao
I have a book that helps me identify the birds that do come to the feeders and houses. I am pleased when a rare bird stops in for a bite to eat when it is migrating. I make note of the time and date so that I can look for it again the next trip through. I have a "Bird Inn" you might say.
I've won some money a few times at the Track because if I'm at the track and a horse with 'Bird' in it's name is running, I bet on it. You may recall an Oaks winner a few years ago that had Bird in its name and Derby 136 had Mine That Bird with fantastic odds, and another Bird, I believe Summer Bird, showed in that race and I came out with over $300.00. Good Birds!
Occasionally a bird mistakes my glass door for free air and flies into the door with quite a crash. I think they are kamikaze birds,I hate dealing with the little corpses; on one occasion a bird hit the door with it's wings spread out and left an imprint on the door glass that resembled the Holy Spirit! (Or could it have been the Holy Spirit paying me a visit?) There was no corpse left behind! Mayabe that was bird rapture day!
A bird seems to think that my mail box would make a good nesting place. Every day I've had to clean the makings of a nest, out of the mail box. I finally told JoAnne about it and she said that Jay loved devising things to thwart the wild animals from infringing. He put an elaborate devise on the box and now the mail man has to unhook a hook to put the mail in and then re-hook the door of the box. (I considered just putting the recycle bin out there and telling the mail man to just drop the mail in there. It would save me a trip.)
On Monday I was not having one of my better days, the electricity had gone off and it wasn't even storming, the CO warning devise was bleeping every 30 seconds and I could not figure out how to make it quit nor could I figure out why I had no power. I came down to find LG&E's number so I could call and report the outage and discovered a baby bird trying to fly out of its nest above my kitchen window. Its little foot was caught and it kept trying and trying but became exhausted with the effort and would stop and rest for awhile and then try again. I could not reach it because the nest hangs from the eave so I called Jay and JoAnne and asked for assistance with all my problems. We never did get the bleeping bleeper to stop, we had to take the battery out and abandon that task, Jay got the electricity back on, I don't know how or why it was off and then he tackled the task of setting the bird free. JoAnne and I watched while he climbed up on a stool and loosened the chain that was holding the foot. The bird flew up when it was freed and scared all of us. Fortunately, Jay did not fall, the bird was crippled but managed to get away and all was well again.
I bought two tomato plants to plant in containers on the deck. I am tired of the store bought tomatoes and hope to grow some 'real' tomatoes. I planted the smaller of the two plants and kept the other one in the house until I can get the necessary items to plant it. The planted one was only about 4 or 5 inches tall and I had it in a clay pot... for one day! A squirrell had breakfast the next morning! He dug the plant up and ate the roots. Poor plant never had a chance! I'm holding off on the other plant until I can get to Home Depot and get some screen or something to ward off the tomato invador!
Today there was an "on the scene" reporter on the news at 6 AM when I turned on the TV. He was very animated because he was reporting on some deer that had found their way into downtown Louisville, on Chestnut Street. As he and his camera man approached the deer, one of them GROWLED at him. He was astonished. He kept saying,"I didn't know deer growled!" Who knew?
Life is not only curiouser and curiouser it is also tediouser and tediouser. Ciao
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Say it isn't So!
Do you suppose that down through the centuries there has always been a tendency to ask, "What's this World coming to?" When Shakespear was seen wearing an earring in his left lobe? When Lady Godiva rode naked through the streets of Coventry, on horseback, to get her husband to abolish heavy taxes? When pregnant women were seen on the streets in broad day light!When Howard Hughes designed a bra for Jane Russell? When the mention of an 'unmentionable' was crass? Shocking, shocking behaviors were whispered in front of children to protect their innocence. We have moved on from that era, big time!
Gradually we entered the "Anything Goes' era. What is considered shocking in this day and age? Women have long since lost any sense of modesty. I am not opposed to short shorts, if you browse through my photo albums you will see many pictures of me in short shorts! I wore them long before "hot pants" became the fashion of the day. My sister ,Mart, once said, "Are there any pictures of Betty where she doesn't have on shorts?" I liked shorts and still do! However, when I wore my short shorts my 'cheeks' did not hang out. When that came into vogue, I thought it was indecent and humiliating.
I also passed on the 'bare the boobs era'. We are still being affronted each and every day by excessive boob exposure. If the girl doesn't have large boobs, she can buy them in any department store. I do remember some of my highschool friends stuffing Kleenex into their bras to help nature along, but even then putting up a 'false front' was frowned on by the guys. Some falsies, as they were called, look like balloons and make the girls look like freaks of nature rather than 'sex symbols'. Some resort to surgery to enhance their appearance. Husbands, willingly pay for some of these enhancements. That is shocking to me! Are men so gullible that they can be fooled by silicone implants that look like jelly fish?
NOW, we are entering another era! Have you heard of Representive Aaron Schock (R) of Illinois? He was the cover boy on Men's Health Magazine this month. He is shirtless and exposing, for all to see, his abs! Also known as his six pac. I shudder to think of all that this could lead to. A few years ago Abakrombie and Fitch crossed the line by displaying, in their catalog, a suggestive picture of one of their male models but this picture of a semi nude guy showing off his abs is a United States Congressional member! He has appeared before in a magazine dressed in a hot pink checked shirt, a turquoise belt and white pants. His picture, at that time, raised a few eyebrows but this is somewhat different.
If this were to set a trend, could we now expect Newt Gingridge, Mitch McConnell,David Williams shirtless and...well I guess, ab-less in their campaign ads? Many of their six pacs went south and turned into twelve pacs. Will the politicians run out and get silicone abs to enhance their torsos? Can they do belly lifts in an effort to find their abs? Could this lead to fake ab vests? Or wait a minute, could they come out with a Kevlar ab vest, since everyone will be carrying? The possibilities are staggering!
On Derby day they interviewed a man on TV that was wearing chaps and when he turned around he had just a pair of red skivvies on besides the chaps. Provocative! One can only hope that there were no Congressmen watching.
Let us hope that the gluteus maximus muscles will stay out of sight. I know the heart is a muscle, what about the brain? Maybe there should be more effort to develop the brain and keep the brawn under wraps.Ciao!
Gradually we entered the "Anything Goes' era. What is considered shocking in this day and age? Women have long since lost any sense of modesty. I am not opposed to short shorts, if you browse through my photo albums you will see many pictures of me in short shorts! I wore them long before "hot pants" became the fashion of the day. My sister ,Mart, once said, "Are there any pictures of Betty where she doesn't have on shorts?" I liked shorts and still do! However, when I wore my short shorts my 'cheeks' did not hang out. When that came into vogue, I thought it was indecent and humiliating.
I also passed on the 'bare the boobs era'. We are still being affronted each and every day by excessive boob exposure. If the girl doesn't have large boobs, she can buy them in any department store. I do remember some of my highschool friends stuffing Kleenex into their bras to help nature along, but even then putting up a 'false front' was frowned on by the guys. Some falsies, as they were called, look like balloons and make the girls look like freaks of nature rather than 'sex symbols'. Some resort to surgery to enhance their appearance. Husbands, willingly pay for some of these enhancements. That is shocking to me! Are men so gullible that they can be fooled by silicone implants that look like jelly fish?
NOW, we are entering another era! Have you heard of Representive Aaron Schock (R) of Illinois? He was the cover boy on Men's Health Magazine this month. He is shirtless and exposing, for all to see, his abs! Also known as his six pac. I shudder to think of all that this could lead to. A few years ago Abakrombie and Fitch crossed the line by displaying, in their catalog, a suggestive picture of one of their male models but this picture of a semi nude guy showing off his abs is a United States Congressional member! He has appeared before in a magazine dressed in a hot pink checked shirt, a turquoise belt and white pants. His picture, at that time, raised a few eyebrows but this is somewhat different.
If this were to set a trend, could we now expect Newt Gingridge, Mitch McConnell,David Williams shirtless and...well I guess, ab-less in their campaign ads? Many of their six pacs went south and turned into twelve pacs. Will the politicians run out and get silicone abs to enhance their torsos? Can they do belly lifts in an effort to find their abs? Could this lead to fake ab vests? Or wait a minute, could they come out with a Kevlar ab vest, since everyone will be carrying? The possibilities are staggering!
On Derby day they interviewed a man on TV that was wearing chaps and when he turned around he had just a pair of red skivvies on besides the chaps. Provocative! One can only hope that there were no Congressmen watching.
Let us hope that the gluteus maximus muscles will stay out of sight. I know the heart is a muscle, what about the brain? Maybe there should be more effort to develop the brain and keep the brawn under wraps.Ciao!
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Derby 137
Derby 137 has come and gone. Brian takes us to the Backside every year and we set up camp and spend the day. Some of us go as early as 5 AM and we all stay until the horses are put to bed! It's dark when we get there and dark when we get home. It is like a big family picnic except that about 10 feet from the fence we have in front of our area the thoroughbred horses are running! We are really up close and personal with the horses, jockeys, out-riders, ponies, track maintenance trucks, starting gates, owners, trainers and a multitude of others, including the ambulanace that follows after the horses. We look across the track and see the Twin Spires and the hundred and sixty five thousand people that paid big money to be there and know that none of them can join us. You can't buy your way in.
This year we had quite a group, usually there are about ten or twelve of us but this year there were twenty six or seven of us. Big group!
Our spot is located right across from the press building and it has betting windows, restrooms and tv monitors. We make our bets there but you do have to stand in line to get to the windows. The crowd is usually very jovial and chatty as they move slowly through the lines. There are no food venues Backside so every one has to bring their own food. Some people bring their grills and cook burgers, steaks, hot dogs etc. while others bring KFC or Popeyes, or various sandwiches. Snacks, dips, vegie treys, and barby-Que are evident all around. Coolers filled with soft drinks and an ocassional beer, maybe even a small box of wine find their way in, too.
The crowd is very well behaved, there are lots of laughs, lots of funny chatter and horse talk. The racing programs are ubiquitous and after each race there is joy for the winners and teeth gnashing for the losers. I do believe we had a few more losers than winners though. Linda may have been the only member of our group that had "Animal Kingdom" across the board but some of us had others in other races . If there were any big winners among us they kept it to themselves!
We all joined in on singing "My Old Kentucky Home" and the people that do not know the words were urged to learn the words during the coming year so that they, too, can consider themselves one of us! If they can eke out a tear or two during the chorus,"Weep no more, my Lady..." all the better!
Thanks, again Brian. You are a great host! I won't name all of the group with us but suffice it to say that Mike, Karen, Linda, Gregg and of course Brian were all in attendance and Keith called to tell us he did have "Animal Kingdom" at the Dog Track, where he bets in Sarasota, so he ,also,was a big winner. Derby 138 maybe, he will get to come.
Until next year, may the 'horse 'be with you! Ciao
This year we had quite a group, usually there are about ten or twelve of us but this year there were twenty six or seven of us. Big group!
Our spot is located right across from the press building and it has betting windows, restrooms and tv monitors. We make our bets there but you do have to stand in line to get to the windows. The crowd is usually very jovial and chatty as they move slowly through the lines. There are no food venues Backside so every one has to bring their own food. Some people bring their grills and cook burgers, steaks, hot dogs etc. while others bring KFC or Popeyes, or various sandwiches. Snacks, dips, vegie treys, and barby-Que are evident all around. Coolers filled with soft drinks and an ocassional beer, maybe even a small box of wine find their way in, too.
The crowd is very well behaved, there are lots of laughs, lots of funny chatter and horse talk. The racing programs are ubiquitous and after each race there is joy for the winners and teeth gnashing for the losers. I do believe we had a few more losers than winners though. Linda may have been the only member of our group that had "Animal Kingdom" across the board but some of us had others in other races . If there were any big winners among us they kept it to themselves!
We all joined in on singing "My Old Kentucky Home" and the people that do not know the words were urged to learn the words during the coming year so that they, too, can consider themselves one of us! If they can eke out a tear or two during the chorus,"Weep no more, my Lady..." all the better!
Thanks, again Brian. You are a great host! I won't name all of the group with us but suffice it to say that Mike, Karen, Linda, Gregg and of course Brian were all in attendance and Keith called to tell us he did have "Animal Kingdom" at the Dog Track, where he bets in Sarasota, so he ,also,was a big winner. Derby 138 maybe, he will get to come.
Until next year, may the 'horse 'be with you! Ciao
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)