Doctors and Houses

This is a busy week for medical stuff. First, I was supposed to finish my 30-day heart monitoring tomorrow, but I ended it yesterday. The leads, especially the top one, were greatly irritating my skin. The top one had begun to break the skin in a few spots. So I called my doctor's office and informed them that I was terminating the process and would be mailing it back immediately for analysis. So I did.

Later in the afternoon, my wife had a doctor appointment to discuss why she hasn't been able to smell or taste for about six months. She is scheduled for a CT scan next week.

This morning I went for my annual renal torso ultrasound for my belly/kidney area to check for any appearance of the cancer I had in my bladder several years ago. So far, so good. I'll know in a few days, but I have an appointment with my urologist next week to discuss things.

Friday I have to return to the local hospital for another scan or ultrasound - I'm not sure - to look at my lower right leg where the bee stung me last week. My foot and ankle swelled up this weekend and my doctor put me on 3-days of Prednisone and ordered the scan to check for blood clots. Interesting I have to wait for this for three days. Oh, I forgot to mention I went to see him yesterday about this. 

Between medical appointments, we're looking at new places. We had one locally yesterday, and tomorrow we had three in the Staunton/Fishersville area. Hopefully, by the end of the week, we should have it sorted out. 

Synchronicity or Coincidence?

I don't know whether synchronism or coincidence or some other word best fits what happened today when I thought of them, but two events happened that fit that deinition - whatever it is.

The first was as I was thinking about yesterday's post about lost friends from Vietnam. I remembered that Paul Urquhart went missing on 28 May 1971. Yesterday, Memorial Day was Monday, 28 May.

This afternoon we were looking at a house for rent in a neighboring development. I thought I remembered one of the women I work for at the SJH said she was going to move into the development. When I called her and asked, she said she was moving into an address that was TWO DOORS DOWN FROM THE HOUSE WE WERE LOOKING AT!

Amazingly, I see these things if not daily, very very often. I still don't know what to properly call them. 

But then, someone once said, "There are no coincidences."

Memorial Day 2018

A quiet day today. Thought about lost friends and soldiers. Two in particular; John Yeatts, a Cav soldier I served with in the 14th ACR in Germany before deploying to Vietnam; and Paul Urquhart, a W&J classmate, a LOH pilot shot down in May 1968. He is still listed as MIA.

This year when I went to buy my poppy, the lady asked me if I wanted the Vietnam poppy. I asked if it was new this year and she said that it came out last year. I hadn't seen it before. I bought it this year but will go back to the standard red poppy next year. We don't need a different poppy for each war.

Stonewall and Elvis

A picture from last evening's Staff Recognition Dinner for the Stonewall Jackson House.

It was great fun. Scott and Barbara, who I have worked shifts with at the SJH, are also team members on the Deeds Alone Trivia Team as well as members of the Books & Brews Reading Group. There are several others from the SJH that share one or both memberships as well. Barbara volunteers with me at the local library. 

As you can see, I am not posting daily anymore. I have decided that I will post when I have something to say or report. I was stressing out trying to keep up with a daily post. If it works out that I have something to say, then I will; otherwise, you will see sporadic posts.

That is all; Elvis has left the building!

Sunday and the birds are still here

We still have a little robin around; at least, it was this morning. It hung around on our porch, then later got up on our grill. Momma Robin even had to bring it some food. Maybe it was afraid of flying away. Later, it disappeared and hasn't returned.

It rained quite a bit last night, but today has been sunny. The next three days are forecasted to be mainly wet. Hopefully, by Thursday we can grill out. We haven't been able to use the grill since the robins took over the porch!

Flown the Coop!

The robins have gotten their flying wings and all four have left the nest! When we first looked out, we saw Mama Robin talking to two of them on the wooden fence.

We thought those were the first two, but when we had a chance to sneak a peek at the nest, all were gone.

Afterward, we saw them trying to fly higher and longer. Mama and Papa Robin were hovering over them. Hopefully, they will be fine. 

It's awfully quiet out there now, but it will be nice to get our porch back. I know Allie Cat is excited. 

And we will be able to grill once it stops raining later this week.

We're Hot in Trivia & Weather!

We won again! This is either the third or fourth in a row! To be honest, one of those earlier times was a tie with a four-man team from W&L. After five runoff questions, it was declared a tie. Last evening we only missed five questions and won by two over about a dozen teams.

This time we did it with two subs (very good subs I might add) and only five team members instead of the six maximum we are allowed. It seems we always have the right kind of mix.
The folks from Seven Arrows Brewery in Waynesboro are behind us. We won t-shirts from them as well as some empty growlers!

Today was not as hot, but it was more humid. It's supposed to get worse humidity-wise all week and into the weekend.

The robins are shaking the nest! I expect take-off shortly!

Another Day, Another Hot One

One more day of 90-degree temps then the rain will drop it into the 80's. Went to town this afternoon; walking the streets was like I was dripping wet. The sun was behind the clouds, but I still felt it. I probably should have had sunscreen on at least my face.

Not much longer for our robins...here's a closeup!

Another Scorcher

I had volunteer work at the library this afternoon. My car temperature reading was 93 degrees coming back at 4 pm. It was uncomfortable in the library even though the air condition and the ceiling fans were all on. I don't like days like this.

Trivia night tomorrow evening and the team has two subs so far and may have another before then. Fortunately, we have very good people who can pick up the slack. It also helps that they are nice people. We are defending champions. And it is Steal a pint nite so I get to add to my glass collection.

Nothing new on the Robin front - they are still growing.

Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all the Moms out there. Here's a picture of my Mom and me I have posted before - on her birthday in February. She would have been 92 this year.

This would have been in late 1944/early 1945 and I was not quite a year old yet.

Another mother had a scare today. Moma Robin was away from the nest and one of the younguns decided to try to fly and jumped out of the nest only to fall to the porch! It appeared to be okay but was crawling around on the porch and Moma still had not come back.

My wife checked Google to see if it was safe to pick them up - we didn't want the parents to refuse to take care of it - and Google said it was okay to put it back in the nest. But if it happened again we were to leave them alone because in 2-5 days they would be flying on their own. 

Everybody is safe for now.

Where did Spring go?

It reached 90 degrees this afternoon. For the longest time, it felt as if Winter would never leave, and then Summer shows up skipping Spring! The weather forecast looks warmer than normal for the next several days. Let me say this again --- I do not like the heat.

I went to the library this afternoon to get a book I had on hold. It is called, "Shoe Dog", by Phil Knight. it's a memoir of his life and how he began selling Nike shoes. He actually began selling the Japanese brand Onitsuka Tiger running shoe which was my first running shoe. Then Nike was my second or third. 

In a TV interview the other day, Knight said that the title meant someone who is obsessed with shoes - I can't remember if he said running shoes or just shoes in general. I remember buying over 50 pairs of shoes my first year of running! I gave up smoking one day after I began running in January 1978, but spent any money I would have saved on those shoes. Still, it gave me very good practical experience on what shoes were the best running shoes.

The robins are doing well. I can't wait for them to leave the nest so we can reclaim the front porch.

Look for the beaks and ignore the fur...


     

Philo McGiffin

This past Sunday when my brother and I were talking about the past, I remarked that last summer when I returned to Washington, PA, where we grew up, I noticed a historical marker in front of the county courthouse that I never remembered seeing before.

Philo McGiffin had a very interesting career as the marker indicates. But that is only part of the story. I recommend you read about him on Wikipedia. The link to his entry follows:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philo_McGiffin

I wonder why the marker says he died of his injuries, but the article says he committed suicide? In any case, a very interesting character. And the article explains much about naval officers became commissioned and assigned to ships back then.

The Robin Watch continues...they are growing and growing...

Books & Beer & Babies

We had our Books & Brews Book Group meeting yesterday. We had six of our regular members not make it for one reason or another, but we had two new people show up for a total of nine. Not bad. This month's book discussion leader (she chose the book) and her husband were missing. But she had a good reason - she went into labor early! Mother and baby are doing fine!

The book, "Lowland", I have written about before. It turned out that most liked it very much, even though I don't like to use that phrase. I would rather say that I found the book very interesting, and the author's writing was excellent and I was involved the whole way through.

One benefit of having the book group meet in a pub is that we get to try different beers. I had a particularly good one yesterday - a tequila lime wheat beer from Alltech brewery in Lexington, Ky. A little late for Cinco de Mayo, but still great!

Speaking about books, I just finished one of the best nonfiction books I've read in quite a while. It's called, "Between You & Me", by Mary Norris. The subtitle is "Confessions of a Comma Queen". She is a copy editor for The New Yorker. She talks about her working life there but also spends chapters discussing the art of writing and punctuation. Separate chapters on pronouns, hyphens and dashes, apostrophes, who and whom, that and which, and of course, commas are just some of the most interesting writing I have ever read on these subjects.

One of the best chapters comes at the end - it is about pencils: the writing, sharpening and erasing with them. I love writing with a wooden No.2 pencil; she loves a No.1 which is softer and more difficult to find anymore. I intend on searching for one.

Here are the last of the horse parade pictures:

The Baby Robins are all hatched and demanding food, keeping Momma and Papa Robin flying around gathering worms and bugs! As you can see, they already have a lot of hair!

The Fourth Arrived!

Mama Robin has had all four eggs hatch and now she and Papa Robin are busy gathering food.

It's quite noisy in the morning when we open the sliding kitchen door. If everything goes well, we should have our porch back in about 10 days.

Here are some more horse parade pictures.

This next one was done by a neighbor of ours:

We have Baby Robins!

At Last! Three of the four eggs hatched this morning! We got a quick picture while Mama Robin was out getting food. Papa Robin has also been busy. Hopefully, the last egg has hatched or will soon.

Here are a few more of the horses from Saturday's parade.

Top Gun and a Horse Parade

Last night we decided to watch a movie instead of listening to the latest news (read politics) or read our books. We decided to watch one of our favorites - Top Gun. We've watched this many times, and I never have gotten tired of it. I put this with my Bourne trilogy (I haven't seen the 4th one yet), The Big Chill, and most John Wayne and Humphrey Bogart films.

Once on Facebook, I posted a picture of me taken in Vietnam at the very young of 25 and compared it to Maverick (Tom Cruise) playing volleyball. I asked for comparisons. I'll let you judge for yourself.

We went downtown to see a horse parade this morning. Actually, it was not real horses, but fiberglass (I think) models made by a local notoriety famous for making statues, etc., and placing them around the area. He (Mark Cline) was the Grand Marshal.

  There were 15 horses total. They had been placed around town for a few weeks before the parade and were returned to their respective locations afterward. There will be an auction in the Fall and the money will go to a charity, the name of which escapes me at the moment.
Here are a few pictures; I will post a few more each day.

Nothing new on Day 14 of the Robin Watch...

Thursday Heat Wave

I don't like the heat. And today I had to wear the heart monitor all day. The temperature went above 90 sometime this afternoon. I do not like the heat.

I finished the book for next week's book group meeting. The last 20 pages let me down. I am going to read them again this weekend and look over the discussion questions this month's leader sent out, but I don't think I will change my mind. I was going to give 4 pints (of beer), but instead, I'll go with 3. And that is because I enjoyed the writing.

Nothing new on the Robin Watch. Lisa was able to water the flowers - including the robin's; she flew up on the neighboring roof and watched until Lisa was done.

My new phone came today and FedEx brought it to the door, but the Robin didn't move. Neither did it when I went out to retrieve it. (BTW, the phone is set up and working well.)

Afib Hookup and a New Phone

I had my doctor appointment to have me hooked up for 30 days to a monitor to see if my AFib or AFlutter has come back. It didn't take very long - 10 minutes to be exact. It is cumbersome putting clothes on and off.

The smartphone is carried in the pocket while the pendant is hooked to my belt. It has three leads that are attached to my chest area. I'm only supposed to change the lead stickers on my body every other day. That means sponge baths in between. I don't think so.

My replacement phone has been shipped. I hope it is better than my current one. Frustrating.

Nothing really new on the Robin Watch, but she was out today so we took a picture.

She's probably resting for when she will have to put up with the new brood - all four of them.

Trivia Champs Again!

Another successful Trivia Night! We won again. We started with five, but at the halfway break, a friend came by and joined. At the break, we were tied for fifth and two points off the lead. In the end, we won by one point! There were 15 teams.

Nothing new on the Robin watch.