Brother Update.

My brother was supposed to get out of the hospital today, but it appears he’ll be staying for awhile longer. Yesterday when my s-I-l was out of the room for a minute he went over the rails on his bed and tried to get his catheter out and last night he pulled some type of wires out so he’s going back to surgery this morning. My brother can be a difficult person to begin with, but it seems he’s being especially difficult after this by-pass. My s-I-l wants to get him to my nephew’s house and she says she will be better able to take care of him, but at this point I don’t know. I had forgotten all the things that you go through with by-pass surgery. When I had my by-pass surgery I was out of the hospital in four days, but that was just the beginning. As I said before, when I had my by-pass surgery I didn’t know what was going on. From about forty-five minutes after I reached the ER to about 2 days before I was discharged I don’t remember anything. I’m sure that’s what is going on with my brother now, plus like I said, he’s difficult even when he’s feeling good. The nurses and doctor said it’s nothing to worry about and they’ve seen this many times before.

Fmom is at the beauty shop to get her hair done so we can go out there. From the length of time, I think they’re doing a major overhaul on her. Since he’ll be in the hospital longer, that has pushed back the trip a little more. Actually I’m now looking forward to the trip so she can see him and stop worrying. As many times as we’ve been out there I should know the route by heart, but the last trip showed me I don’t. I got lost going up there and coming back. This time I’ll be using the maps and make sure I don’t get lost.

Things around the house are chugging along. I’m looking out at my lawn and see it has to be cut again, but not today. I wish I could share some of this warmth and green with everybody, but don’t loose hope; yours will be coming soon. By the time yours gets there, I will have already been whining about the oppressive heat and humidity. The price you pay for living down here I guess.

I hope everyone’s day is good today and your week turns out great. Remember slack when possible.

Dive Bombing and Growing Older.

I was looking through some of the old pictures yesterday and I found this one.

Click to enlarge

I’m on the left and my older brother is on the right. I think this picture is over fifty years old now, but from what you can see it shows an extremely cute little Family Man and his older brother. I'm holding our dog from back then, but for the life of me I can't remember it. Notice the cowboy hats and boots. My father always wore a cowboy hat and boots. From a young age he got us these and my older brother took to the boots, but not the hat. I never took to them though. Even at that age I was a slacker. I ran around barefoot so much I felt like the boots were too heavy to wear and I’ve never liked hats.

This picture was taken at the first house I remember. It was out in Arkansas on the Mississippi Delta. Our main road was a dirt and gravel road and we had cotton and soy bean fields on both sides of the house. There was a big pasture out back with trees and cows. It’s mostly flat land out there and you could see forever, it used to seem to me. I was remembering around the time that this picture was taken one of the most fun things that my brother and I would do. It had to do with my Uncle.

My Uncle during WWII was a fighter pilot off of a carrier in the Pacific. Once he came back home to Alabama he and my Aunt decided to move out to Arkansas where we were. He started a crop dusting service and he would dust the fields adjacent to our house. Whenever he started to dust my brother would run outside and start waving at him. This was our signal that it was time to play dive-bombing. We would run out into the cotton field and my uncle would act like he was dive bombing us with the plane. He would come so low I could see his face and him waving at us. We would run as fast as we could and at the last moment we would hit the dirt and hide under the cotton plants. Out of a lot of things I don’t remember when I was that age, this is one I’ve never forgotten. As usual Fmom would come out and make us come in and at that age I didn’t understand why. It seemed like we were all having fun and my Uncle was always smiling when he went by. Later I realized he was probably burning a good bit of gas doing this, and he was trying to make a living. He told me later on that he had as much fun as we did.

I’m glad Fmom had saved these old pictures and I had scanned them in the computer. My memory has never been that good and looking at the old pictures helps give it a jump-start on some good memories. If we’re lucky enough, we get to become older. We may lose the energy and the world of wonders isn’t as large as it used to be, but that’s all right. There are so many things that I get to see from the youngest generation in my family. From the youngest baby to the ones in high school, I get to see in and through their eyes the joy of youth. I guess that’s just part of growing older and I really do welcome it.

I hope everyone has a good day and good week ahead.

Have A Great Weekend

It might be Winter/Spring where you live, but it’s starting to feel like summer here. We’re in the mid 80’s today and I’ve turned on the air conditioning. This summer is going to be a scorcher and I don’t like it!

Fmom and I have been doing pretty good for the last couple of days and my brother is still doing fine after his quadruple by-pass surgery. The nurses told my s-I-l that he’s progressing nicely and that he not bouncing back as fast because of his age. As I told Fmom, I know from my by-pass surgery that it’s going to take him awhile to getting back to his old self.

The pet food recall had me scared for a little while, but George, Cat and Tom are doing fine. It has me wondering whether that trip to the vet with George last month might have been connected. I feel very sorry for the people who lost their pets, but I’m so happy it didn’t happen here.

I know I keep saying this, but thanks to everyone who dropped by and for all the well wishes.

I hope everyone has a great weekend and take care.

Sigh Of Relief

I can finally breathe a sigh of relief for my brother. He had a quadruple by-pass on Monday and they finally got him of the ventilator today. He’s more responsive and Fmom even talked to him. He’ll have a long way to go, but he’s out of the woods now.

Fmom has been in no condition for the trip out there, and I’ve been constantly going taking care of her, the house and lawn. She keeps saying we’re going, but I keep telling her that she couldn’t take the long drive and then the walking. So we’ve been here at home on pins and needles waiting for news all the time.

I’ve been doing ok, but I’ve been like a command center here taking and making phone calls all the time. If you know how much I hate to talk on the telephone, you’ll know this hasn’t been one of my favorite past times. I’m still running all the time taking care of Fmom, but we’re both feeling better with the news today.

I want to thank everyone who replied to my last post. You are all very thoughtful and kind, and you don’t know how much I appreciate your posts. I’ve still got a lot of RL going on here, but I wanted to let ya’ll know that things are starting to look up.

I hope everyone is doing fine and thanks again.

Gone For A Little While.

This week hasn’t been good. Fmom hasn’t felt well at all and doctors are trying to get my brother ready for a second heart by-pass surgery. Fmom insist we go out to where my brother is, but I just don’t see how she will handle the long drive. So I’ve been fielding phone calls, trying to get Fmom to rest and finding out what’s going on with my brother.

I haven’t been around much this week and I probably won’t be around much for awhile. When things straighten out some I’ll be back.

A Tradition With Plants.

Day two of working on the lawn and I’m finding I hate doing it as much today as I did yesterday. Fmom came out for awhile and sat on the patio with me. She showed me the Baby’s Breath bush she had planted over 30 years ago. She told me she got a clipping from my Grandmother who in turn go a clipping from my Great Grandmother. I tried to take a picture of it and here’s the best I came up with.

Click to enlarge.

I don't know, but it bought a sense of wonder to me that that bush could be passed down to each generation of women in my family. FMom told me that both my sisters had gotten clippings from it. Since my oldest sister has passed away I don't know how her clipping is doing, but my sister living across the street has her clipping and it's doing fine. I think it would be pretty cool if my sister handed down a clipping to her daughter. I do love family traditions.

Well I'm off to do some more on the lawn and I hope everyone has a good day.

Farewell Leafs and Pinecones.

I kept wishing for it to go on and on, but as wishes go it didn’t. All the neighbors are out today cleaning their yards and since mine looks worst I’m going to have to do mine. It was a nice, but short winter down here, but lawn days are back again. I can hear leaf blowers, lawnmowers and hedge clippers. My outside thermometer says it’s 84 F/29 C and I can hear birds chirping and see squirrels scampering across the lawn. Damn I hate spring.

Ya’ll usually hear me complain about everything else, so get ready for the lawn whinnies. I feel I’m one of the best at this. You may ask why I whine about the lawn. Well it’s not easy turning on the key to the riding lawn mower and hooking up the lawn sweeper to get all the pine cones. Don’t even get me started on emptying the lawn sweeper. Once I get all the stuff picked up I have to start with the weed eating. If any of you remember last year, a snake down at the pond had my weed eater hostage for a couple of day. Actually I saw a snake, dropped it and ran. Didn’t go back for a couple of day to get it. I wanted to make sure the snake had plenty of time to clear out.

As I’ve said before I should had been born an heir to a fortune. That way I could have five or six people out doing this stuff, but noooooo, the FSM had different plans for me.

So burn incense, pray for me or turn in circles and jump because I’m going to tackle the lawn today. I’ll need all the help I can get to get it done.

I’ll let ya’ll know later if I even got the lawnmower out of the carport.

ADDED: I got all the pinecones up and 70% of the leafs are up. I decided to call it a day from that and we'll see how it all goes tomorrow. If I'm real sore in the morning, then it will be awhile before I approach the lawn again.

Cat Strikes Again!

When you think it can’t get worse, it does. I woke up this morning and felt the bed wet. I thought to myself, I’m either too old or two young to start doing this, and so I got out of bed and looked. Cat was sitting on a corner away from where it was wet and one smell told me she had decided to use my bed as a cat box. I have to admit I held my temper pretty good. I picked her up and set her on top of the wet spot and said no and then put her outside where she is going to stay.

I got my sheet, blanket and spread and they’re on their second washing and cloroxing. I’ve used the pet smell removal stuff and every other thing I’ve got for the mattress. Then I turned the mattress over. Not good for my back by the way.

With George he’ll hold it until he burst before he’ll do anything. I could leave for an entire day and not worry about George, but Cat it doesn’t matter if she sitting on top of you. If she feels like it she goes.

But looking on the bright side, nobody or nothing was hurt and it can all be fixed. I will admit I shouldn’t have picked up the mattress, but it had to be done. The cat you ask? She’s staying outside for the next couple of days, and then I might let her back in. You see I can’t really be mad at her, because it’s as much my fault as hers. I usually put her out at night, and last night I was so tired I didn’t. She was just reminding me I forgot her. Although in my opinion she could have thought of a better way to do it.

Bad Week

Things haven’t been to great down here in Family Land. I pulled my back again, but thankfully nothing broken this time. I had to stay in bed for a couple of day, plus during that time I got a migraine. When it rains it pours I guess. To top it off, all of last night I sat up with Fmom because she fell out of bed and luckily didn’t hurt herself, but she’s pretty sore. At this point and time all I can say is thank the FSM for pain medicine. I don’t know how we would have both gotten through it without it.

Fmom has been after me to get the house picked up because my siblings will be by today. I told her the way my back felt they will just have to see it in a mess. I also told her that good children would volunteer to help clean up. She wasn’t too happy with that thought.

I have an older brother that lives in Arkansas and Fmom is waiting by the phone for him to call. He’s supposed to let us know if he is going to have surgery or not. If he is then I’m sure we’ll be on our way to Arkansas on Monday. Anytime anyone of her children is in the hospital or having surgery she is going to be there. That’s what we were in Arkansas for the last time when she fell and broke her shoulder. I hate to say it, but this brother can make a hang nail sound like major surgery, so I keep telling Fmom to lets just wait and see. But she will have none of it.

As weeks go I’d say this hasn’t been a good one, but we’re all still alive and I’m thankful for that. I hope everyone’s week has been better than mine has and I hope we all have a good week next week.

Everyone take care of yourselves.

Variation On Fmom Reminiscing.

I drove Fmom out to the family cemetery a couple of days ago and listened to her reminisce. This time she told me of before she and Fdad were dating and during the dating.

First she told me about one day she was riding to town with a friend and as they passed my Grandparents house, she told her friend that one day she was going to marry the boy that lived in that house. She didn’t mention if she had met Fdad before that, but she said she was sure that she would marry him one day. So I start kidding around with her and telling her she had her claws in him from the beginning. Needless to say, she wasn’t too impressed with my kidding.

Second she told me of during their dating. They started dating when they were teenagers and Fmom said that she came up to ride horses every weekend with Fdad and friends. She said on this weekend that they had been out riding when the bridle broke and her horse started running. They were coming back to a neighbor’s field when the neighbor saw them and opened the gate to one of his pastures. Fmom said that’s the last thing she wanted because the horse would keep running. So she said Fdad was yelling for her to take her feet out of the stirrups and to jump. She said that she kept looking for some sand or soft spot where she could jump. She finally found it, jumped and went rolling. The biggest thing she remembered was that Great Aunt N (GAN) had just bought her a new winter coat and when she landed in the red dirt that’s predominate around here, her new coat was badly stained. She said GAN kept asking her what they did to get the coat stained so badly, but Fmom didn’t tell her she had to jump off a horse. She said that if she had told GAN, that she was positive she wouldn’t be allowed to come back to ride horses. The stain never came out and she never told GAN what happened.

Fmom and Fdad eventually got married and had six children, of which I’m lucky enough to be one. I’ve now been back home for four years after being gone for more than thirty years. There’s a lot of stuff that I missed being gone, and that’s one reason when Fmom starts reminiscing that I listen so intently. As a kid and young adult I always considered myself to busy to stop and listen to her or Fdad talking about their early years. That’s why I think I’m so lucky now to have come home and have time to spend with Fmom and listen to her stories. Now if I could only get her to talk into my microcassette recorder and tell the stories, it would save me a lot of time in trying to remember all the details. She won’t do it though, and I’ll just have to be satisfied with trying to remember.

Bad Weather, But OK.

We got through the bad weather OK yesterday. There were tornadoes north and south of us, but none right in our area. I’m very thankful no tornadoes were here, but very saddened by all the deaths that they caused.

We were lucky in my town and with family in the path of the storms we were calling all the time. Both my niece and nephew, their spouses and children live in Tuscaloosa and my brother and his family live in Birmingham. The weather was a lot harder on them then on us. Everyone in my family came out OK though.

Sorry if I gave anyone chance to worry.