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Busy?

I thought last week was busy. But now I am busier than that. On Thursday morning I took Mike to the ER. They admitted him to the hospital that same afternoon because of two infections on both feet and kept him until Sunday afternoon. By the grace of God they discharged him on Sunday, when he proved he could walk a few steps with his walker, and I assured them that I could take care of the feet at home.

It’s wonderful to have him home again, but almost every minute of my time is spoken for. I am reminded of my dear friend in Prescott, who took care of her Dad for years, until he passed. What a labor of love. Hard labor, I know now. Caring for a loved one is one thing, but giving care in every aspect of life, all day long, plus change of medications that have to be taken on an empty stomach or just the opposite, with a meal, at designated times, is an exhausting job. But there are so many moments of joy, of great results, of gratitude, that it’s all worth it. Hospitals are a necessary evil at times.

Flu shots and Covid vaccines, Doctors appointments 

I’m filling our paperwork for the upcoming annual flu shots and the third Covid vaccine with Omicron. I finally got an appointment with and ENT for my dizziness to be checked; Mike got a followup appointment with the podiatrist, but the dermatologist is scheduling as far as December!

Good things

There are fewer Covid cases at the Club, but for now breakfasts and dinners are still delivered to the door, saving precious time. One day next week, we will get our storm door! The weather is still wonderful. Cooler in the early mornings, but still getting up to the sunny high seventies.

And that must be it for this week.

Be thankful for good health and safety,

Until next time,

Ronny

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Facebook (Meta) Portal TV

This is an amazing device that lets you see a whole living room on your large screen TV instead of just a face on a cell phone when you FaceTime with someone. Mike got one for his birthday from our children and we have had many amazing FaceTime conversations with family and friends already. It is a small device, connected to your TV, with a remote control. It only works with people who have WhatsApp, and I have not been able to find all our friends on WhatsApp yet. It works best with others who have a similar device, so that you feel you are in each other’s living rooms! Two of our friends in Holland were immediately interested, and I found it for them on Amazon.nl. All over the world, Amazon has literally everything you would ever need or want, and membership means you don’t ever have shipping costs.

My week in review: dizzying!

After I wrote this paragraph about our new Portal TV, on Saturday, we had a very nice brunch at the Club with friends on Sunday, and then a whirlwind of things prevented me from writing anything else until now.

Monday morning I was dizzy – not pleasant, but a good excuse to stay put in my chair and watch all the procedures around the beautiful funeral service in Westminster Chapel, the tour to Windsor castle and the service there. (Memories came flooding back of a service in Windsor Chapel I attended sixty-three years ago, when I was an au-pair with a family in Northwood for a summer.)  The whole day was impressive and beautiful; I hope many of you saw it live or will watch it later on YouTube.

Then a morning when the dog threw up in my office; an email came from the Executive director that Waltonwood now has six Covid cases. For us that meant filling out menus, breakfasts and dinners being delivered to the door; a visit with Mike to the Podiatrist; several trips to the pharmacy to pick up prescriptions, a visit from the Primary Care doctor this morning at 7:45, when I had barely stepped out of the shower after walking the dog. I just had time to throw on my robe, put Lani in the office and open the door.

The temperature in the house kept going up yesterday, to 79 degrees, while I had the thermostat at 72. I switched both ceiling fans that we have up to fast speeds, that helped a little where we were sitting. I found out that the thermostat has two AA batteries – five years old by now – which I replaced. Thank goodness Amazon had just delivered a new box of them. A call to the front desk told me the person was on the phone, so I left a message: our air conditioning does not work. Nothing happened, and today nothing had changed: the ceiling fans are working but the temperature in the living room is now 80 degrees. I kept calling the front desk until I finally got a live person and was connected with Maintenance. We will send someone to look at it tomorrow afternoon. 

And then I discovered that it is Wednesday today and I used to publish a new Blog Post at 6:00 a.m. every Wednesday. Well, here it is, hot off the press!

Have a wonderful week, stay cool if you can, and

Until next time!

Ronny 

A New Life! Retirement at its Best 2022-130

Our front yard (what’s in a name?) missing from the last post.

Life goes on

The dining room is open for sit down dining five days a week, and for Sunday brunch. We have decided, even if it would be nice to meet people, to pick up dinner and eat at home. Only Sunday brunch is special enough to go and stand in the omelette line and take home some things from the buffet for Sunday night.

A huge downpour filled up the pond again to an acceptable level, and I hope some of the fish survived living in a small puddle. Amazon comes and goes: they have everything under the sun, and I have become a good client. Most often I place an order just before bed, when I remember that there is something I need – soon! And Amazon delivers!

A Thai dinner

Last Tuesday, hosted by her husband and celebrated at our house, we got together with a total of six for a homecoming party with a Thai dinner. I got on the computer and planned to order everyone’s choices from our favorite Thai in Apex, to be delivered by Doordash. Duh! All Thai restaurants are closed on Tuesdays. I knew that of course, but it just had not registered that it was Tuesday. I frantically searched for other Thai menus online, found a Chinese restaurant that had yellow curry and fried rice and spring rolls, and so I ordered, to have it delivered just after our guests had arrived and we had poured some champagne. Well, Chinese Thai curry is just that, Chinese. I handed out chop sticks for some, because you need chop sticks for Chinese food. Thai food is eaten with a spoon and a fork; did you know that? It was not the wonderful food that we had had in mind, but we had a good time and our guests took all the leftovers home, which was great! Later on, when I looked up where this Chinese restaurant was located, I saw that it was all the way in Durham! That is why our Dasher had a hard time finding our address!

Advantage of a dental visit

For me, that is. I had an hour to fill when Mike had his cleaning done, and I opened a book on my Kindle. Wow! It had been months since I read a book. I chose a funny one, and am not sorry. Every free minute I read a little, and sometimes I can’t stop laughing. If you are interested, it’s a book by Dutchman Hendrik Groen, translated from Dutch and now an international bestseller. Two Old Men and a Baby. It was followed by two more books by the same author, and one of those became a movie. It takes place in the Netherlands and the scenes are recognizable for me. But really, anyone, if you want a good laugh, get this book. I am going to sit down and continue reading right now!

Be happy and until next time!

Ronny

P.S. I was in such a hurry to get to my book, that I forgot to publish it! So here it is, seven hours later!

 

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Life at Waltonwood after Covid

Changes in the dining room

With many newly hired servers and cooks, the dining room management has put out enormous efforts to train them like waiters in restaurants. After the weekly brunch on Sunday mornings, we will have sit down dinners every night, instead of buffet dinners, and the servers will take our order on a pad right at the table. The choices are: the Daily Special or something from the list of items available every day. Most people are looking forward to the new system, which takes us one step closer to the dining room experience when we first got here, five years ago.

Renovation

Little by little, floor by floor, contractors have been hard at work. New wallpaper, new carpeting (not to everyones liking), new colors on doors and doorposts and hand rails. The carpet, in dark blue and grey, reminds me of a Rohrshach test; it’s not a light and bright uplifting color scheme. The wallpaper, nondescript, is alright, but they should have painted the ceiling a light, bright white – there are so many different nuances of white – to avoid the impression of walking down a long, dark tunnel. All this was decided by Management in Michigan before Covid, so there is nothing we can do about it. Happy that it does not affect the cottages!

Storm doors

We heard that the coveted storm doors for the cottages were ordered and delivered three months ago, but there was nobody available to install them. That is so disappointing! We could have had more light and a view of our front yard all summer! The front yard, by the way, which is the walk up to the front door, is like a jungle. The Hibiscus with flowers in three different colors, has grown to over 6 feet, as high as the front door – mostly leaves, with only an occasional bloom. The same is true for the beautiful red Dipladenia, at first blooming profusely, then sending out long vines, first clinging to a little trellis I put up, then to each other in a long, twirling rope against the wall: leaves and more leaves, but no flowers. What could be the reason? I only planted them in Miracle Grow potting soil, never fertilized them. The Basil is a foot tall, we had a nice harvest of tomatoes from one plant, which is gone now. I almost gave up on the second plant, because the top had been scorched by the heat. But then, as it showed a few little yellow flowers, I added some Miracle grow potting soil, fertilized it with Miracle Grow, and lo and behold, it is coming back into full bloom, with a promising number of about 20 little flowers. Miracles for sure! The white Gardenias on both sides of the path are lush and full, and I do hope we’ll get some fragrant flowers soon. We have a little frog that lives in our jungle. I see it once in a while, in one of the pots, or hiding behind one.

The pond

Most life seems to have disappeared from the pond. Its water level dropped drastically over the past two weeks, the fountain stopped working, and finally, after I reported it to the Executive Director, she said they would’ve it checked by the inspector after Labor Day. The large turtles have crawled through our back yard on their way to the ponds in Wimbledon, the frog choir is silenced, the blue heron has not been seen, and only “our” goose family of three comes to visit occasionally. There are now two divided puddles of water and I can indeed cross the pond with only my feet getting muddy. The temperatures have dropped, but are still in the high eighties, and we have had no rain lately. But all in all, we do not have anything to complain about. So many people all over the world are much worse off without rain or with too much of it. We are thankful to be where we are, in our beautiful, cozy cottage at the end of the street.

Activities

With residents moving: in (house), or across (to Assisted Living or Memory Care), or up (to heaven), many new people are moving in as well, too many for us to get to know, since we are not at the Club very often. They organize many activities, as well as shopping and dinner outings on the bus. We choose to attend a few music performances, but since I still have our wonderful Ford Escape, I can go out any time, and we indulge in the use of a Door Dasher to pick up and deliver occasional dinners from the Thai or one of the other restaurants around. We are blessed!

Farewell and Hello again

Several of our dear friends have passed away: in the hospital, with Hospice or just suddenly because of a fall or a heart attack. Their partners move to a smaller apartment, or to a whole different place, closer to children. Even when friends move across to AL or MC, they disappear from sight, and there is little time in my life to go visit. We rejoiced when a cottage friend came home from Rehab, and when my  best friend returned from a six week vacation in upstate New York. We are organizing a welcome home dinner from the Thai at our house, for the six of us, old and current cottage friends.

Cleaning house

After going through my wardrobe and giving away 25 pounds of clothing that I had not worn for one or more years, I have gone through our book shelves. The books that I absolutely still want to read, I put on my Kindle, and many others I gave to my friend, who is an avid reader together with her husband and has many bookcases full of books  around her house. Then there was this beautiful, thick, warm winter jacket of Mike’s, that he only wore once or twice, many years ago. I hesitated to take it to Dorcas (Goodwill) and drove around one day to see if I could find the family on Walmart’s street corner with a sign, asking for food or clothing. No needy people anywhere I went. I had to think of our December in New York city, when I walked around with leftover pizza in my hands, searching for a homeless person, until I finally found one in Central Park, lying on the grass in the sun under a thin blanket. Remember that blog post? Then, this morning, coming home from the barber shop, Johnnie, the trash man was just emptying the trash bin into his cart. ‘Johnnie is back’ I had heard. He does not speak English very well, is an older gentleman, a hard worker with always a friendly greeting. I called him over to the garage, showed him the jacket, pointed to his chest and shoulders, then to the jacket and a said “extra large? Do you want to have it?” He nodded happily, let me put it back in the brown bag, smiled a big “thank you” and drove away with his treasure on the floor by the back seat. Now that is how I like to give away things we have no use for anymore.

Time is Money 

I know for sure how precious my time is. There are not enough hours in the day that I can sit down and read a book. I do not have enough time for some things. So am I poor?  No way. I am taking care of Mike, the house, the dog and everything that has to do with all three. Plus visits to doctors and the dentist, the barbershop and more. I’m sure you know all about those things too. But it is so wonderful to be healthy and able to do everything that makes for a happy life for both of us. A thankful person is a happy person. And that’s the truth.

May you be happy and healthy.

Until next time,

Ronny