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Love’s Something Something

Filed Under: Uncategorized by drdog
Nov.12, 2009

Oh, the things we do for the people we love!

Late last week, my wife asked me to do something: Can you record a movie for me? A few movies? Fourteen hours’ worth?

It seems that the Hallmark Channel was carrying eight movies based on the Love Comes Softly series of books by Janette Oke. It’s a series of books set in the 19th century, following the life of a family living in the prairies or the West. They are described as Christian drama TV movies.

All the movie titles are three words long, and the first word is “Love” or “Love’s.” Love’s Something Something, for instance.

There are eight movies in the series, and Hallmark broadcast seven of them, back to back to back to back to back to back to back. At two hours apiece (including commercials), that’s 14 hours of recording. Enough to deaden the rear end of even the most ardent Hallmark movie fan. Then we found out that the times in the TV listings were incorrect, so we had to adjust the schedule.

But we got it done. The movies were recorded and eventually burned onto DVDs. She watched one Tuesday night (I was gone, covering volleyball) and said she enjoyed it a lot.

For what it’s worth, Wikipedia says that the Hallmark Channel movie versions “do not completely follow the books, and therefore take place in an alternate universe from the novels.” Alternate universe? Is that like alternative reality?

At any rate, my wife is happy to be able to see the movies on her own schedule, so she will probably do something nice for me. Maybe a nice dessert or a favorite dinner, when we have the time. Last night, we had wild rice casserole for supper. Haven’t had that for a long time. Yum!

****
We do things in the name of love or the quest for love. I do. You probably do, too. Here are a few other things taking place in the name of love.

My friend S and her husband are hosting a woman from the Northeast U.S. this week. They have been looking for a “third” (for a triad relationship) for a while, and in recent months they have gotten to know this woman. She is visiting them this week (their first encounter), and I hope things go super well for everyone. Barring a long downstate trip for football, I hope to visit them later this month for a much more conventional visit.

My friend B flew out for a long weekend last night, heading out to meet a friend. She met him online (as she met me), and this is their second weekend visit. She is happy and excited, and I am happy for her. No idea when she and I will meet again. It won’t be soon, alas.

A week ago, I covered a volleyball tourney out of town and then visited my friend N–just a few miles away. I brought along a new DVD player. She had recently bought herself a new TV (her old one died), but never has had a DVD player. I thought she should have one–they aren’t expensive and (aha!) it would give me a much greater range of movies I can bring that we can watch together when I visit.

So I bought one and brought it over, and N was very surprised and grateful. We snuggled up on the couch to watch two films that night before heading to bed.

****
I thought my football season would end last Saturday, but it didn’t. I have spent five consecutive Thanksgiving Days downstate because of the football finals. I didn’t think it would be six in a row, but then I didn’t think our team would win last Saturday. They did–they blocked a punt with one minute to play and scored the winning touchdown on the next play. So now … who knows?

My life isn’t quite back to normal, but it’s a lot closer. The stress of preparing for the sale of my mom’s house is done with. That long, rough week ended. My mom seems to be doing a little better, too. I visited her on Tuesday.

My wife and I had a couple quiet nights last week, watching this and that on TV–usually old TV shows on DVD. That’s the plan for tonight. Not too exciting, but those were good evenings. It’s nice to sit next to one another. We’re both feeling fine.

The H1N1 flu has been widespread in the local schools now. The entire district closed for the last three school days in October. They tried to open last Monday, Nov. 2, but still had over 25% absenteeism. (If more than 25% of students are out, the school doesn’t get funding and has to make up the day later.) So they closed at noon and stayed closed all week. Many other school districts in the western U.P. have done the same.

I called my older son last week. As it turns out, he will be driving up north to visit us this weekend. The reason is complex, but it has to do with his job and finding out whether he can be “on call” from the western U.P. over Christmas week in case the computers down near Detroit have a problem. Can he and his laptop do that work from way up here in the boonies? That’s what he’s coming up here to find out.

We talked Monday night. Wednesday, per his request, we purchased three pizza pasties for Friday night, and we’ll head somewhere else for a pizza another night.

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Max, one year later

Filed Under: Uncategorized by drdog
Nov.06, 2009

Late one night this week, just as we headed upstairs to bed, we heard a rumble behind us. It was the sound of small, running feet. The feet of the world’s fastest cat.

Max was on the loose and feeling his oats. He dashed up the stairs and across the bed to the window–he likes to sit in windows, even when it’s night. I caught up with him and petted him for a minute or so before helping my wife get into her nightie (one of my daily duties–it can get complicated, because sometimes the arms don’t go in the right places–a game we have developed over the years).

After the kiss good-night, Max was in the doorway, meowing. I made a move, and he dashed off. I followed him downstairs (at my own speed) and caught up to him by the big window in our middle room, another of Max’s favorite vantage points. There, it time for more petting, and Max pressing his head against my hand as I petted it, making his motorboat sound (loud purring, sort of from the throat; it’s hard to describe). He was happy. We didn’t hear from him again until morning.

A quiet observance at our house in mid-October marked Max’s one-year anniversary as a feline resident. “Max,” I should note, was his shelter name, but we never came up with a better one, and Max he remains. He lived in a smallish cage at the shelter for over a half year before some people decided to take him home. Us.

It sure wasn’t an easy start. Charlie hated him and told him so. Maggie snarled at him. That was depressing, because the reason we wanted to get a third cat was to give Charlie someone to chum around with around the house–Maggie is an old cat (17 in human years) and doesn’t like anything/anyone new.

But after a while, things got better. Charlie started tolerating Max, and they stopped snarling at each other. Later, they would lie on the same bed, on the same sofa. After that, they started licking each other around the shoulder when they met. Not that Charlie likes it when Max ambushes him, but Charlie ambushes Max, too, so fair is fair. It’s just kitty games.

Here are some photos of the cats from recent months. As you see, they share the same sofa …
Sleepy kitties

They share the same bed …
Max on the bed

They share the same shopping bags …
Cats in the bag

They even try to share the same sun (with Maggie) …
Three in the sun

When I go into our bedroom to change clothes, Max usually pops up out of nowhere–probably from one of his many hiding places, under the bed. Urrow! Buzz, buzz, buzz! Max likes to get his head rubbed and pushes his head up into my hand. He will lie on the bed during the day. But at night, after we go to bed, when the other cats spend the night on the bed (Maggie, nearly always; Charlie, for a while), Max doesn’t. He’s somewhere else.

Max likes sitting in windows and gazing outside. Maybe he’s remembering his days as a stray before going to the shelter. Maybe he is thinking back to the time when he was roaming around outdoors. The outdoors can be very unfriendly, you know. Rain. Cold. Wind. Scrounging for food. Avoiding bigger creatures who are also roaming around, scrounging for food.

Inside, Max is safe, warm and well-fed. The sun is warm coming through the windows, even in winter. He likes his sunbaths. There are beds and upholstered chairs to curl up on. People will pet him and rub the top of his head. When he gets bored, he checks up what Charlie is up to, or else he goes to get a bite to eat or sees what Mom is doing. And when the mood is right, he never fails to find a reason to race through the house at top speed, dashing up and down the stairs or down the long hallways.

He is, after all, the world’s fastest cat. I’ve tried to get a picture of Max running. But all I get is just a tail or maybe the rear legs, departing the scene at warp speed. Rumble, rumble up the steps. Think of a galloping horse. Sort of like that.

A little later, he’s back down and suddenly tearing through the house. Rumble, rumble. We don’t have to see. We can hear. We’re more used to his ways now.

Maybe a month or so after we got Max, he went missing. We were sure he had somehow gotten outside. It was in the evening, the fall sun was long gone, and there was about an inch of snow on the ground. I got into my coat, grabbed a flashlight and tried to find him.

I found cat prints right by the house. They went this way. They went that way. I tried following them. Under the neighbor’s trailer. Around the church on the corner. Across the street. I asked a neighbor, who was getting into her car, whether she had seen a skinny orange cat around. She hadn’t. I went down an alley, where I lost the trail. I was so tired and frustrated and sad as I trudged along. Heartbroken.

I finally went inside, took off my coat and reported no success. Sat down in a gloomy mood, feeling really bad. About two hours or so later, as it was getting about time for the cats’ evening meal, I saw a glimpse of orange out of the corner of my eye. Max was walking downstairs, where he had apparently been all along.

So now, when Max goes missing for a while, we know he is safely curled up, snoozing in one of his many hiding places. When it’s time for supper, he’ll be around.

At this very moment, he is sitting in a chair a few feet away, eyes closed. The World’s Fastest Cat is recharging his batteries.

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Complex times

Filed Under: Uncategorized by drdog
Oct.29, 2009

Yes, it’s another of my seemingly endless stream of “where have I been lately?” posts. I haven’t written a post for a while. Nor have I been checking anyone else’s. It’s not that I don’t think about you or don’t care about you. But … my own life is complex, and I’ve had some long and difficult weeks lately.

I can get wordy, but I can break down the main news in a few simple sentences:

My mom’s house has finally been sold.

My mom seems to be slipping away.

I have been mainly healthy but feel harassed by various duties and responsibilities, and it’s getting me down.

Now, a closer focus.

Yes, the house was sold. The closing took place last Friday. But it didn’t happen without excitement and nervous times.

The last time I wrote, I said that the closing was two days away, and since the train hadn’t gone off the tracks yet, it probably wouldn’t. The next day, it went off the tracks.

The title company discovered that part of what we thought was our land (slightly over 2 acres) had been deeded over to someone else in a land exchange. That led to the discovery that the someone else has his house/trailer on our land.

It’s a mess, but I shouldn’t have been surprised. When this county was originally surveyed, it must have been very ineptly done. If you have ever looked at a plat book, you have seen the townships and ranges in very neat and orderly squares, all lines parallel with each other, both vertically and horizontally, with all 90-degree angles. Well, that sure isn’t the case in this county. I am sure the goofy dimensions have made title companies a lot of money over the years.

It postponed the planned closing for one week. To cut to the chase: We sold the buyer one acre of land (getting less money for the sale) and will deal with the occupants of that trailer separately–probably by selling the land to them after we agree upon a price. Meanwhile, the sale of the house, garage, etc., was officially closed last Friday. We got a check that was noticeably smaller than we had hoped.

A couple with three kids (three boys, 6, 7 and 8 years old) bought the house and are busily making repairs and painting and stuff. After four years of being empty, the house will be a busy, happy place again.

It had been empty since a bad fall four years ago put my mom in the hospital and then the nursing home. In September, she had another bad fall and broke her elbow. She was in the hospital for a week, but the experience seems to have taken a lot of the life out of her. Granted, she is 87, but she has changed a lot since before the fall. She sleeps an awful lot now and is getting harder and harder to understand.

All this time, she has been thinking clearly, but when we visited her last week, she made a motion to her head with her good hand and said something to the effect that her mind isn’t working so well anymore. Today, we went down there to ride with her to a doctor’s appointment (the nursing home van was taking her in her wheelchair). We got there about noon, and I went down to her room to get her and her wheelchair. I said hi to her, and she looked at me with a confused look. She said something that sounded a lot like “Who are you?” That’s the first time that has ever happened, and it caught me by surprise.

Later on, though, as we sat in the waiting room at the doctor’s office and I was holding her hand, she was holding my hand, too. The doctor unwrapped her arm, felt the arm, wrapped her up again, and we called the van to take us back. But she was getting very sleepy again. Once we got to the nursing home, I called for a nurse to help put her back in bed. She was asleep within minutes.

It’s like … like a science fiction movie, where someone is partially in this dimension and partly in another, and they look semi-transparent. That is my mom. She is here, and yet she isn’t. And she doesn’t want to be here any longer. Let’s be honest about it. She wants to be with her parents and her husband and my brother and her older brother. The doctors told me she is hardly eating at all any more, and she lost six pounds in a recent week. I think you can tell what I am expecting to happen before too many more weeks pass. The arrangements have already been made.

What with the drama about the sale of the house, my mom’s health and ongoing busy weeks at work, I am doing well just to maintain an even keel emotionally. I had planned to visit N this week, but I had to postpone it–too much stress. The doctor’s appointment with my mom was today. Thursday, I have an all-day meeting two hours away. My weekend will be very busy–football playoff games Friday night and Saturday afternoon.

I am trying to stay healthy. What I need to do is get more sleep and watch how much I eat–I tend to eat more when I’m feeling tense or depressed. So far so good. Since I am aware of it, I think I can deal with it OK. Basically, I am a healthy guy. Sturdy. Dependable. Or trying to be.

But the load on my shoulders has been pretty heavy lately. I know that. Under the circumstances, writing blogs and reading blogs has had to be put on the side for now. I hope you understand.

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Big news and colorful trees

Filed Under: Uncategorized by drdog
Oct.13, 2009

I’ve got some updates and pretty pictures to share with you.

First, though, there’s something more important to share. Big news. For a while I was leery about writing anything about it, for fear of jinxing everything or gumming it up in some dreadful way. But now it seemingly has built up too much momentum to be stopped.

Here it is: My mom’s house is being sold. Exclamation mark. This week. Double exclamation mark. Really. Triple exclamation mark.

The house has sat empty for the last four years, since my mom had her first bad fall and wound up in the nursing home. My wife and I went through all the contents during the summer of 2007 (after it became clear she wouldn’t be returning), going through everything, throwing some stuff out and keeping others.

If you aren’t aware, I am her only descendant–my brother died over 20 years ago, and he had no children. That means there was nobody else to do the tough work of managing my mom’s affairs and going through the household items (aside from my wife, who worked as hard as I did). It was all on our shoulders.

First, we hoped her neighbor’s son would be able take the house. He had served in Iraq, and his mother had called me, asking what plans we had for the house and to keep them in mind. We definitely did that. We would have given him a very good price, too. But he got injured in Iraq (his back, I think), and couldn’t take the house. Back to square one.

Early this spring, we finally went to a local real estate agency and got them involved. We had a few bites and a few showings during the summer, but nothing very serious and no serious offers. As time went on, I got pretty discouraged. We lowered the price (and it was pretty low in the first place), but nothing happened. A few people were interested, but no real offers were made.

Then, late in September, the agent said a couple had visited the house and was interested. A day or two later, we got an offer. We made a counteroffer. They made a counteroffer. We thought about it for a long time and decided to say yes.

It’s a lot less than we had hoped to get, but with the housing market the way it is and with how much the house is costing me (property taxes, insurance, heating oil, power, maintenance, anxiety), I finally said yes. Their offer sheet said they were planning to close the sale on Nov. 12.

Halfway expecting the process would break down somewhere, we started preparing for the transfer. That involved getting the last big items we wanted from that house to ours. But things changed about a week ago, when we learned that the buyers now wanted to close the deal on Oct. 16. Four weeks earlier than originally stated and just nine days later.

Now, it’s just three days.

I already had an appointment on Thursday morning to ride with my mom to a doctor’s appointment, and my wife found two guys who would go to my mom’s house that day to pick up the heavy furniture. I met them at about noon. Rather, I met him at about noon–just one guy made the trip, not two. So I was the other moving man, helping him load the items into the pickup truck and trailer.

He drove everything back home by himself (eventually finding a second man to help him unload), so now we have another sewing machine table, more bedroom furniture, kitchen chairs and a nice rocking recliner in the living room, among other things. I stayed behind, because my day was hardly over.

The doctor’s appointment was the first task, and that took quite a while. After we sent the furniture on its way, my to-do list included: dropping off a key so the buyers could get inside the garage; closing out my mom’s safe deposit box (where I found some title documents I had been looking for); meeting with the real estate agent; returning to the nursing home to meet with the caregivers about my mom’s care; and getting a copy of my dad’s death certificate, which, I was told, is absolutely necessary to closing the sale.

In short, it was a day of jumping through hoops–very busy, stressful at times, but in the end I think I got everything done that I wanted to. (I had made a list that I consulted from time to time.)

We had a potential problem about my mom signing off on the deal, since our title says she has a life estate. Since she broke the elbow of her writing hand in her most recent fall, she can’t write at all. But the real estate agent (after consulting the title company) said we can work around that. There will be a space for her to sign (with an “X”) on the deed, with witnesses and a notary public confirming that she made the X and thereby agrees to giving up the life estate (which preserves her right to live in the house–fat chance that can ever happen now).

The required inspections have now been completed, and all the lights are green. I have my dad’s death certificate. Fewer and fewer things can go wrong now.

The situation with my mom is sad, and she is not doing that well. But at least she understands what is happening and was happy to hear of the impending sale.

So that has been filling my life with anxiety and worry … which is now less than three days away from ending. This morning, I called Wisconsin Electric about switching the electric service to the buyers. I told the fuel oil company the same. At 11 a.m. Friday, the final papers will be signed, and the house will officially belong to someone else.

I still have some final expenses. Several connected to the sale process. Property taxes for 10 1/2 months of 2009. The real estate agent’s cut. And income taxes on the sale price–it’s regarded as taxable income. Even with the sale price, I’m still in the 15% bracket.

****
Not much else to report. The news about the house outweighs everything else, anyway.

But I did manage to get some fall photos in recent weeks. Here are a few examples …
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Here is a frosty morning. The temperature was about 25, but the sun was melting the frost except in the shadow of my car and a nearby garage. Interesting effect …
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I drove north to Baraga last Friday night for a football game, and the leaves seemed to be at maximum brilliance–except that the sun was behind the clouds for most of the trip north. I only got to see the leaves in full color from a distance. Thank goodness for 24x lenses …

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I made a mental note to make the same trip over the weekend. Saturday was mostly cloudy. The clouds moved out early Sunday afternoon, and my wife and I made the trip. But … the peak color was now obviously past, even though it was just two days after my last trip. The brilliant color had dimmed and darkened.

It was a nice drive on a sunny day, anyway.

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A new letter to learn

Filed Under: Uncategorized by drdog
Oct.02, 2009

I’ll tell you why I haven’t been writing that much lately. It’s fall, and I’ve been busy at work and covering fall sports at night.

Then, my mom’s injury stole a lot of free time from me, what with driving back and forth multiple times per week–it’s a one-hour drive each way, you know, plus all the time in between. Besides sucking up a lot of my spare time, many of you know that dealing with this saps your mental and spiritual energy.

(An update on my mom appears later. She’s back at the nursing home and getting better very slowly.)

Plus, I’ve been writing B regularly, and I’ve been writing S regularly … and I have a new letter of the alphabet to tell you about, too.

This name starts with an N. I’ve been writing her, too. I have even visited her a few times lately.

Unlike B, N doesn’t live thousands of miles away. In fact, she’s only about a hundred miles away, which isn’t so far in these wide-open reaches of the Upper Midwest. She lives in a very rural area. That’s good because the love of her life are her dogs–she takes in rescue dogs, and some of them like to bark. She has about 10 dogs right now, though that number goes up and down as she adopts new dogs and others go over the Rainbow Bridge. Her oldest dog is about 18. That’s even older than our elderly kitty, Maggie.

What else can I tell you? She is three years older than me and a widow for the last three years. Works part time. Has a DirecTV dish. Doesn’t have a DVD player, which really limits the movies I can bring along when I visit. Methinks she will be getting a DVD player as a gift sometime soon. She doesn’t have a lot of money but is wise enough to know money never can buy happiness. And she enjoys my visits.

I have visited her several times, once while my wife was gone on her trip and twice since. Both of the latter visits coincided with football games I covered in her area. The first time, I drove over for a visit, late supper and sleepover after the game. The other time, I visited her before the game–she cooked a steak for us over a grill. That time, I didn’t return after the game–I made the two-hour drive home.

There are no more games in that area this fall, so our next visit has to wait until some time in the future. Best guess: maybe mid October.

We write each other about once a week. B and I still write each other about every day. B knows about N, and N knows about my wife, and my wife knows about N, and B knows about my wife, etc. In case you were wondering … no secrets.

****
Let’s move on to the news. My mom has been back in the nursing home for the last two weeks. She was in the hospital for a week after breaking her elbow. When we visited her last week, she was awake only for a few minutes during our one-hour visit. Maybe, suggested B when I told her about it, it’s because of the meds they are giving her.

We went again this Wednesday. She was more awake but complaining that she wasn’t feeling well. Her forehead and hands did feel warm–but later, before we left, they felt more normal. She’s still sleeping a lot.

My wife went with me to a football game in Houghton a week ago–a really nice day for a fall drive, with temperatures in the low 70s and the leaves really showing color. Last Saturday, I took her to a quilt show at a little town about 70 miles away. The colors on the maples were really vivid under the September sun, but it later clouded up and started a light rain.

We had a spectacular September, with temperatures into the 70s most of the time. No rain, sunny days, warm weather. A much nicer month than July was. But as the final week of September started, a front went through, with rain, cold and a chilly wind out of the northwest. For the last two nights, we woke up to temperatures in the mid 20s and heavy frost. Won’t be so cold for my football game Friday night–instead, heavy rain is moving this way.

OK, it’s getting late again, and I’m still typing. Time for bed. But I wanted to say hi and let you know I’m still alive. At least I think I am. I must be. Dead people don’t yawn.

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One more fall

Filed Under: Uncategorized by drdog
Sep.16, 2009

I’ve been busy lately, too busy to write a report to wrap up my wife’s trip. I started one last week but didn’t have time to finish. And now fate has written a new chapter in my life.

On Labor Day, two days after my wife returned from her week-long trip (more on that later), we drove down to visit my mom. The highlight of the visit came when I brought out my cell phone and called my mom’s brother, who had turned 90 years old the day before. He and my mom (who is 87) talked for a while. She was very happy to talk with him again–it had been over a year since he last drove up from central Wisconsin.

All was well for a few days. And then …

Early last Friday morning, my wife woke me up at about 2:30 a.m. The phone had been ringing, and it was the nursing home. My mom had fallen and hurt herself. (It was five days short of the fourth anniversary of her first fall.)

She has had a number of falls in recent weeks and months, mainly because she is getting forgetful about locking the wheels of her wheelchair when she tries to get on and off. Usually, she is all right. Not this time.

There was no point in driving down there in the middle of the night–she would be in the emergency room for a while. We went back to bed, and I called the nurses station at the hospital when I got up about 7 a.m. She had suffered a broken elbow and a fracture of a cervical spinal process in her neck. They also discovered a urinary tract infection, but the elbow was the main thing. It’s her right arm, and she’s right-handed.

We drove down to see her late Friday morning. She was uncomfortable in the rigid collar they had put on her. She recognized me, but it was very hard to understand what she was trying to say–not unusual. I did hear her say that she didn’t know what happened.

We went home, and I went ahead with my plans for Friday night, which involved covering a football game out of town and spending the night with a friend. I drove back Saturday morning, did some work, and then we drove down to see her again. That day, Saturday, she was totally out of it. Maybe it was the pain meds. She didn’t seem to recognize me at all, and she kept calling out her brother’s name … and also “Mama.”

I knew what that’s about. Several times in recent months, she had forgotten that her mother died many years ago. She has been asking about her mom during many of our recent visits, and I have to explain to her again that she died long ago. In 1963. Almost 50 years ago. If her mom were still alive, she would be over 120 years old.

And now she was calling for her mother again. My wife speculated “Maybe her mother is very close to her now.” And I wondered, too. Later, I told her this isn’t the first time I have driven home, wondering whether I would ever see her alive again.

She was in deep sleep when we returned Sunday afternoon, but after an hour or so, she woke up–and this time she did recognize me. By now, they had put a soft collar on her. We were able to talk for a little while (as well as she could–she still is hard to understand).

I wasn’t able to visit on Monday (too busy at work and then a meeting at night), but I drove down again on Tuesday afternoon. This time, even the soft collar was down. She was sleeping when I arrived, but she woke up, I gave her some water, and we talked for a while. Then she started getting tired and said I can go now.

I’m hoping she will feel good enough to return to the nursing home in another couple days. They are still doing medical tests. Nurses told me she sat up for a while today and is eating a little more.

It’s rough, though, for me. I haven’t been sleeping well–getting tired easily since this happened. That Saturday visit, especially, was mentally and emotionally draining.

****

As for my wife, she returned to town recently, on a Saturday night. While she was happy to be back home, she was also glad she made the trip.

We had talked nearly every night (until she let her cell phone’s batteries get too weak). When I asked her if she was enjoying herself, she replied, “Oh, you bet!” The people on the tour were kept pretty busy each day, and she got achy at times. Aspirin took care of that.

She was happy to get home but enjoyed the experience. She showed me some of the brochures she got about the shows, some pictures she took, two pieces of jewelry she bought, and she told me about some of her experiences.

One highlight was that she won a “Bugsplat” game on the way home, earning about $15 in quarters. They make a grid on the bus windshield, and the first big bug that splats on the grid pays off (in death) for the bus passenger who selected that square. They also did lots of bingo to pass the time on the bus.

The tour company has gone to Branson, Mo., for several consecutive years. Word is that they will may go to Nashville instead next year. I’m sure she would like that. She said she had a good time with everyone, and she, her roommate and the two other women from our town usually did things together–meals, etc. Bottom line: The trip was worth it.

The cats, of course, were very interested in her return, and she and Maggie had a long bonding session almost immediately. She was moderately impressed that the kitchen was not in any worse shape than when she had left it, and that there was not a big stack of dishes remaining to be washed. (We have an automatic dishwasher, but my vast knowledge does not include how to operate that.) To make up for it, there was a big pile of unwashed clothes upstairs.

She returned on the Saturday night of Labor Day weekend. We took it very easy on Sunday, but on Labor Day itself we went off to visit my mom. She had her first quilting group meeting of the season that Tuesday. It seems that life is getting back to normal.

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Me-ouch!!!

Filed Under: Uncategorized by drdog
Sep.04, 2009

Charlie, my cat, loves me and would never hurt me. Intentionally. But things can happen, and they did earlier this week.

It was late at night, and I was on my desktop computer upstairs, looking at some websites or working on letters. I heard “Meow-wow!” as Charlie hopped up on the chair next to me and then stepped over into my lap, where she curled up.

This is standard operating procedure for Charlie when I’m on the computer late at night. She will sit for a while, then hop off and go elsewhere. Or she may stick around for a while. Or she may go into orbit around my monitor–climbing up onto the desk, then strolling around the back of the flat-screen monitor (picking her way through some of the junk back there), cycling back to the front and stepping back down into my lap. Or she may go for another orbit. Or another.

It’s rather distracting when you’re trying to concentrate on your writing. But she can get away with it. She’s got me wrapped around her paw, let’s admit it.

Anyway, I was just wearing shorts–it was late, as I said–when Charlie climbed up, as usual, then went around the back of the monitor, as usual, and climbed back down into my lap, as usual. But I may have moved my leg, and that startled her. She started losing her balance. Charlie doesn’t have front claws, if you don’t know, but the ones on her rear paws still work. As she battled to keep her balance, she dug in … and left two long lines at the top of my right thigh …

Scratched legs

Me-ouch!!!

I didn’t swear or yell. Charlie fell to the floor and ran off, letting me alone to clean up the blood.

A few minutes later, I went to bed. Soon Charlie hopped up on the bed, next to me. Purr, purr, purr.

****
Outside of that misadventure, I have been doing pretty well while my wife has been gone on her trip. Since I am a novice in the kitchen, you may want to know about that.

On Monday, I baked some frozen twice-baked potatoes. (Does that make them thrice-baked potatoes?) Tuesday, I bought a foot-long chicken sandwich from Subway–had half of it for lunch and the other half for supper, before heading off to a volleyball match. Wednesday, I had got a pizza pasty for lunch from the pasty place next door.

That afternoon, I drove out of town to visit a friend–we had pizza for supper, and I stayed overnight, driving back Thursday morning. I had yogurt and some grapes for lunch–supper was taken en route to another volleyball match, another stop at Subway.

The kitties didn’t get their canned food while I was gone last night. Aside from tha,t they have been fed regularly and their dry food and water is kept in good supply.

As for my wife, she is having a great time, seeing the shows down in Branson. “Are you enjoying yourself?” I asked during our phone call Thursday morning. “Oh, you bet!” she answered.

We have talked every night except last night (no cell reception at my friend’s place). She has been updating me on her adventures, while I tell her about my day. Each day down there has been very busy. This is her last day at Branson–they start the long bus trip home Friday morning.

I will not have to drive to Ironwood to pick her up Saturday night–one of the women from our town who is also taking the tour will drive her home. That’s fine–we’ve got an early deadline because of the Labor Day holiday, and Saturday will be pretty busy for me.

Yeah, I miss her, all right. It’s too quiet at home, though I have managed to keep myself busy. The kitties miss her, too, especially Maggie. But she will be back home within 48 hours.

And she is having a good time, which matters most of all.

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She’s leaving home, bye-bye!

Filed Under: Uncategorized by drdog
Aug.28, 2009

There’s no getting around it. It’s going to happen. It really is.

My wife is going to leave me.

Really.

She will leave me for one week–more like 6 1/2 days–when she heads off on her tour down to southern Missouri this weekend.

It’s … going to be different for both of us. For one thing, I don’t cook very well. Hopefully, I can get by. Also, she normally takes care of our three cats–both feeding them and “loving them up” from time to time. Like several times a day. Each.

That’s not going to be in my portfolio. I’ll do well to feed them and make sure they have enough water. So we are going over those instructions.

Beyond that, it’s going to get lonely. No getting around that. Keep in mind that we have been married for “well over five years,” and in all that time we have never been apart for more than four days at a time–ever. This time, we’ll be apart for nearly a week. Plus, she will be farther from home than either of us have ever been. In fact, she will be the first of us to ever leave the Upper Midwest.

(Yes, we have not led very exciting lives.)

We have been preparing for this as well as we can. She got a Tracfone, so she can call me from far away. I got an AC charger for her Ipod and filled it (the Ipod, not the charger) with her favorite kinds of music. She will also have a charger for the rechargeable batteries in her camera.

“Maybe you should take” this and that. Extra clothes. Extra money. A swim suit. A microfiber cloth for cleaning glasses. BreathRight strips. Various over-the-counter meds, plus her prescriptions. This and that. I have been recruited to record “Monk” while she is gone. We went for a shopping trip yesterday, where she got things like undies, bras and luggage tags.

On Saturday afternoon, I drive her about 90 miles west, to the travel agency–the bus leaves at 8 a.m. Sunday. After it heads south, I am on my own for a while. Monday, I’ll be busy at the office, laying out the paper. Maybe that night I’ll go to a bar to watch a football game. Or else a movie at home. Tuesday, I’ve got volleyball. Nothing on Wednesday–maybe I can visit a friend. Thursday, more volleyball. Friday, football. Saturday, writing at the office and then driving back to the bus station to get my weary traveler at the end of her trip.

You can come along, she told me. Yeah, sure. It’s like this. First, this happens to be the start of my very busy period at work. Her tolerance for country music is much greater than mine. She’s got the money, and she’s got the time. I have neither. So I’ll stay here.

Besides, I have had a few adventures in life, and I want her to have some, too. She has never been anywhere as an adult except where I have taken her. And her interests are different than mine. I don’t mind taking her to quilt shows here or there in Wisconsin, but this kind of distance is out of my league.

Before she goes, I will tell her to go have fun and live it up. If she gets the notion to do anything–absolutely anything–don’t think twice, it’s fine with me. No matter where she goes or what she does or who she does it with, fine. Bottom line is, she will be back home next week–so let her have some fun while she’s on her own. If she wants to be naughty, so what?

I do know one thing, though. When she gets Saturday evening, she’s going to be very tired. We will spend a very quiet Labor Day weekend, I’m sure.

****

We got some agonizing news at the office this week. Ready?

Our health insurance rates are going up sharply. The letter from the company says “We are facing an increase of 29.9% to maintain our current coverage.” Oh, is that so?

Well, in my case, right now I am paying $103.50 per pay period (twice a month) for my “healthy lifestyle” coverage. Starting in September, that goes up to $164.09 per pay period. So for me, it’s going to be a 58.5% increase.

That also means my take-home pay goes down by $60.59, and that’s a serious decrease, too. On top of that, the deductible has doubled: from $500 per person/$1,000 for the family to $1,000/$2,000. After we hit $2,000 of covered expenses, the copay starts kicking in.

And I know I’m doing better than a lot of others who are collectively known as “the working poor,” those who don’t have insurance or who work a batch of part-time jobs. It just doesn’t add up.

Now, compare that with a friend of mine who works for a university–one of their business offices. She tells me she pays $59.08 every two weeks to cover herself and her husband. The annual deductible is $250 per person/$500 per year family. (There are three different levels of care, and theirs is the middle plan.) On top of that, her husband is retired military, so they have coverage from the government, too.

When my wife and I went on our three-day vacation trips this summer, some of the places we visited were Wausau and Appleton, Wis. Both are the homes of a number of insurance companies, and we couldn’t help but notice the palatial/opulent corporate offices. My premiums at work.

Gee, do you think this is a sore point with me?

Health care insurance reform is looking more distant each day. Sorry to say it, but you can’t deny facts. The “big lie” strategy has succeeded in getting the policy debate completely off course. And now Ted Kennedy has died. He was a great man because he cared about the little people. Like me. There aren’t very many like him: on the endangered species list. And, as for him being an unapologetic liberal, that breed may have just gone extinct.

There have been a few blog posts about the health care debate over the last month or so, and they have ignited flame wars. More heat, less light is not going to solve anything.

I just wonder about those who read about the debate in other countries and how they must be rolling their eyes at this. I’m a proud American, and I don’t like it when my country makes a fool of itself.

But we seem to have this knack.

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Chaos theory in print

Filed Under: Uncategorized by drdog
Aug.18, 2009

I wanted to write something wise and profound this week, but it’s not going to happen. I know that even as I type these first words.

I wanted to write about a very busy four days due to two very different trips (one for my son, one for myself). I wanted to write about my wife finally deciding to go on that long trip late this month. I wanted to write about the 40th anniversary of Woodstock. I wanted to write about the first anniversary of B’s first letter to me (which was yesterday). I wanted to write about John Hughes’ passing–a rare Hollywood filmmaker who seemed to understand young people.

But there’s really not much time this week to reflect thoughtfully on things. My son (from near Detroit) is visiting for a couple days–he arrives this evening. He doesn’t visit often–usually, just around the holidays, and then he’s gone again. Then the county fair is this weekend, and I will be spending much of the weekend there. And the board that I serve on has its annual meeting Saturday morning; I, as president, have to write a letter to the members. That board has a regular meeting early Wednesday morning. Then I’ve got the football scrimmage Friday morning out of town. And I’ve also got to write the editorial and track down the girls volleyball coaches for season previews.

This is going to be one bloody long week.

So here it is. Chaos theory for a while.

The first trip (Thursday and Friday) was to take my younger son to Green Bay. Essentially, it was a shopping trip for him, and I was his chauffeur. We made our regular stop at the Green Bay Packers Pro Shop, Best Buy, a shopping center, a video exchange place and finally the NEW Zoo north of Green Bay. NEW=Northeast Wisconsin. He paid for the motel. I covered most of the meals. We got back home late Friday afternoon.

The second trip (Saturday and Sunday) was a solo trip to a little farm near Appleton, which is now a private place for people to camp and swim. Oh yeah, it’s clothing-optional, too. My friend S and her husband are regulars there and said I could sleep in their tent, so that’s what I did. With temperatures in the upper 80s (a rare warm spell this summer), I made a beeline to the pond once I arrived and enjoyed that for a while. Later, S and another woman gave me a very relaxing backrub. (By the way, S did remember to return my Crackberry.)

We had corn and brats for supper, plus potato salad and pasta salad. After that, we sat around the campfire, talking about this and that, listening to the radio and enjoying a bottle of mead (honey wine) S had brought along–once we managed to get the cork out without a corkscrew.

Yeah, we’re wild people. Everybody was in bed by 10:30 p.m. or so.

On Sunday morning, it was clouding up with rain on the way, so we went to town for a breakfast buffet, returned, packed away the tents and went on our way. I got back home in mid afternoon. While I was gone, my wife was entertaining her youngest sister and her husband–they had gotten married privately the day before. The three of them had a good time on Saturday while I was gone, and I got to see the them Sunday before they left.

I’ll skip Woodstock until life gets calmer (if it ever does). Just so you know, I was not there. I had been at a music festival in Milwaukee maybe a month earlier (we lived in the suburbs), and I had heard about this big festival coming up in New York. But I was working and didn’t have my own car. So all I know about it is second-hand.

But God, I wish I had been there!

That brings up a different 40th anniversary. It was right about that time that a girl I knew from high school called me and asked if I wanted to go on a blind date with her, her boyfriend and a girl she knew from work. So I agreed. I guess the girl and I got along OK. She is downstairs now, watching TV with the kitties.

She made her final decision about that trip to Branson, Mo., late last week–she sent in her check. So now we have to take care of a few things: She has to get a cell phone, so she can call me from far away, and she needs an AC charger for her Ipod. She will be gone for a week, and I and the kitties will be soloing while she’s gone.

I will miss her a lot–but I really wanted her to go on the trip. I’ve been trying to get her to open up her world and have new experiences and just … live a little! While we’re still young. She is 10 months younger than me. In many ways, though, I think I am much younger.

The first anniversary of B’s first e-mail to me was Monday. I still have it. I wrote her, marveling at everything that has happened between us in the last 12 months … and wondering what will happen in the next 12. She will be out of town for a medical appointment part of this week.

OK, is that chaotic enough for you? That’s my life, at least this week’s edition of it. Next week? Should be a lot quieter.

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Stone bridges, a wonder cave and a missing phone

Filed Under: Uncategorized by drdog
Aug.11, 2009

My wife and I marked a quiet 38th anniversary last Friday.

It was quiet because the previous three days were spent running around central Wisconsin on a mini-vacation trip. We came home a bit tired out and spent out. So for the big night, she made chicken parmigiana for supper, and then we went to the local theater (the only movie house in the entire county) to see “Up,” which just arrived in town. (According to the posters, “Public Enemies” will be getting here soon. Before the DVD comes out!)

We planned this vacation so she could go to some places she was interested in. With the help of her AAA book and some diligent web-surfing, she picked some pretty good ones off the beaten track.

Our first one was a stone arch bridge in Merrill, Wis., which carries traffic through the downtown area …
Stone arch bridge

We saw a park nearby and walked down a path to another, even older bridge. This one had a sign from the construction company, dated 1909. It was much narrower–one lane wide …
1909 bridge

The next stop was Wausau. Our main stop there was the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum. My wife was mainly interested in a sculpture garden on the grounds, and we walked around there. They had an exhibit with metal sculptures by artist Wendy Ross …
Sphere sculptire

Spring sculpture

We also walked down by a small garden, where the bees were busily at work …
Bee in flowers

From there, we walked around to the main (temporary) entrance of the museum and went inside. They had two temporary exhibitions. One was photos of jungle life, taken by a National Geographic photographer. The other was called “American Ruins,” about places like ghost towns and crumbled, overgrown mansions from long ago. All the photos were taken in black-and-white, using infrared film, so the leaves, grasses and other foliage comes out white, not dark as you would expect. Interesting effects. We studied the photos for quite a while.

None of the photos on their website show the white leaves that well, but they give you an idea of what the exhibitions were like. No photos were permitted inside. The LYW Museum is best known for its “Birds in Art” permanent display, but we had to bookmark it for a future visit. We had one more place to visit this day.

This last stop for Tuesday was way out in the country, about 70 miles away on country roads. Called Jurustic Park, it is composed mainly of fanciful sculptures of animals and other creatures made from scrap metal.

But we had spent so much time at the museum that we arrived about 15 minutes after it had closed for the day. All we could do is take a few photos of the main entrance …
Jurastic entry

… and a telephoto shot of a “hobbit house” inside …
Hobbit house

… before leaving. You can look over some of their other creations on their website–they really are fun to look at.

From there, we drove south to Marshfield and then east to Stevens Point, where we spent the night. Wednesday, we drove back west. This time our destination was the Rudolph Grotto, a Catholic shrine, gardens and “wonder cave.”

This place was started during the 1920s by Father Philip Wagner, who became very ill while studying for the priesthood in Europe. According to the brochure from grotto, Wagner went to Lourdes in France, to the Grotto of Our Lady, in 1912. He prayed and prayed and promised that if his health was restored, he would build a shrine in Mary’s honor. He got better and started planning.

Wagner became the priest in Rudolph in 1917, a new church was built, and he started envisioning flower beds and tree arrangements for his grotto. He used rocks from the surrounding area to build shrines. “Stones and large rocks were piled because he knew nothing of construction or masonry. In order to create the beautiful structures we see here today, Father Wagner began using concrete and the trial-and-error method of construction.”

Father Wagner lived at the church and worked on the grotto until his death in 1969. Another man worked with him on the grotto until he died in 1991. They kept making more and more shrines in the park–the last one was completed in 1983.

It is intensely Catholic, of course. There was a series of stations of the Seven Sorrows of Mary, including this one …
Sorrow display

They also had statues for all 14 Stations of the Cross, plus many other shrines, plaques and statuary. Even a little wooden chapel …
Grotto chapel

And then there was the Wonder Cave. We couldn’t miss that. “A 1/5th mile catacomb-like passageway through the grotto depicting 26 shrines of the life and teaching of Jesus.”

It sure was narrow, and you had to duck your head pretty often. Even my wife, who rarely needs to duck her head for any reason …
Duck your head

It’s very dark inside, of course, and the shrines are illuminated with colored lights. Quite difficult for a camera without a tripod or a flash, but at least this scene came out well …
Wonder cave display

Outside we walked around the grounds a little longer when suddenly we encountered an untamed Wisconsin wildlife creature …
Wild chipmunk

And we also stopped at a museum about the history of the shrine, the parish and Rudolph, Wis. And among everything else, we came across this heartbreaking relic …
Oh, Rudolph!

One more stop before leaving the Stevens Point area: The Herrschner’s catalog outlet store. How many of you have seen the Herrschner’s catalog of craft items? This is where they come from. Here is the door to the store …
Herrschner's outlet

… and here is a wall of yarn of all colors of the rainbow …
Wall of yarn

They also had a large variety of fabrics. I was impressed, but my wife said she has seen larger varieties at the Hobby Lobby stores, which was on our schedule for Thursday. She was especially disappointed by the relative lack of needlework items and the large quantity of “close-out” items for sale–she thought there would be a lot more to look at.

From there, we got on the highway and drove to Oshkosh, where we met up with S and her husband. It happened to be his birthday, and our original plan was to see “Public Enemies,” which they hadn’t seen yet (even though some scenes were shot in Oshkosh and they took me to see the preparations over a year ago). But S doesn’t like violent movies, so she wasn’t going to go. They also had their 5-year-old grandson with them, whom they were babysitting. Hmmm.

We finally decided: We would go to a movie that everyone could enjoy. We opted for the new “Ice Age” movie, and everyone went and had a good time. From there, we had supper at the Golden Corral buffet, and then we went to our motel, to relax in the swimming pool and (especially) the hot tub.

That wasn’t the end of our day. They invited us to join them at a neighborhood bar near their home, for a birthday toast. Neither of us visits bars very often, but we went this time, spent another hour with them and had a good time. The highlight was when Johnny Depp (from “Public Enemies”) came on the David Letterman show, and life at the bar ground to a dead stop. The younger women were swooning!

That capped a very busy Wednesday. Thursday was supposed to be a lot easier: Just visit a few stores my wife wanted to visit (Hobby Lobby, Fashion Bug) and then start driving home. By about 11 a.m., the shopping was done, and we pointed the car north. In Appleton, the last big city on our way, we stopped at a sub place for lunch. As we walked to the store, I reached for my cell phone out of habit, to see if there were any messages. It wasn’t there.

I checked my pockets, to see if I had stuck it in there. Then I went back to the car and checked the area around the front seat. Then the trunk, where I had changed a shirt earlier and may have absent-mindedly put it down.

It wasn’t here. It wasn’t there. It wasn’t anywhere.

My wife said, “Maybe we should go back and look.” “Back there” meant Oshkosh, about 30 miles south, where we had started the day. We had only made a few stops, and I knew I had it while waiting at Hobby Lobby. We zipped back south. Once we got there, we stopped at each place. Nobody had seen anything. I left addresses and phone numbers, just in case.

We still hadn’t had lunch–it was 1:30 by now–so we went to a Subway, and my wife got something. I was just too upset at myself to eat anything. I had a sip or two of her soda, and that was all. Nothing to do but drive back north, phoneless, my mind racing, imagining the cost and hassle of getting a new phone set up.

Three hours later, we were home. My wife checked the answer machine. Sure enough, a woman had called, saying she had found my phone in a parking lot. The next message was from S. The woman had contacted her, too, and they had gone down to pick it up.

They aren’t going to mail it to me: We had earlier made plans to meet again this weekend at that clothing-optional “beach,” where they like to camp in summer–I haven’t been there yet this year, and that was on my to-do list. A mailed phone wouldn’t arrive until late this week, so I told them to just keep it until I get down there.

A hectic end to a busy trip. On Monday, the first official high school football practices were held. Summer is nearly over.

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