What a WEEKEND!

It is now 1:00 a.m. on Monday and I am worn to a frazzle! 

I have survived one funeral, one day of helping my 93-year old neighbor again,  and my first actual emergency caused by my hoarding habits.  I will discuss them in reverse, because the last one nearly blew my mind.

The result of that emergency is that I shall spend the entire HOT day tomorrow carting things OUT of my bathroom and making it as pristine as a bathroom should be!

It started very late this morning.  I had slept late because I was awake far too long—as usual.  I was about to leave the house to run my batch of errands that didn’t get done due to the funeral yesterday and the football game last night.  I got to the car and was so pain-filled when I wanted to step up into the car that I realized I had not taken my Advil or any Tylenol.  So I closed the car door and went back in to take some liquid Advil. 

Because my hands were so stiff, as I was closing the lid of the bottle, one of the little aqua liquid-filled capsules fell to the floor.  This was not your ordinary bathroom.  I had too many boxes every where else, so some had worked their way into the wall across from the “throne.”  Beside the open boxes were some cans and plastic bottles of cleaning liquids, air-fresheners, etc.  The little pill had found its way out of sight and I wasn’t able to locate it because of this inappropriate stuff that should not have been there.  Because I was aching and irritated, I didn’t keep looking till I found it.  I swore under my breath and got out a 2nd pill, took them and went to the car.  I didn’t think of it again until tonight.

As we were returning from a potty trip outside, Poco came in before me, ran down the hall and disappeared.  I thought he had gone on to the bedroom, so I put away his collar and the keys and came on down the hall.  I glanced into the bathroom and saw Poco with his nose buried in the cans along the boxes.  He was licking his chops, as if he had eaten something.  I told him to “spit it out” and I swept my finger over his tongue, but there was nothing there.  Then I remembered the pill.  Each one contains 200 mg of liquid Advil.  Enough to eat the lining out of his stomach as it was killing him.

I spent a few futile moments scolding him for going into the bathroom—stupid of me.  He loves to explore and the door was open.  What else would he do? I spent the next 10 or 15 minutes imagining all the awful pain he would go through before he died.  I considered the Animal Emergency room, but I know that runs over $500 a night, and I don’t have that much left in my checking account, so I called my son and asked if I could borrow his credit card info for this emergency.

Bless his stable, helpful heart, he gave me the permission to do so, but first encouraged me to “Go look for the pill.  If you find it, you will know he didn’t find it.”  Any other time, that is what I would have done on my own.  But for some reason, when I get scared, my thinking sometimes goes out the door.  I *did* have the good sense to call my vet and ask Julie what to do (in case there was something that would work at home and not require the Emergency Room.)  But she had told me that I would need the Animal E.R. to save him if he did get the pill.

But back to Dick’s advice—I hung up the phone and went to look for the stupid pill.  It only took a couple of minutes and THERE IT WAS!  Nestled against the wall behind some cans of bathroom cleaner.  I nearly burst into tears of relief!  I scurried back to the family room to call Richard and thank him again.  I am still looking at my little boy with gratitude that he is well and sleeping soundly beside me.

Now—working backwards—it is Saturday.  At 11:00 a.m. I was to be at the new Evangelical Church that is located between Poulsbo and Silverdale for the funeral of Paul Daniels, the very sweet man who had just been promoted to be the General Manager of 3 area storage units in Port Orchard, Kingston and Poulsbo.  He has been a sort of friend of mine for ten years—ever since the sale of the big house and the move here.  He was always there to help me find a different unit or to move from one place to another.  He had just moved into the Viking Park and was just down the street from the mailboxes.  He went out to mow their small lawn during the exceptional heat (for us) last Saturday.  He evidently had a heart problem he didn’t know about, and the heat and exertion were enough to kill him. 

I remembered seeing all of the ambulances and fire truck parked by that house when I came home last Saturday, but I thought they were there for Jerry Irvine, who lived next door.  Jerry is a retired Navy man and he has had heart problems that have required ambulances in the past.  I had driven on home and planned to call Bonnie later to see how he was.

I got busy with Life 101 and didn’t call, so it wasn’t until a couple of days had passed that I saw Bonnie when I was getting the mail.  I asked her how Jerry was, and she said that he was fine, but that the man next door had died from a heart attack.  I still remember that awful shock.  He had just been in the office a day or so before and had given me permission to have heat vents cut into the unit I have.  He looked fine.  I actually remembered how Jim had looked the day before HE died, and I have to tell you, I was feeling my own mortality.

So I spent my Friday hunting for the perfect Sympathy card and looking for my black pants and blazer for the funeral.  The service was lovely—the family all had great things to say about their dad, and I discovered that Paul had been in the footwear business in his youth.  He had gone to Asia where the shoes were made and sold them here in this country.  They had lived near Boston and then here on the west coast, but he was evidently very well respected.  He had even lived in Canada for some time and had organized their community baseball league.  His brother-in-law said the league was still in operation.

I found that a Missouri Synod Lutheran doesn’t know many songs from the
Evangelical hymn book.  In fact, they didn’t even have one.  They projected the lyrics onto a huge screen in front of the seating area.  It is such a new church that they don’t even have pews yet.  (Maybe they never will.)  They had chairs that were padded and more comfortable than a wooden pew.  But the Pastor had no idea how hard it is for that many people of my age to sit still for an hour and a half, so we had to wait through his Sunday Sermon.  People were wiggling and coughing and one little lady got up and walked out, but he kept droning on till a little after 12:30.  I did not stay for refreshments, but scurried home because the first football game of the year was on that night.

I got home and walked Little Man and fixed us some dinner, then turned on all the fans and set the VCR to tape the game.  There was a 2 hour pre-game show where they talked about all the new guys and what they were expecting from them.  The even more exciting part was that 2 men who mean a LOT to the state of Washington and the city in particular were coming back to town.  Matt Hasselbeck was the Seahawks Quarterback for ten years and took us to the Super Bowl in 2005.  Jake Locker was the Quarterback at the UDub till year before last when he was selected in the first round by the Tennessee Titans.  Then, when the Seahawks didn’t re-sign Matt, the Titans also took HIM.  So we had both of those guys we loved now playing for the other team.

The game was exciting, but sad for our visiting heroes.  Matt threw an interception on his very first pass/play, and Jake didn’t do much better.  They finally got one touchdown when both of our guys were out and their 3rd QB, Rusty Smith was in.  Our two quarterbacks were like light night and day.  Matt Flynn, the tall one from Green Bay, was very careful.  He was in with the best players but was facing *their* best players, as well.  We led 10-3 at half time.

In the 2nd half, The Shrimp came in.  He is only 5’10” and everyone says he is too small to make it in the NFL.  But I will tell you, he scrambled out of the pocket and made many good passes.  The kicker of it all was the final play.  He faked a hand off to the right and then ran it in himself by running around the left end.  He is a black kid, but you can’t hear any trace of race in his voice as you sometimes can.  He may be a rookie, but he sure doesn’t play like one.  I was very impressed with him.  Even his press interview had more personality.  I think I am a fan!

After the game there was Facebook and some sleep.  Then back to Friday.

Shelley is the grand daughter of Phyllis Cooper, my 90+ neighbor who lives on the opposite side from Doris.  She has been coming to her grandmother’s house for several weeks doing heavy yard work—trimming trees and bushes and weed-eating where necessary.  On one of her trips the prior week, she had told me that Friday she would bring her huge pruning shears with the long, long handles and she would cut as many branches as she could from the Japanese Lace Leaf that is so huge it is hanging over my roof and growing into the side of my house.  I hauled 3 loads of cut branches in the back of the Trail Blazer over to the area beside our park where we are to dispose of vegetation.  The owner had just cleared the space with a back hoe, and the people started dumping their debris at the front—which is going to make him nuts!  But walking around on that sloping danged driveway and looking up to tell her what branches to cut was enough to wear me out.  I had been digging out grass and cutting back dead perennials all morning and by evening, I was almost dead.  Again.  It seems that yard work does this to me on an almost daily basis.

But thus you see why I was so ill-prepared to face the possible demise of my little 4-legged friend because of a stupid pill in a cluttered bathroom.  So the shape of my Monday is that I will be hauling out boxes and tossing stuff into the garbage with great glee.  I will have to blog about how it all turns out!

And guess what a lovely surprise the Universe had for me tonight!  I ran into STAR TREK: THE VOYAGE HOME on HBO at 1 a.m.  It is just ending now.  It is my all-time favorite of all the Star Trek movies. George and Gracie, the humpback whales, have been safely carried from the whale museum in San Francisco to the 23rd century, and the crew is back aboard the good old NCC 1701-A, the Enterprise!  And by the way!  I found my old model of the Enterprise that my darling husband made for me.  It is autographed by James Doohan (Scotty,) but the insignias are all in the wrong places.  Jimmy didn’t know squat about Trek.  LOL