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The phlebotomist got Dave's blood with one needle. But it took her a while to find a spot that wasn't bruised by previous draws.
He spent the rest of the day wrestling with the new printer. The printer won.
I mostly goofed off, but after my nap I went to Kroger for milk and lunch meat. Spent ninety-three dollars and six cents without even stocking up on frozen dinners — it was past time to go home before I got to the frozen food. I did buy one Hormel Compleat of every flavor.
Some time after we got back and left the car parked outside, I took advantage of the empty garage to pull down the disappearing staircase and look for the big fan. As the door opened, I realized with glee that we had never looked in the attic, and beside the hole, next to the box of bagasse desert dishes, was a logical spot for a box of packages of disposable washrags.
This isn't that good a story — there was an empty box in that spot, but the bath wipes were nowhere to be found.
But a while after closing the staircase, I happened to look at the north wall of the garage, and there on the floor, between the shelves and the pegs, was a carton of extra-large alcohol-free adult wipes.
It's a perfect spot: out of the way, but easy to get at.
The printer is working with Dave's computer, but mine doesn't recognize its existence. At least I can get a copy by sneakernetting to Dave's computer.
That was a really-greasy frozen pizza we had for supper; I had to scour the iron griddle I use for a pizza stone. It was roasted mushrooms with truffle oil, lots of cheese, no sauce. Good change of pace, but we don't want it again soon. We also had steamed corn (lots of butter) and a slice of the last-of-the-season tomato I bought at the ice-rink market.
My bike is still at the Trailhouse; I hope it's done Monday, before I go to Zale's for levothyroxin. I rode the flatfoot to the ice rink, but skipped all the rest. I'd done a major shopping at Kroger on Friday, so none of the places I would have gone were worth driving the car.
I got a few surprises when moving all the stuff that had accumulated in front of the flatfoot, and I had to pump up its tires. It took a while to find the pressure, which was molded black-on-black in small letters. At first I thought it was 00 (???), but when I made out "2 bar" I realized that it was 30 pounds. I'd thought it was forty pounds, so it's good that I kept hunting until I found it.
While meditating on "everyone likes pizza, but some people are picky about which kind", I had an idea for that recipe for cottage-cheese bread. I could divide the dough into six drop biscuits, flatten them into pizza crusts, and put on six different toppings. Cinnamon sugar on apple slices would be one. [Nov. 21: I threw out the cottage-cheese bread recipe after a while.]
The Remento-inspired entry in the September issue ended in a double ampersand to indicate that the anecdote isn't finished. I was annoyed when I learned that ampersand is a reserved character, and must be "escaped" or replaced by &. No other mark would work as well. But after a while, I realized that it's a feature: when I try to validate a file, every unfinished item will be marked as a mistake.
Some of my sewing pages have *lots* of double ampersands.
And now I've used up the energy I meant to use to complete the anecdote.
While I was in church, Dave got my computer talking to the printer. But Libre Office won't send proper boundary lines of tables to the printer. At least it shows a preview, so that I can see that it's wrong without wasting paper and toner.
The only place I have a table is my calendar, and I don't print out a new calendar page often enough to make it a bother to export to a PDF, print, and delete the PDF.
I passed Steve and Martha's house on my way home from church. For the Loveless side of the mailing list: Steve and Martha live in the house where Dave grew up.
Daisy was outside, and though she showed only mild interest in me, I spoke to her as I passed, saying that we'd been introduced and she had nothing to worry about. Steve heard me and came out, so I went in and visited a bit. Then Martha put lunch preparations on hold and led me down the steps to her garden, where she picked some leaves that I've already forgotten the name of. Green ones to wrap around food, like lettuce, and purple ones for making tea. I tried a green one with a slice of pinwheel for lunch, but haven't made tea yet.
On the steps, she said that having a bad hip made her understand why Claude and Evelyn were eager to build the house where Dave and I live. She gets on surprisingly well.
⁂
Meanwhile, back at the anecdote: I don't remember who gave us any of the neat things that we still have. Which would make me suggest to younger brides: "don't throw out the tags after you write the thank-you notes", were it not that wedding presents have gone out of style now that couples marry so late that they are merging two households instead of setting up a new one. (And if you are wondering what we did before gift registries, everybody told the bride's mother what they were bringing.)
So I don't know who gave us the aluminum-handled knives and forks: a paring knife that is always at my place at the table, a three-tined fork that is my favorite for scrambling eggs, a carving fork, and a butcher knife. The larger implements have been less useful, but the butcher knife played a role in the ceremony.
Both these stories are hearsay; I wasn't there at the time. When the church basement was being set up for the reception, they realized that they'd forgotten a knife to cut the cake. Aunt Doris found the butcher knife among the presents and stuck a bow from another present on it.
Since I carried a bouquet, I might have been there when they opened the florist box and realized that we'd forgotten a corsage for Grandmother. But the florist had sent two extra buttonhole carnations, Aunt Doris, more ribbon, and a lovely corsage.
Aunt Doris — Mother's brother's wife — was a resourceful person. Another story told of her was that she was in a car pulling a trailer (Man, I wish I knew the details!) and they inadvertently did something illegal that left them in a mess that they couldn't back out of because of the trailer. It was repeated as a moral lesson that when a policeman came to berate them, the first words out of Aunt Doris's mouth were "You have the authority".
So at her request, he used that authority to stop traffic and get them out of the mess.
⁂
There are acorn caps and broken acorn shells on the concrete in front of the house, but very few acorns. Yesterday, the driveway alarm bing-bonged in the night, and I peeked out to see a deer eating acorns off the parking patio.
⁂
The rain is supposed to quit at two, and the clock struck two just as I sat back down. Writing was interrupted by a phone call: my bike is now in the garage. I got only slightly damp; I don't think we got as much rain as we need. I didn't notice any wind, but there are green oak leaves on the lawn.
⁂
Notes taken yesterday:
11:36 AM 10/6/2025 — Once again, I took my clothes off before remembering that I need to comb my hair before washing it. [Since I shed like a cat, I comb my hair outside.]
4:01 PM 10/6/2025 — When I ran my fingers through my hair after washing it, it squeaked.
I didn't notice that the stew recipe called for a green pepper, so I opened a package of three-pepper-and-onion, and picked out most of the green bits.
Another change: I thought I was buying a turnip, but the receipt says "rutabaga". Tastes like a turnip to me, and it has white flesh and a purple top. [The turnip was bitter and not very good. I'm glad that I put in only half.]
8:59 AM 10/7/2025 — Just now noticed that ten provinces and three territories add up to thirteen states.
1:33 PM 10/9/2025
Dave's weather station is officially off the air. He says that taking that computer out freed up a lot of wires.
While he was doing that, I was stocking up at Aldi. Being down to my last twenty, I stopped at an ATM on the way and got a hundred and fifty dollars. I spent two hundred twenty-three dollars and fifty-three cents, from the same account.
Since Aldi is on the other side of 30, I bought months of everything I don't buy elsewhere. Including five bags of chips.
6:03 PM 10/9/2025
Kerr's wide-mouth half-pint jars make good serving dishes, but it's annoying that I can't see which nuts are in a jar on the table without picking it up, so I ran a search for "transparent canning-jar lids", and discovered that glass lids for clamp-type jars are still being made.
7:01 PM 10/9/2025
Went into Dave's room to Quicken my receipts, and found his chair wrapped in loose wires.
3:59 PM 10/10/2025
Centurylink won't give me access to my webmail — same old unresponsive buttons, and I finally had to close Edge without logging out. But it did allow me to update my "action required", and I just now downloaded sixty-six messages, ten of them in the inbox and, therefore, potentially important. (I have set filters to sort mailing lists into boxes.)
Now to re-activate roughsewing@centurylink.net, but there's no hurry; nobody comments on my webbed book.
Saturday, 11 October 2025 8:31 PM 10/11/2025
Today I folded the sheet that Brenda washed and left to air dry on Tuesday. Sometimes I think how silly it is for someone as healthy as I am to have a housekeeper, but when would I have changed the sheets and washed the bedding, if it took this long to fold the sheet?
Today was the farmers' markets tour. I got a tomato and six ears of corn at the Yoder's booth in the ice-rink. The corn was marked "last of the season". Since it has been cold, and is predicted to stay cold, I doubt that there will be any more good tomatoes. I got a green pepper at the fairgrounds, so I can try the stew recipe again. Perhaps Monday; I doubt that I will feel up to anything more time-consuming than frozen hamburger patties on Sunday, and we do have a fresh tomato.
The courthouse market vanished without leaving a forwarding address, but since this also happened last year, I found them at the Pete Thorne Center, and bought half a dozen oatmeal chocolate-chip cookies. (The sign on Main Street points the wrong way.)
For a change, I didn't come home by way of Kroger. I did stop at Dollar General, having read a rumor that they sell Spic 'n Span floor cleaner. That store doesn't, but I did find a miniature composition book that has been on my shopping list for weeks.
I also took a lap around the new liquor store in Lakeview Plaza. They sell dill pickles canned in "moonshine"! Also bright-red cherries in alcohol, which actually makes sense. The "moonshine" wasn't red; are there cherries that are naturally Red #40?
⁂
Sliced the tomato tonight. No better than a shipped-in tomato.
9:53 PM 10/13/2025 — We had a short panic when Dave thought we'd lost his pet rock, but it turned up on the porch under a leafy twig.
This afternoon, I made Betty Crocker's beef stew again, this time from a flank steak, since the previous stew was the last "ranch steak" in the older Good Chop shipment. When I cook the other flank steak, I'll leave it whole.
I washed clothes in the morning, and remembered to put in the shirt I had on — my only short-sleeved three-pocket shirt — but forgot the pants I had on, and one of Dave's two spectacle-cleaning cloths.
[Brenda washed my pants yesterday, and I washed the spectacle cloth with the cleaning rags on Wednesday.] [I did not note when "yesterday" was.]
I should have checked Weather Underground before putting a load of dish towels and cleaning rags in the washer. (Also should have gotten the towel and dishrag from the kitchen.)
Ah, well, we do have a dryer.
⁂
And such a pile of white lint in the filter.
I dithered over taking such a small amount of trash to the road, decided that it might be raining or something next week, wondered why I didn't see any other trash cans, remembered that it was Columbus Day, and brought it back in.
Ah, well, it reminded me to collect the mail
Dave ran a load of clothes when the rags came out of the washer, and in the afternoon, I made a little progress on two of the bras that I cut out in March. (The third has been in service for months, alternating with a survivor of the batch before the batch that wore out last winter.)
I also pressed my white-collar T-shirt, and repaired a pattern that had torn off its nail.
We had a T-bone steak, our last potato, and an ear of corn for supper.
11:50 AM 10/17/2025
Today, I folded the rags that I washed on Wednesday.
Well, the sweat rags are still an untidy heap. I tear hemless handkerchiefs, which I sometimes call brakerchiefs, from old pillowcases. (The hems of handkerchiefs make marks when stuffed into a bra.) A few years ago, I ran short when I was out of worn-out pillow cases, and tore up some new muslin. Those developed a fringe an inch wide, but never got soft despite being washed in hot water and bleach after every use. On Tuesday, the dime dropped, I soaked them in a bucket of diluted vinegar overnight, and they are much improved.
10:29 AM 10/20/2025
There's a higher percentage of white swans on the lake than there were when I got up. I can't see the shadows of the trees on the lake, presumably because I see the water mostly by sky light, so the swans seem sharply white or sharply black.
10:06 PM 10/20/2025
Well, when he takes nineteen pills in the morning and fourteen at night, I shouldn't be surprised that after fetching pills, I come home, pack pills, and send in another order.
The number of medications is fewer than the number of pills. Several are both morning and evening, and he takes four magnesium pills. On the other hand, there are three medications that aren't packed into the pill sticks.
Got a bit sweaty indoors on Saturday, which made me chilly when I went back out. I went to all three farmers' markets, then Lowery for white embroidery floss, then El Padrino, where I bought a bag of peanuts in the shell. I was tired, and it was lunchtime, so I skipped Carniceria San José, Lakeview Plaza, and Kroger.
Which meant I had to go out again today, because we were nearly out of milk, and clear out of yogurt. And I needed parsnips, a turnip, and potatoes to cook with a hunk of beef tomorrow. We have found a really-good way to cook tough beef in the Betty Crocker book we got for a wedding present. Modified a bit. I put the vegetables in an hour before serving instead of half an hour, because I cut them into larger pieces. And I mix the juice that thaws out of the meat with the seasoned flour to make myoglobin riffles, which thickens the sauce.
The Metaprolole could have waited a few more days.
5:46 PM 10/21/2025
I put two pieces of carrot into the pot, but there are three in the stew. Perhaps I was distracted and threw in the piece I meant to make into carrot sticks for the relish plate. I did get a couple of spam calls while I was working on the stew.
As usual, Brenda left the house clean and neat, and I started messing it up before she left.
Yesterday, I put the lampshade that we had Brenda wash last week back up in the hallway. It's well designed, and took only a few minutes to install.
One of the fridge bins looked a bit grungy, so I added it to the pile of dirty dishes. Brenda discovered that a leaking extract bottle had stained and rumpled the plastic. I immediately moved the extracts from the bin I'd moved them to to the main part of the fridge, sitting on something replaceable.
6:23 PM 10/21/2025
The riffles didn't thicken the broth at all, and I had to sprinkle a teaspoon of flour on it. But they were tasty at the bottom of the pot. Next time I make riffles, I've got to be less thorough about sifting them out of the surplus flour.
After browning the meat, I stir the riffles into the hot fat before pouring in the quart of boiling water.
The beef is delicious, and there's enough left for another meal.
2:08 AM 10/24/2025
Yesterday, when we checked in at the emergency room the second time, I commented that collecting three sets of discharge papers in one day was a new record for us. But we didn't get the papers until after midnight.
11:39 AM 10/24/2025
The shadows moved, and while I was combing my hair the dark-gray swans turned light gray. The swans farther from the shore were a sparkling white.
In the spirit of James Nicoll's "USA delenda est", it's thirty or forty years past time for DNR to issue "kill all you can eat" licenses to anybody who can prove that he can tell a feral swan from a wild swan.
Our trips to the emergency room were tied to meals. When Steve brought us back from Fort Wayne, it was just time for lunch and we had bologna sandwiches, on a slice of Hillbilly bread with "singles" swiss for Dave, and on a flatbun with provolone for me. After my after-nap alarm had gone off, but before I got up, Dave discovered that there was a blood clot in his new catheter. It jarred loose on the way to the emergency room, and they scanned his bladder and sent us home with instructions to call if the bleeding persisted or got worse.
We got home in time for a belated supper. By good luck, I'd already planned to patty and fry a left-over half pound of hamburger, put it on a flatbun, cut it in half, and serve it with the left-over half of a big juicy tomato.
Unsurprisingly, I was a bit late with the tooth-brushing and so forth. Just when I was about to change into night clothes, Dave realized that the condition had persisted.
It was after three before we got to bed — part of that time was spent waiting for cultures that told the doctor to tell me to go to Zales for antibiotics this morning, so I'd better finish dressing.
12:25 PM 10/24/2025
When we left the second time, I didn't go back for my hat because it was certain that there wouldn't be any sun in my eyes — but on the walk back to the car (which wasn't far, as the spot nearest the door had been vacant), I wanted something on my head in the cold wind. I *had* remembered to bring my raw-silk jacket.
And, I now realize that I had a scarf in my bag for just such a situation.
5:06 AM 10/25/2025
Left about three, checked out at 4:44, home at 5:02.
11:39 AM 10/25/2025
When my summer cycling sandals died (and it's two or three months before I can shop for new sandals), I went through my shoe collection hoping to find something to tide me until it's cold enough to wear my winter cycling sandals (and found an old pair of sneakers I can ride in), I found a clearance pair not quite as ugly as the dirty white sandals I've been wearing to church, so I'm wearing them today to see whether I can walk in them.
It looks as though we'll be going back to the emergency room today. I'll try to get his eight-o'clock pills into him before that.
4:19 PM 10/25/2025
Eight o'clock and antibiotic in him, but he's stayed in his lift chair since. I took him a Boost and a sweet-and-salty nut bar, and he ate both.
My wizard suit got an outing — a little before four, I went out on the flatfoot to see Trick or Treat on the Trail, but it was so crowded that I couldn't overtake anybody, and I didn't want to spend the time to walk that far at a toddler's pace, so I turned around at the first booth. Did ride a few dekameters on the flatfoot, though.
9:20 PM 10/25/2025
When we came home Friday morning, we scared a deer off the driveway.
I went out again a few minutes before the event ended at five, thinking the crowds would have thinned out, but so many people were coming out that I couldn't go in. I left my costume at home, wearing only the black jeans and black turtleneck I'd worn under it, but on my way in a man said I was cute, and when I saw him again (after turning around at the first booth again), he took my picture.
I wanted to see whether any people I know were manning booths, so coming back when they were tearing down and packing up would have worked, but it was time to start preparing supper.
Which Dave ate: an entire bowl of tomato soup, and all of a two-slice fried cheese sandwich.
I wonder whether anyone has Mom's recipe for tomato soup? I think it may have been too simple to write down, like potato soup.
9:45 PM 10/25/2025
I just took off black sandals worn over gray socks. All day, when I looked down at them, I saw my old gym shoes.
5:40 PM 10/26/2025
Wore them over black socks, still saw my gym shoes when I looked down. They are too long, and the insoles that stick out are pale beige.
I fiddled around and was only half dressed when it was time to leave, so I took off my slip, put on black jeans and my black turtleneck (with the flowered jacket I wear with my skirt), walked to the teller machine, and turned up at the church just as the service ended and everyone was visiting. That's the important part of the service.
I forgot to check the sign-up table for news of the peanut brittle.
A car pulled into the east side of the teller machine just as I arrived at the west side. I deleted some clutter from my phone while waiting for him.
27 October 2025
7:28 AM 10/27/2025
Dave is in an ambulance, preparing to roll.
10:19 PM 10/27/2025
Dave was much improved when Dave, Jeanie, and I went to see him, and he might not require dialysis.
When they loaded him into an ambulance to take him to Fort Wayne, I thought he was going to die, but his kidneys started working again en route.
8:10 AM 10/28/2025
Getting ready to go to Fort Wayne with Dave and Jeanie at eleven.
7:45 AM 10/29/2025
In bed before ten, slept until half past seven.
Dave texted me "I'm awake" this morning, and when I called back and said that Dave L. and I were going to stop at Aldi to buy the heated fleece throw he'd been wanting, he said "Oh, it's Wednesday!" A doctor had asked whether he knew what day it was, and he had said "no". He'd been pretty much out of it since about three o'clock Monday morning. It was close this time, and I'd been wondering how I'd cope with the funeral, and regretting that I hadn't nagged him to drink on Sunday. It feels pretty good to have him home again. [I don't think these notes are entirely unscrambled.]
They had him sitting up when we got there, but put him back to bed pretty soon. He's been cleared to move to a regular room, but they are in no hurry — it will be done when the ICU has too many patients or the regular rooms have too few.
I'm back on a normal schedule. I took a nap after supper, but woke up in time to melt some cheese onto half a flatbun before my eight-thirty snack.
I figured that I'd get a start on unscrambling notes that I took here and there, but it's my regular schedule to go to bed pretty soon, and I'm feeling it.
I just got up from a belated nap and ate my 8:30 snack.
Summary:
Dave got up in the neighborhood of three o'clock Monday morning. At six or seven (maybe; I may have written the time on one of the notes tucked into _Ethics for Nurses_.) he tried to go back to bed and couldn't.
So we called 911 for lift assist. (I managed to dial a wrong number the first time; I think it was 991).
The ambulance guys talked to him for a while, then loaded him onto a gurney instead of putting him back in the bed. They used our transport chair to get him around the corners into the parlor, where the gurney was. I didn't see much, doing the headless-chicken bit.
I mopped up, put clothes on, packed a set of Dave's clothes into a patient-belongings bag, remembering that the Velcro shoes are the only pair that he can get on over his swollen feet, and drove to Parkview Warsaw.
The folks there decided to send him to Parkview Regional in Fort Wayne. It would be a while before the ambulance could take him, so I went home and brought back his glasses and his phone.
After the ambulance left, I went home and went to bed for a belated nap. A doctor in Fort Wayne called for some information, and made me think that I'd better go see him then, instead of waiting until Tuesday. Since Steve had just brought Martha home from Fort Wayne, I figured he wouldn't want to go back, and called the younger Dave, and caught him just as he and Jeanie were leaving Parkview Warsaw after her heart rehab. (It's open season on Winona Lake's Beesons.)
Tuesday Steve picked me up just as Brenda arrived to clean the house. It was really nice to find everything clean and neat when I got home that night.
On Wednesday we stopped at Aldi to buy a heated throw I'd promised Dave before all this began, and drove out Old 30 instead of Pierceton Road to get around the construction on 30.
Jeanie got so tired on Monday that she had to stay home on Tuesday, and she had another rehab on Wednesday, but she came with us today, and I think she did Dave a lot of good.
And now it's time for bed.
Slept normally. Dave woke me a little after six, having a panic attack. I think I'd have freaked out days ago, after all he's been through. I called the nurse's station (I'd been given the number when they gave me his room number while we were waiting for the ambulance), and one of the nurses talked him down. One of the things she told him is that he isn't really in the ICU, he's been parked there because there isn't a regular room available. That probably means that we could all three come back to his room, but only Dave and I are going today; Jeanie has another rehab.
Dave can come home as soon as he's strong enough to get out of bed by himself. Then he needs some rehab to recover from a week in bed.
Now I have half an hour to work on the Banner. I've composed an e-mail saying that it's going to be late, and plan to send it tonight when I have the latest news.
7:15 PM 11/1/2025
Yay! I searched and searched and found the box where Dave put the bag of phone cords and wall warts that used to be on his desk where his scanner now is. It contained a wall wart that fit into the Altoids box with my go-bag charging cord, and I put another into my sewing kit to give to Dave tomorrow.
At shift change at three o'clock, the incoming nurse complained that she would have to work thirteen hours for the price of twelve. I think I'd complain about working thirteen consecutive hours even if I got paid for the extra hour.
Tired nurses are not a good idea.
I logged in to say "Dave's case manager just called to say I could stop getting ready to go to Fort Wayne because Dave is coming here, and now I don't know what to do with myself."
Before I could write, I got to dithering over whether I could be dropped off at Regional as planned and ride back with Dave, and the answer came back "no" about ten minutes before nephew Dave would have had to pick me up.
So I ate lunch, and now I'm about to take my first nap in a week.
9:45 PM 11/3/2025
It was twenty 'til ten when I got home. I don't think I'll brush my teeth tonight.
The van that brought Dave from P. Regional was still parked out front when I got there. I'll look up whether that was five or six later; I made a call on my cell just before leaving, and the record will be there.
Dave is cold, but he was mostly asleep when I left.
7:15 AM 11/4/2025
I called at 17:12.
My freshly-charged phone is at 90%. I don't think I've ever seen more than that when I look at it a second time. I read a discussion recently that said that phones should not be charged to more than 90%. I suspect that my phone is doing that automatically, and saying 100% when it lights up on being unplugged so that I won't worry my pretty little head about it.
I don't think I'm clear awake yet.
8:57 AM 11/5/2025
I caught Dave eating peanuts between meals yesterday. Today he's scheduled for exercise to recover from the week in bed.
I'm planning to get blood drawn on my way to Aldi this morning.
11:18 PM 11/5/2025
Feels like I wrote that last week. The therapists did nothing, but the nurse made him walk a bit in the morning, and he walked all the way to the dining hall and then walked back again at supper — and he didn't leave anything of his meal.
I bought mochi, but forgot to eat one before leaving for the nursing home, and I'd started my levothyroxin fast when I came home. I brought my yellow "soft silk" scarf home and washed it, and all the bloodstains came out.
Tried to enter the Aldi receipt into Quicken, but it wouldn't load. I wonder whether I can bring him home long enough to reset his computer?
6:43 AM 11/7/2025
Slept right through to half-past six, and didn't even wake up to take my levothyroxin.
I'm to take him to a long-scheduled check-up with a practitioner this afternoon. I'm planning to have lunch with him, then sew until it's time to leave for a 2:45 appointment, then stay until he's in bed. Means no nap today, but I had one yesterday.
Must not forget to stop at Family Express so he can supervise me while I gas up the car.
He spent the morning in the physical therapy room yesterday, and ate only half of his chili dog at supper. But he finished his pudding and ate a little of my three-bean salad.
2:43 PM 11/7/2025
I said I was going home to take a nap, but I'm so upset that I'm not sure that I can.
4:01 PM 11/7/2025
Thinking it over while having my lie-down, I'm quite certain that the desk nurse was misinformed.
And even if she had been right, we should have gone anyhow — the only problem was that insurance wouldn't cover it, and we can pay for an office visit without missing any meals.
4:07 PM 11/7/2025
I got my blood work results this morning. Everything is fine, keep doing what I'm doing.
9:00 PM 11/7/2025
When I come home after dark, I miss the Broad Stripes sign Abe, our lawn mower, put up. I hope it was him who took it down.
4:23 PM 11/9/2025
I went to church this morning, tipped out after singing the Doxology, and went to see Dave. He was asleep when I got there, but woke up when called to lunch. The nurse allowed him to walk to the dining room by himself, which makes us hope he can come home soon. I came home after his ham loaf was served, ate a tuna-and-rice casserole, and took a nap. The casserole was meant to be eaten cold, but I left the metal bowl over a pilot light while I loaded the washer with my clothes. I washed three shirts, including my raw-silk jacket/shirt. Having been worn every day since Dave was carried off in an ambulance, it was pretty grungy.
Time to go back to rehab.
10:42 PM 11/9/2025
Dave says he looked it up, and the bank will be open tomorrow.
8:27 AM 11/10/2025
Almost time to leave for the bank. They open at nine.
Went to record my weight upon waking, found my monitor dead. After much fuss and feathers, I swapped it for a stray monitor that was on the desk in the living room, and it works. I think I could get accustomed to a horizontal monitor. A brief glance suggests that it will be better for DosBox. Worse for websites, of course, and was before websites specialized in cell phones.
4:02 PM 11/10/2025
lunch: two patties sausage, leafy tops of celery, limp winter onion, three-pepper and onion blend, half tablespoon spelt flour, sufficient milk.
10:19 PM 11/10/2025
Paid taxes, continued to Grace, stayed until lunch was served, came home, made gravy and ate it on sprouted-grain bread, did a few chores, took a nap, the patients were already seated for supper when I went back — half an hour early; I darned a split seam and gossiped with Elaine while we were waiting. Ate with Dave; I'd added a chef salad to his order for this purpose; also it caused him to eat a few bites of vegetables. Push broomed a thick layer of snow off the car and came home. Laid out clothes to wear to Plymouth in the morning; hope I haven't forgotten any preparations.
Had a planning meeting today. Dave will come home on Tuesday. I must find time to buy some yummies to cook. I can thaw a thigh and make chicken and noodles for his first meal home.
I have his clothes in the washing machine. For lunch, I added a chopped scallion, a chopped slice of cheddar, and an egg to the left-over tuna-rice casserole and fried it in butter.
And the timer to eat it just went off.
9:34 PM 11/13/2025
Saw a truck labeled unportable tank on the way home from Fort Wayne, wondered whether it was a tank that wasn't portable or a tank that could be unported.
So I DuckDuckGoed today. Turns out that all caps and a narrow space disguised "UN portable tank". It's a tank certified for shipping hazardous materials across national borders.
4:24 PM 11/14/2025
The surgery team didn't even mention the actual injection. All was set-up and wash-out. The surgeon said that the technician said that there was nothing bad in my retinal scan.
I can still see the medicine, but that's my bad eye and my brain is accustomed to making the most of blurry information.
I'm looking forward to having no appointments tomorrow.
1:35 Dave is in the kitchen eating Carmel Truffle ice cream, but I have to take him back at five o'clock.
6:58 AM 11/17/2025
Just learned that Grammerly will correct "DuckDucked" to "DuckDuckGoed".
4:03 PM 11/17/2025
Took a small step toward neatening the sewing room by making a new folder for the shirt I started last December, and putting pattern paper in the old one.
In the process, I found out what the funny-looking knife on my keychain is for. After getting about half the job done with various tools, including tin snips that didn't work at all, I learned that the keychain knife cuts corrugated cardboard neatly and without leaving crumbs on the fleece comforter.
I hope that Brenda and I can shake them off tomorrow.
Less than half an hour before I leave for the nursing home. Each time I saw my hat and warm shirt on the back of a dining chair, I delighted in knowing that when I come home tomorrow, I'll hang them on a coat hook.
1:11 AM 11/19/2025
An update to Windows 11 shut off the sound to Countdown Timer and Agent. After waking up and doing my back exercises, I had five minutes before time to take Levothyroxine, and made one more search for the button to turn the sound back on. I found a button that looked like the button that turned it back on the previous time, clicked it, and just as I depressed the mouse button, Countdown timer announced time to take levothyroxine with a loud ding.
I checked Agent before taking the pill.
Brenda and I did get the cardboard crumbs off the fuzzy blanket.
8:16 PM 11/21/2025
Dave will get his morning pills late tomorrow. I sat down to pack his morning pills and realized that I was too stupid to do it. Could have done it earlier, but didn't think of it.
The only day without an appointment this week was Thursday, and I spent that trying to figure out how to feed him without giving him any carbs or sugar. (Answer: not very well. About all the low-carb food in the house is nuts and meat and stuff he wants carby seasonings on.)
We needed the outlet that I'd been charging my phone with for the electric blanket, so I moved it to the power strip that feeds the clock. Advantage: if it goes off while I'm in bed, I can look at it without getting up. Disadvantage: since it wasn't already in my pocket, I forgot it when I dressed this morning. There is no wall clock in the radiology waiting room, so it was uncomfortable to do without it.
I must have dislodged my coin purse hunting for it; a clerk called me to say they had found it — I wonder whether I was the first to be called. Since it was an attractive hand-crocheted purse, I told her to drop it in Toys for Tots.
Dave put on a sweater he'd decided not to wear because it had a zipper; the tech said it was all right. I don't think there were any medical glitches in his PET scan.
He came out of the lab carrying a bag containing a bottle of water and a sleeve of cookies.
As soon as we got home, I cooked a serving of instant white rice for him, and warmed up left-over chicken sauce. (I had chicken on half a flat bagel.) There's still a good bit left; two thighs are a lot of chicken.
I should write up the recipe for Good Chop Thigh Chicken and Noodles and add it to Cookbook. It's derived from a recipe for beef stew in my old Betty Crocker Cookbook.
The box of seasoned flour I keep in the freezer was running low, so I added a cup of spelt flour, two teaspoons of salt, and lots of cranks of pepper.
Pour a mound of seasoned flour into a pie plate and make a well in the top. Drain the chicken into the well, stir the meat juice into the flour, and cut the resulting lumps of dough into myoglobin riffles with the edge of the fork. At some point, sift the riffles out of the flour and set the strainer aside — perhaps on the paper where the chicken will go. Don't go hog wild on getting all the flour out of the riffles.
Set a generously-greased saucepan over very low heat. While cutting the chicken into one-inch chunks, filet off as much fat as possible, cut it into bits, and put it into the saucepan.
When the cutting board gets cluttered, flour chicken chunks and put them on a sheet of waxed paper. I used parchment paper because I had a sheet out already.
When all the chicken is on the paper, turn up the heat and render the chicken fat. Add the chicken chunks and stir them around until browned. You will probably have to spray them with more corn oil. They will be cooked through by the time they are brown.
Add the riffles and the flour on the paper and maybe a spoonful more flour. Stir into the hot grease to make a roux.
The next step should have been to add a quart of hot water that had been waiting on the stove, but I planned to serve the chicken on the following day, so I put the saucepan into the fridge.
The next day, I weighed out two ounces of noodles, which the package said was one serving. This turned out to be more than enough to serve two. I cut up a Knorr bouillon cube, added it and a quart of boiling water to the pot, added the noodles, brought it back to a boil, reduced the heat, and simmered for half an hour.
I picked out the remaining noodles to be re-heated for a bedtime snack. For another meal, I put the pot over low heat and made potato soup in another pot with a minimum of water, another bouillon cube, a stalk of celery, an unpeeled potato, and some winter onions. Instead of cooling the soup with milk, I poured it into the chicken sauce.
I selected a potato that I thought would feed two, but it appears that I missed a lot when I'd picked out enough for a bedtime snack. Dave said that potato and rice went together very well.
And there's still a meal of chicken left.
8:28 AM 11/23/2025
Groggy. I forgot to go to bed until after eleven, then at six something, an alarm clock in Dave's phone played some very effective wake-up music. We thought Alexa was doing it, so it took a while to turn it off.
7:33 PM 11/23/2025
Dave just finished putting together the "toilet safety rail" that was delivered today. It works well, and isn't clutter. It looks very like a no-wheel walker.
I stayed for the entire church service!
I'm hoping to shop at Martin's and Aldi tomorrow. Among the things I'll look for are "Grandma's sandwich cookies" like those given to Dave after the PET scan; he liked them very much.
Tuesday
7:52 AM 11/25/2025
I couldn't find any flatbuns or Grandma's cookies, and Aldi was out of figs and chopped dates.
I hope the chore list I printed last night makes sense.
Eventful day, and I'm zonked. Two groceries, no nap, and we sold the truck.
I planned a much more engaging account, but I'm zonked.
On the way to Martin's, a street worker flagged me down to ask after Dave (he'd seen the ambulance), and asked whether we wanted to sell the Tacoma. I told him Dave was home and awake; he said he'd knock on the door after he finished the job he was doing, I called Dave and gave him a heads up.
I took a thorough tour of Martins, then stocked up at Aldi — and on impulse bought a queen-size flannel sheet set. Probably not as warm as my coarse muslin sheets were; it's very thin flannel.
Then it took a long time to pack up my stuff, since I had to sort the Martin's stuff into the Aldi stuff — adding the Aldi frozen food to the insulated bag with Black Ice in it called for re-arranging everything in the bag, for example.
When I got home, Dave had sold the truck, and before I'd taken all the groceries out of the car the new owner walked over from the street department to get it, closely followed by his wife in a large pick-up. (I *had* put the frozen food away.)
The flannel sheets are in the washer and Brenda is washing dishes. Lots of dishes.
Ready to leave for Linda's Thanksgiving party.
4:13 p.m.
Someone on television said the Midwest is getting hammered with a winter storm, but it's sifting down quite gently, with hardly any wind.
I'd planned to go out for bread and milk today, but the first time I looked out, I decided that we can get on quite nicely with what's already in the house. I want to use up stuff in the freezer anyway, since we plan to clean out the frost on Tuesday when Brenda will be here to help. Forecast still says well below freezing, without precipitation or remarkable winds, for Tuesday.
The leaves didn't get chopped up before the snow started, and I think this one is going to stick.
There are four inches of snow on the bench in front of the house and six on the table on the patio on the lake side.
I'm not just about to wade far enough into the lawn to get a measurement.
I slept so late that I'd have been put to it to get dressed in time even without spending time hunting out my winter clothes and allowing for walking slowly, so I used the snow as an excuse to cut church. Dave said that nobody else would come anyway, but judging by the traffic and the height of the banks of dirty snow, the roads are passable. I don't know about the parking lot that Good Shepherd shares with Grace College, though.
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7:47 AM 11/4/2025 from e-mail sent on Halloween:
All month, I've been taking notes with Notepad, intending to copy them
into the October Banner and make them make sense
during the last week in October.
There was a slight change of plans.
Dave got up in the neighborhood of three o'clock Monday morning/late
Sunday night. At six or seven (maybe; I may have
written the time on one of the notes tucked into
_Ethics for Nurses_.), he tried to go back to bed
and couldn't.
So we called 911 for lift assist. (I managed to dial a wrong number the
first time; I think it was 991).
The ambulance guys talked to him for a while, then loaded him onto a
gurney instead of putting him back in the bed.
They used our transport chair to get him around
the corners into the parlor, where the gurney was.
I didn't see much, doing the headless-chicken bit.
I mopped up, put clothes on, packed a set of Dave's clothes into a
patient-belongings bag, remembering that the
Velcro shoes are the only pair that he can get on
over his swollen feet, and drove to Parkview
Warsaw.
The folks in Parkview Warsaw decided to send him to Parkview Regional
in Fort Wayne. It would be a while before the
ambulance could take him, so I went home and
brought back his glasses and his phone.
After the ambulance left, I went home and went to bed for a belated
nap. A doctor in Fort Wayne called for
information, and made me think that I'd better go
see him then, instead of waiting until Tuesday.
Since Steve had just brought Martha home from Fort
Wayne, I figured he wouldn't want to go back, and
called the younger Dave, and caught him just as he
and Jeanie were leaving Parkview Warsaw after her
heart rehab. (It's open season on Winona Lake's
Beesons.)
Tuesday Steve picked me up just as Brenda arrived to clean the house.
It was really nice to find everything clean and
neat when I got home that night.
On Wednesday we stopped at Aldi to buy a heated throw I'd promised Dave
before all this began, and drove out Old 30
instead of Pierceton Road to get around the
construction on 30.
Jeanie got so tired on Monday that she had to stay home on Tuesday, and
she had another rehab on Wednesday, but she came
with us on Thursday, and I think she did Dave a
lot of good.
Friday, Jeanie had another rehab, so we had no use for having learned
that technically Dave is no longer in the ICU;
he's been cleared for a regular bed, but they are
all occupied. ICU patients are allowed only two
visitors at a time, so when we are three, one has
to stay in the visitors' lounge. I don't yet know
whether the nurses will see it that way.
Dave has been cleared for a bed in Grace Village Rehab, and might go
there as early as Monday. He hates it, but not as
much as he hates the ICU. And the location, next
door to Dave and Jeanie's house, is *much* more
convenient.
#########################################################################
Subject: October Beeson Banner: Still untangling my notes
Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2025 08:14:33 -0500
But Dave's at Grace Village now, so I may have some time to work on it.
He was supposed to call me when they picked him up, but they packed his
phone in his belongings bag. About five, I got
antsy and called Grace and was — I think she
said "clicked over" — to rehab, and she said
(I think this was Michelle; I must ask her name
today) said he was due any minute, so I jumped
into the car and got there while the van was still
in front of the door. I peeked in (The driver had
left the door open after wheeling Dave out) and
thought that there was space that I could have
ridden with him.
They were feeding the patients when he arrived. I sat with him and met
Elaine, Sandy, and Sam. Alas, I ate his supper
while he was filling out paperwork and I was
talking to Elaine and her husband — I think
she said "Bob", but I didn't write it down. He
did eat several bites of his sherbet, taste all
his other dishes, and drink all of his orange
juice.
I stayed there until they had put him to bed, and got home very tired.
I plan to put him to bed while the nurse watches
today.
[Later, the nurses and I concluded that he had simply been too tired to
eat after the long trip from Fort Wayne.]
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