Here I Am

 2/11/2021

I missed yesterday (ya think). For most of the day, as well as this morning, I've been looking at senior communities. It's not only location, location, but amenities and cost. Obviously, cost has to be a part of our decision.

We are going to tour later this week, a community that, in a virtual tour, looks so peaceful. It has an ideal location, surrounded by a large green space. They even have visiting horses! How cool is that?

I guess the only downside is that my stay has to be for a month. I can leave after "x" amount of weeks, but will still have to pay for the month.

For this respite stay, I want to live in a studio apartment. This is far from ideal, but I'll be able to participate in all activities and the meals too.

If this turns out to be the one, then I would obviously want a 1 bedroom apartment. A big reason for a short stay in a community, is that I'll be among people. I am "somewhat" of a reclusive person, but the virus has made my world smaller and smaller.

I want a community that has lots of activities and good food. About the food, the sample menu looks delicious. Hence, I'll have to be really careful, about what I eat. And the pictures of the desserts, makes my mouth water. And I do like my sweets!! Since I've given away all my clothes that were too big, I must remain a steady weight. Heaven forbid that I gain weight, that would be very depressing.

The weather prediction for our area, was supposed to be 1 to 5 inches. All we've received so far, is a dusting. Not satisfying at all. If Mother Nature wants to have snow, then let's have snow. The one little storm we had, we let the girls out to play. During the 4 years they've been with us, this was, if I remember correctly, their first really snow day. They played outside, but were very quick about coming inside to rest beside the fireplace. 

More tomorrow.

P

Happy Monday

 2/8/2021

Happy Monday everyone. We had a little, as in dusting, snow over the weekend. With little snow, the only thing you have to do, if you want to, is use a broom!

But, the snow coming on Wednesday, at least I think so, is going to give us several inches. Or, at least, that's what the weatherman indicates.

Jeff went to the store yesterday afternoon, and the stores, were almost empty. Everybody was at home watching the Super Bowl. After dinner, we watched the game, which we had recorded on our Tivo. Okay, to be honest, ONE of us watched the game, and the other person did some reading. So, it was a peaceful kind of afternoon.

For dinner, Jeff made creamy chicken soup, with vegetables. It was really good, as always. Problem is, that I'm not much of a soup person. Jeff could have soup twice a day, as well as every day. 

In my spare time, I have been looking for respite care for myself. You go to a retirement community, and stay for "x" amount of days. Doing respite care, gives the caregiver (Jeff) a break. And, it allows the patient (me), to (a) live alone; and (b) decide whether I like that particular facility. Obviously, you can do respite care in more than one facility. Living in a community, you get to participate in all the activities, chef prepared meals, your own apartment, etc.

One of the communities I found, has nearly a full page of amenities. Beauty salon, meals and snacks, transportation to surrounding areas, and a whole bunch of other things. Anywhere, I go, I'll be the youngest person there. This would be sort of like being a teenager again!!

It's really cold, at least for me, and the fireplace, will be on for the day. Boy, do I love, and the girls do as well, love a warm room. The problem with having the fire going, is if the room gets too hot, then you get sleepy. And, it's possible that is a good thing.

Jeff has bought several games for me, and somebody else, to play. One of those games is Scrabble. I'm not sure how well I will do, but I'm willing to try.

To keep my brain from scrambling more, I play on-line games. But, I am not very successful, even when I'm playing a one person game! How sad is that? This is just a part of my life.

Took a little break for a Zoom meeting with the doctor who keeps my head from spinning out of control!!

Have a good day. Please be safe.

P

 

 

 

 

It's Friday

 2/5/2021

I'm blogging today, before noon. I'm so proud of myself. This morning, I changed things up a bit. Instead of watching the news, which is frankly down right depressing. Nope, today I watched a more peaceful show "The British Baking" show. You know what amazes me about this show, is that there is very little measuring of ingredients. The bakers just take out their jars, and pour the ingredient into the bowl. How on earth do they do that? Perhaps, what we don't know is that the jars only hold enough flour, etc., for what that particular challenge is.  

For today's chore, is going to be to pull out all the plastic tops and bottoms. I'm going to stack them on the table. If I have an orphan, out it goes. When Jeff and I were working, we would take our lunches in a plastic container. And, now since we don't work, I should only keep "x" numbers of these containers. On one site, it says to keep only 7 of most of your plastic containers. 

First, I worked on my clothes, and did a fine job of organizing the remaining clothes in my closet. At first, I wanted to arrange the clothes by the arm length - sleeveless, etc. Thinking about it now, I'm probably going to rearrange my clothes by color. How cool would that be?

I have already set our Tivo to record the Super Bowl on Sunday. For me, I basically watch for most of the time, really great commercials. I understand baseball, it's not the least bit complicated. But, football is entirely a different game. There are markers, violations (I guess you could it that), and some marker thing that does something! Yup, you can see that I don't know "jack" about football. Now, the sport has  women, who are coaches and referees, and that's huge. Another step up the ladder for women!! And, yes people that also means a break in the glass ceiling.

Today's women don't have to put with all the nonsense, that we older women did. You don't have to ask for permission to go to the bathroom, for example (it's really true). I have a job, first one actually, and I would bring in roses from Dad's yard. Before I knew it, the roses were removed from my desk. Why? Because one of the partners decided he liked the roses, and off they went. Women, in the early 70's basically put up with a lot of shit.

I had a boss once, that actually threw a stapler across the room, and missing my head by inches. When you had a baby, you were given 6 weeks to return to work. Or, you already know the alternative. 

At one job, which luckily didn't last long, I was working for someone who had been hired to do statistical work. One morning, he gave me a box of something (can't remember what) that I was supposed to come up with an answer of how many of "x" were in the box.

In that same position, one of the men challenged me to take a very large number, and divide it until I got to zero. I'm not very good at math, so I literally spent hours, trying to do this. Which after all the laughter died down, they told me that the beginning number would ever get to zero. So, how stupid did I feel. I finally went to HR and explained that I couldn't work in that department. They found me a milder department, and then everything was better.

For one interview, I walked literally somewhere between 5 and 10 miles away. I had on heels, and was late for my interview. Since I had no money, I walked to and from the interview. And, it was the middle of summer. By the time I finally got home, my Grandmother took one look at my feet, which were blistered, and took over helping the blisters to heal.  At this same job, my description was typist, The company was a title company, and my job was to type out all the measurements (if you will) of a particular piece of property. Something like, the north west side of the property is parallel... While you typed, you were making holes in the punch tape. Before we could go home at night, we had to show the floor manager, how many properties we had done for the day. Eventually, I was called into the real manager's office, and was fired. He told me, that I would never, ever be able to find a job that involved typing, simply because I wasn't any good, nor would I ever be able to support myself at typing. Boy, did I prove him wrong.

I remember going back to my desk. There were standard paragraphs that went into the beginning of every title. Okay, now I'm back at my desk, and I'm only 18 and still full of spunk, so I took scissors and cut into every piece of tape that I could find. Obviously, if a future employer wanted references, I cringed having to use the title company as a reference.

 I made my living for more than 40 years typing on typewriters, and on computers. Once the age of computers came along, all of us in the office, had to learn how to use this thing.

As the years went by, I worked for many companies, and my skills at "typing" became better and better. My last job was at Marriott headquarters, working for an attorney. I was able to type as fast as he spoke. That's a skill I was very proud of having. 

Unfortunately, as the years went by, and my memory lessened doing things like using a computer, became and still is, a struggle. At one time, I didn't have to look at the keyboard, my fingers knew which key to push. Today, I can still type fast, but if I have to use a symbol on the keyboard, I literally have to search for it. This is very depressing to me. Even so, I type every day.

Happy Friday and I hope that all of you will have a nice weekend. Since I don't know which teams will play on Sunday, I'll just watch the game, until I fall asleep!

P

 

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood

 2/4/2021

After the snow, which was actually very little, today, the sky is blue and we're having sunshine. Makes me feel very optimistic about today.

Yesterday, a neighbor across the street, that I've never met, came to the house to visit with me. Our visit mostly consisted of usual questions: what did you do, how many children, and stuff like that. She's coming back next week, and Jeff has bought me a Scrabble game as well as a Family Feud brain game book. On one side of the page is the question, for instance, "What do you see in every house in America". You write down your answer, and then there is a word search for you to do yourself. I'm pretty good at word search. While I was in the hospital, I only had one word search book with me. I searched for all the required words, and after that, just searched for words. It was a lot of fun, but then again, I'm easily amused!

My latest "Marie Kundo" exercise, is to take out all the plastic boxes, lids, bowls, etc. and get them organized. I have a large number of plastic boxes, that were mostly used for lunches, when I worked. The suggestion is that you keep more than five. But, I'd feel better if I saved seven. And, then of course, you have to find the appropriate lid. This could take me some time to get this cleaning out process completed. My reward for doing this, means there will likely be more room in the cupboards.

For Christmas, I was given a "1949 Yearbook", and I love it. Some of my followers, were born around the same time, while others of you will not. I loved the statistics. The show Lone Ranger, ran for five seasons, and 221 episodes. I remember watching this show, likely because my brother liked it. Unlike today, houses in 1949, generally only had one television. And, there was no remote, so if you wanted to change the channel, you had to get up to do so. Walking to the television was some sort of exercise. 

Best picture in 1949 was, "All the King's Men", a movie I've never seen. The winner of the U.S. Open received prize money of $10,000. Second prize was $10,000. Today, the winner received a $3,000,000 prize, oh and least I forget, the sought after green jacket.

Ticket price to watch a baseball game was a nickel. And, the cost of food, when you think of today's prices, were really low. For instance, a dozen eggs cost just fifty-two cents, and today the average cost is $4.00, up to $7.00 per dozen. There were advertisements, including one with Ronald Reagan, for the cigarette brand "Lucky Strikes". This is the cigarette that my Dad smoked.

So, there you have it. I know the average salary in 1949 was $3,100. And, the average salary now is $87,000. I know that there are many people, who earn approximately $22,464 a year. Based on the prices of everything today, it would be difficult to pay for things like: rent, food, car and house payments, etc. It gives you ideas of yesterday and current amounts of money.

Have a good day everyone. Until tomorrow.

P

The Johns Hopkins System

 2/3/2021

Years ago, our family doctor retired. We needed a replacement doctor for Jeff and I. I don't know why we did, but both of us opted to take our medical needs to Johns Hopkins. And, we're glad we did!

At the time, probably 13 years ago, I called Internal Medicine looking for a doctor. Interestingly, on I think, the first Monday in a month, internal doctors post how many new patients they could take.

Our present doctor, had room for two new patients. So I signed up Jeff and I, and we have never looked back. Besides their downtown Baltimore location, there are satellite facilities closer to home. Over the years, when we send an email or phone our doctor, a response is usually emailed, within minutes. Jeff and I really lucky to have such a great internist.

We know take all our care from Hopkins. They have a feature that allows any Hopkins doctor to look our history from "my chart Hopkins". And, they can, of course, share our visits with all the other doctors. It's a very good system, and we have never been disappointed in our care.

Yesterday, was one more example of how efficient they were when it came time to get our vaccine shots. In the news, you see a lot of people spending many hours, in the cold, These people are hoping that when it's their turn, there will still be vaccines available for them.

Jeff and I were able to schedule an appointment for our shots. The system couldn't have run any smoother. We checked in, and then directed us to a waiting room of sorts. I think there was perhaps a dozen people ahead of us. 

Once it was our turn, we each had our shot, and then spent 15 minutes or so in "recovery" if you will, to make sure that we were good to go. I don't believe there was any walk-in patients, and I'm pretty sure you had to be part of the Hopkins team. We were on our way home, probably within 30 minutes! And, they gave us an appointment for the next shot. I know we still have to do all the protective things: face masks, etc., but somehow receiving the vaccine makes me feel more secure. And, since I almost never leave home, so I feel really protected.

I've been looking to go to a senior community, seeking respite care for Jeff. I looked into one facility, and 14 days there costs $860.00. That's a bit more expensive, than I thought it would be. I'll have to do more research. It would be helpful, if I momentarily left the house, and stayed at a senior living community. This is not the same thing as a resting or nursing home. I'll see what's available. It would be really good for Jeff.

Still very cold outside, and the fireplace is going all day, and it's wonderful. Daisy and Bella take turns sleeping in front of the fireplace. There is, from time to time, a power struggle. Most of the time it's Daisy (smaller dog) who wins the spot!

Have to tidy up a few things before my neighbor comes here to visit. The cleaning lady was here yesterday, but I still have a few areas that need my touch!

Please stay well. Perhaps if everybody has been vaccinated by summer, who knows, we might be able to ditch the masks!

P

Today's The Day

 2/2/2021

Today's the day for Jeff and I. It's our turn to get vaccinated! I have never in my life, enjoyed getting a shot. But, today is different, big time different. It's been a fairly long process to get an appointment. I hope, but don't know for certain if we'll have to stand in line. Taking no chances, I'm bringing my walker along, just in case.

Since we're having our shot at a Hopkins facility, perhaps there might not so many people there. Fingers crossed.

Jeff has taken over the hiring a "sitter" for me. Yes, it's come to that. For the most part, I can't be left alone. I'm impulsive these days, and that's why I thought standing on a chair to get something from the cupboard, would be safe. Sadly, it wasn't, but other than bruises on my leg, and damage to my ego, I'm okay. This old gal has very good bones. I drink milk, and eat ice cream, which is a wonderful substitute. for milk!

Tomorrow, I'm getting a visit from a neighbor, whom I have never met. Our neighbored, isn't known for being chummy. Tomorrow, I'll have some company in the afternoon. I always look forward to anything that is going to be different than my usual days. I'm so lonely, but have to ask Jeff to take me somewhere, and he's working, for the most part, 12 to 14 hours a day.

Since I have my clothes all sorted out (mostly), the next challenge, and it's a big one, is organize all the plastic boxes and lids together. Generally, I find a bottom but no lid, or the other way around. Very frustrating, and I hope to fix this situation. You shouldn't have to go through multiple cupboards looking for tops and bottoms! If I find, that I don't have a matching pair, then I'll toss them out. Most of the time, when you throw away something, like a sock, because it has no mate, You'll eventually find the missing sock!

I hope you have a great day. Please be safe. We're getting closer and closer to having these needed shots, which will still require the wearing of masks.

P

Monday Update

 2/1/2021

Yesterday, we finally had snow. Not the "foots" that Scott likes, but enough snow that needed shoveling. When we first moved here in 1986, a neighbor told Jeff that after shoveling, the driveway should be cleared often. 

Scott, very generously, gave Jeff his snow blower. He has a tractor with an attachment that deals with snow. Maybe it's a plow, but I'm not sure. Jeff went out to the driveway, and with the snow blower, made quick work of moving snow from the driveway.

This snow was really the first snow that the girls had experienced. They loved being outside, and particularly Daisy just ran and ran. Unlike, Bella, Daisy has more energy and when given an opportunity, races around several neighbor's yard, and then comes right back. Let's just say that when the girls came inside, they both parked themselves in front of the fireplace!

We get our first shot tomorrow. Our appointment is with one of Johns Hopkins facility in our area. Fingers crossed, that if we do have to wait our turn, there won't be a long line. Here's hoping.

After talking to Andrew last night, and sometimes I forget that he's an adult, he had several suggestions about meals being delivered and the hiring of a companion for me. Jeff has taken over the hunt for a companion, and several people, have already sent him a reply.

Jeff posted a "want ad", if you will, on a site where you can see the bios of people who want jobs. I don't know the particulars of his posting. I do feel bad, that this is just one more thing on his plate. He has a full-time job, and on some days and weekends, he's working way more than 8 hours a day. So, you can see, that I try not to get in the way of his working. Getting paid to stay home, with no rush hour, makes it a bit easier to keep working. And, his accounts love him.

I had posted on the neighborhood's bulletin board, that I was looking for a companion. The posting received many people who are looking for much needed money.

But, in the end, after talking to Andrew, who had many suggestions, about prepared meals delivered, and the more realistic price range, for somebody to come and "sit" with me, and be kind. At the moment, and for other people, than myself, are lonely. I already have somebody who cleans the house once a week  I can still do laundry and put dishes in the dishwasher. But, I'm been pretty much banned from using the oven and cook top. Something about starting a fire in the microwave, so Jeff fixes all the meals now. Boy, did he get the wrong side of our vows "for better or worse"!! I am currently the worse part of our marriage. There are times when I actually wish that I could have dementia, so that I wouldn't know what I don't now. Did that make sense? At the moment, my memory trips me up. Why? Because I'm still aware, some of the time, that I think I know how to do something, and in reality I really don't.

The weather is all over the place right now. I'm hoping wherever you are, that certain kinds of weather (hurricanes, and the like) have not impacted you personally.

P