DAMN . . .

PHONE . . . DOG . . .  MICROWAVE . . . CAR . . .  WATER JUG . . .  SHOWER . . . NOZZLE ON THE HOSE . . .  and on and on it goes!

Tonight it is "DAMN PHONE" but in any given day it could be one or all of the above with all sorts of other "DAMNS" thrown in.  Never is it "DAMN STUPID GERARD". It is always the fault of what ever item Ger can not manage to figure out.

How anyone can have so many problems with a flip phone is well beyond my understanding but every time the man's phone rings it takes him 2 or 3 tries to actually get to talk to the person who is calling. And his conversation always starts with, "DAMN PHONE!".
 At first I would try to give suggestions on HOW TO ANSWER A PHONE. I mean, really . . .  open it up and hold it to your ear. NO!  Too complicated.
First he has to establish that there is something in the vicinity of himself that is making a noise. As in, HELLO! YOUR POCKET IS RINGING!!!! (An actual comment from a fellow shopper standing next to Husband.) Once H realizes something is making noise other than himself or the TV he has to figure out WHAT is making that noise. This is usually about the time that I YELL, "GER, YOUR PHONE IS RINGING!" Now that he realizes it is indeed HIS phone he has to figure out where the phone is. This process involves his looking all around the room and then starting to pat himself down. (When was the last time H had his phone hanging around his neck? Why is he patting down his chest? ) H finally realizes it IS HIS PHONE AND IT IS IN HIS PANTS POCKET !  A huge leap of intelligent processing on his part! By now the phone has usually stopped ringing. But that is no deterrent for H. He finally locates the correct pocket, digs out the phone and is now fumbling to get the thing open. Seeing how he has only had this phone for the past 6 years you would suppose opening it would come naturally. NOPE! There he stands grabbing at it like a chicken with mittens on. It usually hits the floor about now but sometimes he is able to actually keep hold of it. Once the phone is opened, and this is where it really gets to be fun, H starts pushing buttons!
You do understand that by now the person calling has hung up and probably gone to bed but there stands Husband pushing buttons like crazy while yelling at the top of his voice, "HELLO, HELLO, HELLO!!!!"  Followed by a quick snap shut of the phone and a loud DAMN PHONE !!

So if for any reason you should call H never expect him to answer. It is just too difficult. Don't bother leaving a message because he still doesn't know how to retrieve them.  Just hang up and wait. If you are lucky H will hand me his phone and I will tell him who the caller was and he will call you back. Its about the best you can hope for.

And you wonder why I walk around yelling, DAMN HUSBAND !

HEAD BUTTS

Our son Kent and daughter-in-law Kristen had a cat that gave the best head butts in the whole world. Motsie was one cool cat, fat and lazy and just a giant fuzz ball of love. He would come over to visit you where ever you were and check you out. If you happened to be standing at the kitchen counter he would jump up, casually saunter over and put his head down so you could head butt him in the gentlest way possible. I think it was his way of saying, "Hey, I like you!"  Not every one got head butts, Husband for example would never let poor Mots near enough to get some love but Kristen and Kent got their fill. Sometimes it was at 5 in the morning when a head butt was the last thing in the world you wanted but when Motsie wanted to show some love, you got love!
It was several years before I was graced with the fuzzy big guys love. I think it was after our drive from Maryland to Florida in a rental truck when Kristen was moving to Delray. Kent and Kristen were in their car with Mookie the dog and  I got to drive the truck with Motsie draped across the dash board right in front of the steering wheel. It was a delightful two day trip with Motsie staying in the hotel room with me on our overnight stop. We got to be pretty friendly, all things considered. Mots did not like being grabbed and wrapped in a blanket to be transported from home to truck, truck to hotel, hotel to truck and truck to new home. But he weathered the trip with his usual cat like indifference and adjusted to life in Florida. Soon after he was settled in I began to be blessed with his affection in the form of a head butt. He is missed now that he has passed on to the big litter box in the sky. Charlie the cat has yet to acknowledge I am alive, no less show me any affection.

But that is all past and the only head butts I get these days are the grease marks on our bathroom mirror. I have yet to figure out how the marks got there as they are on the side wall mirror. As would be expected they are on Ger's side of the sinks. They are just about at the height of where Ger's head would be while he is standing at the sink. BUT HOW DID THEY GET THERE?
I noticed today there are 3 marks. Has Ger fallen over 3 times and bumped his head on the wall? Has he fallen asleep while brushing his teeth?  Has he walked out of the shower and straight into the wall?
I think I am going to make sure I am brushing my teeth when he is in the sink room  so I can watch to see what the heck the man is doing. I have come to realize that ANYTHING is possible but this one stumps me.
I'll keep you posted.

I CAN'T FALL ASLEEP AT 8

Or at nine or ten or sometimes even eleven. It's ten PM and H is snoring and I am wandering. Yes I am tired and I will curse myself at 6:30 AM when the freaking alarm goes off but I can NOT fall asleep yet. I have the choice of laying down and tossing and turning for to or three hours before I actually fall into a sort of sound sleep or I can sit up and blog or play solitaire. I do love sitting here alone so I will take plan "B". The option of watching TV is not appealing because I am finding that most of the stuff on TV is crap. I would sit and watch movies or old TV series but then I would stay up ALL night. Got to find a happy medium somewhere.
Now if I had come in today and taken a nap on the bed around 3 or 4 I probably could have slept through the entire afternoon, evening AND night and been well rested when the alarm went off at dawn. But Ger would have missed dinner so that isn't an option. As you well know Ger can not find the kitchen, never mind prepare food for himself so if I want him to continue to heal I do have to feed the poor thing. It would be so easy to just let him starve to death but I do think I would miss him and then who would I write about?
Tomorrow we have to be up at sunrise to go have BRAIN MRI #5. Every three months its a PET scan or an MRI to make sure the cancer is still in remission. It's an easy thing to do and it is very reassuring. I may have lost my mind years ago but we know for a fact Ger still has his brain. I really wish the MRI showed how much of that brain was actually functioning. I still find myself in these strange conversations wondering how I got there and where the hell it is going. You know when you try to converse  with a two year old and they just keep saying, "WHAT?". That's what our conversations are like. Today we had lunch out and I spent the entire meal watching Ger watch other people. We are the old couple that you see never talking to each other. He is so distracted by EVERYTHING else around him thact I need not be present. And yet I still want to keep him around . . .  Go figure!

GET-A-WAY !

Because living in South Florida for 9 glorious years isn't enough of Heaven, H and I still like to "escape" every now and then. Because we live here there are always the bills to be paid, phones to answer, beds to make and laundry to get done. So even on the MOST PERFECT days it still isn't really like a vacation.  And that is why Keri and Steve gave us a gift certificate for a wonderful little hotel in Vero Beach.
Last Christmas, when our kids still didn't believe Ger would kick some Cancer Butt, Keri and Steve thought it would help Ger to heal if we had an opportunity to travel and feel "normal". That didn't happen but the knowledge that we COULD get away was a carrot on a stick to both of us. "Hey Ger, maybe we'll go to Vero after this month's chemo!", "Radiation is almost over. Maybe you'll be up to a trip to the hotel!", "Now that chemo is ending I bet we will be able to get away!". And on and on it went for almost a whole year.
The gift card was expiring in 10 weeks and still we hadn't gotten away. And so last week I called and made a 2 night reservation and let every thing else work around that. Ger is feeling GOOD ! He is very much "recovered". Still slower and older than before the whole Cancer Crap but he feels GOOD!
And so we left Wednesday morning for our 2 nights at the Caribbean Court Hotel, which turned out to be PERFECT ! Vero is only an hour north of us and an easy ride. Our biggest problem was finding the place. We had the address, were on the correct street yet drove up and down the small stretch or beach road unable to find the hotel. Turns out it is hidden behind a virtual jungle of plants and flowers. The two story buildings are covered in Bougainvillea that hides it from the rest of the world. Our room was on the second floor with a kitchen that overlooked the gardens.  It was WONDERFUL!
For a day and a half we just sat by the pool and RELAXED ! We met some lovely people from England, Arlington, MA and Delray Beach, Fl.  Go figure . . .  everyone was on holiday and loving our little hied-a-way. There was a schmancy restaurant which none of us chose to dress up for but rather everyone found their way to the piano bar where we could dine on the same fine food in a much more relaxed atmosphere while listening to some enjoyable music by a talented pianist.  Aren't we just the continental POSH folk!

Sitting looking at the ocean

And what a view it is !

Relaxing by the pool

A touch of Heaven

TEENY TINY TOILETS

You can tell my life has quieted down a bit when I have time to contemplate things like toilets. That and the fact that travel always open ideas for blogs because I am out in the world seeing things that I don't normally see. (Even though I see my toilet several times a day.)

I think this blog started with the purchase of our new toilet several months ago. Up to that point I really did not choose to think often and hard about toilets. In fact that is the soul reason I have a cleaning lady. I HATE TOILETS. Years and years of cleaning and gagging at the prospect of cleaning a toilet have resulted in a cleaning lady.  I would love if she would come to my house once, (or twice) a day just to clean that nasty bowl of disgusting filth.

(We were once at a wedding where the persons sitting next to us lived in a Hippie Community and had no inside toilet. Seeing how they were living in the state of Maine we inquired how that worked during the often long and snowy winters. Their reply was," It's fine. We don't like to shit in our house." If you think about it any animal you know will not poop where it sleeps. And yet I have a toilet only steps away from my bed. TOTALLY GROSS! But also quite welcome in the middle of the night when I have to pee!)

Anyway . . .  Once again, getting oldER is a problem at times when we have to "use the facilities". Have you noticed that most public toilets are built about 18 inches off the floor thus requiring good knees in order to sit?  Go into a public rest room with several stalls. There will be ONE stall with a toilet built at a normal sitting height and the rest are just inches off the floor. When you sit at your dinning room or kitchen table do you sit nearly on the floor or are your chairs high enough that it does not require you to SQUAT?  Are not the seats on trains, buses and planes a normal sitting height? When in waiting rooms are you required to squat in order to sit?  So WHY are public toilets built so low to the ground ???????   And why is there only ONE "Handicapped" toilet sitting there at a normal height?  I know I am not old enough to be considered handicapped but it is a problem getting my knees to bend so much in order to get down to the toilet seat. Especially after sitting in a cramped airplane seat for the past 4 hours. I feel guilty making a bee line for the one handicapped stall when there were all those wheel chair people on my plane. (But then it appears that along with being miraculously cured they also have incredible bladders that do not need to be emptied every 2 hours.)

I think we need to get some one thinking about changing the toilets in bathrooms to a NORMAL height and just make one or 2 stalls with teeny tiny toilets for the children and midgets who are traveling. There are far more adults than little people traveling and I think it would be a great service to all if toilets grew a few inches higher.

As to our new toilet . . .  we bought it for Ger when he was recovering from the effects of chemo. He was so weak that the effort of sitting on such a low seat caused him serious problems. One day he got up the momentum to stand and wound up sailing across the room and into the opposite wall, smacking his head on the towel rack. (I'm sure this is not a common occurrence but it was a matter of get a new toilet or pad the wall of the bathroom.)
Once we purchased the new commode we realized how much nicer it was on our knees and backs. There have been no further incidents involving towel racks and I have decided that when in public I am heading to the handicapped stall.
I do tend to affect a limp just in case anyone is paying attention.

OUCH, OOOH, AGHHH, OWWWWW !

In the words of Grand ma Rita Lawlor, "It's not easy getting old!"  And our response to her, being young and snarky, was always, "What's the alternative?"

I"m thinking Rita was a lot smarter than we gave her credit for. She did not like the aging process and was quick to make that fact know to whom ever would listen.  Let me join her in her cry, "IT SUCKS TO GET OLD !"  And I don't even consider myself old but my body sure does feel old.

After two and a half hours of packing up Kyle and Bridget's condo my body feels about ONE HUNDRED AND TEN!  And it is only a one bedroom condo. Given, it is on the third floor and there is no elevator, right there I am exhausted just climbing the stairs to the condo. Once inside we knew we were in for a long afternoon. (K&B have sold the condo so Ger and I offered to save Bridget a 10 hour trip down to empty the place of their possessions. We didn't have any boxes but we did have a bunch of cloth grocery bags that came in very handy and a whole box of plastic garbage bags. Between that and the creative packing of dishes into the insulated picnic bag on wheels we were good to go.

As with any house, it is always amazing the amount of crap you can accumulate in a very short span of time. (I'm not saying that the kids have crap, it is just a term of endearment for someone else's stuff.

Having just returned from time with Aunt Ann Marie and friend Gloria I was itching to do some CLEANING AND THROWING OUT.  Glo and Ann Marie are kindred spirits in the "Pack Rat" department. If they have one mug, they have forty. If they have one pot they have twenty. Their cabinets and drawers are filled to over flowing and I am always wanting to empty them out and throw out half of what is there. This is NOT to say there is anything wrong with these 2 wonderful ladies. Rather it is a sad reflection on my anal OCD and the fact that I have way too much time on my hands.
I get goose bumps on days when I can stay home and clean out a cabinet or a drawer. The Joy of Tossing just makes my day.

But today I just got to pack up. There was a minimum of tossing and a maximum of bending and stooping to empty cabinets and drawers. At one point Ger was laying on the floor of the bedroom pushing things out from under the bed. It was only by an act of God that he was able to get back up and on to his feet. It was one of those times when you really hope there are no hidden cameras. I performed the same contortions when trying to get up off the kitchen floor after emptying the cabinets under the sink. We did a lot of laughing at each other and were very grateful that we did not have to carry the 30 some boxes and bags down the 3 flights of stairs. That job has been relegated to the poor realtor who is handling the sale.

We packed up sheets, towels, dishes and cleaning supplies. Kid games and toys and an assortment of books.  How did they end up with so much stuff?
As Ger said as we were driving home, "If Kyle decides to sell his 4 story house we are busy the day he packs all that stuff up!"

Ger is now asleep in front of Fox News and I am headed out to the pool. I do see a nap in my future. That and a couple of Aleve should get these old bones to settle back down. Thank Heaven for our kids who see to it that we have things to do to stay in shape. If it wasn't for them and the Grand kids Ger and I would REALLY be a couple of old farts.

TRAVELING AGAIN . . . AT LAST !

The travel bug is off and running around in us. Ger is finally feeling well enough to give this a try and so far he is doing great.  The fact that he is getting antsy and wanting to get traveling is such a great thing after the year of fighting cancer.

Last week we packed our bags and flew off to Long Island to stay with Ger's sister Ann Marie.  You know Ann Marie, the Queen of Shopping and our constant travel buddy when we go some place other than to visit our children. She picked us up at the airport on Long Island last Saturday and we spent 3 days visiting with friends and family.  Her grand kids are so grown up, ranging from 4 - 16. It was great seeing all of them and catching up on family news. Although every one keeps up to date through facebook there are still things to catch up on.

We left AM's house in her car on Wednesday and headed for Maine and our long time friends
Glo and John. We had an absolutely beautiful day to sail across Long Island Sound from Orient Point to New London, CT. It was hot and sunny and the sometimes raging sound was as calm as could be. From New London we headed up the coast past Boston where we waved at brother Joseph and his wife Sue. We had hoped to get an invitation to stay over with them for a day but they were too busy with other engagements so we just waved as we drove past their exit on our way North. WE arrived in Falmouth, Maine early afternoon and were welcomed with open arms by Glo and John. John has had some health issues and we were worried that our visit would over tax him but it seems that the laughter that is always present when we all get together has been just the medicine he needed. Last night we got to see their beautiful daughter, Jenna and her adorable little man, Orion. Orion is two and just a ball of fun. I got my little person fix by sitting on the floor playing cars for an hour. He is all boy and reminded me a lot of Smith. (Smith and his parents are in Maryland for a wedding of one of Kristen's cousins. They haven't traveled together any where in ages so I am hoping they have a great time. I talked with them quickly this morning and all was going great. They had stayed overnight last night with Keri and Steve so Smith, Finley and Kaelin got to spend some quality cousin time together.)

Today we are packing up some things and heading to Gloria and John's "CAMP" on Lake Sobago. We will spend the weekend there just laughing and relaxing on the lake. It is so very different from Florida and we are really enjoying the change of scenery and weather. We are wearing jeans and tee shirts with light jackets on and it feels wonderful. I had to dig under the bed to find these long forgotten clothes. I believe the Florida weather has been rain and 86 degrees while here the sun is shining and it is in the mid seventies. AHHHHHHH ! As Ger says, "This is our winter."

And so that is the latest up date on our where abouts.  Other than falling off the edge of the bed the other night Ger is doing great. He isn't tiring too much, his appetite is great and he is relaxed. Balance and strength are good so I am happy to report I am not having to worry too much. The bed incident was hysterical once I realized he was not hurt but the man sure can scare the living day lights out of me. (He went to sit on the edge of the very high bed and didn't have his butt firmly planted. He slid, not gracefully, off the edge and onto the floor taking down a glass table and lamp with him. I had visions of broken glass and blood but there were no bodily injuries involved, just a bruised ego.)

I'll probably get to write again when we return to Florida. Hopefully with some pictures for you of the beautiful people and Maine country side. There have been no moose sightings so far but you never know what's around the next bend in the road.