Thursday, November 24, 2016

Three Beautiful Things 11/23/16: Mom's Day Gets Better, Pandora and Gin in the Kitchen, The Past is With Me

1. Mom woke up today feeling, in her words, "a bit ditzy". It wasn't like she suddenly became Lucy Ricardo, but I think she was light headed and on the verge of dizzy. She'd had a pretty significant drop in weight in the last 24 hours, no doubt caused by her diuretic, and her weight dropped under the threshold the doctor established for when she goes off the water pill. As the day progressed, she felt better -- she ate her breakfast, a good tomato soup and crackers lunch, and ate plenty of the beef stroganoff I fixed for dinner, along with a piece of bread pudding. Late in the morning, she showered without a problem and was in good shape when Kim, the in-home nurse, arrived to change the dressing on her wound and the compression wraps on her legs. The wound continues to heal and Mom's legs, as expected with the loss of weight, were not swollen with edema.

2. I slipped away in the afternoon and shopped for tonight's dinner and tomorrow's Thanksgiving groceries at Yoke's in preparation to do some cooking tonight. Sometimes, I enjoy nursing a gin on the rocks while I cook and so I stopped off at the liquor store and purchased some cheap gin and enjoyed it in the kitchen while plugged into the Leon Russell station on Pandora. I have also created a "Let It Ride" station and got in the mood for some Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Guess Who, and other similar artists and while the cornbread for one of the Thanksgiving dressings baked, I got to play a little air guitar along with "Takin' Care of Business," out of Mom's sight.  I didn't want her to worry that I'd gotten all ditzy.

3. I am deeply grateful that Deb, a treasured friend I fell out of contact with over twenty-five years ago, followed up an exchange we had on Facebook recently with an email, telling me about the two books of poetry she's published and a bit about her life over the last several years. I wrote back and look forward to more correspondence. I have enjoyed reflecting back on our friendship, especially in Eugene, and the many conversations we had about so many things. Many of those conversations continue to affect how I see and understand the world. I don't live in the past, but I have a deep awareness of how the past is always with me.

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