Another good night's sleep. Lord, I do love to sleep. After Bikram, I confronted Jeff, who has not been doing his duty to hug me when he sees me and be my Whoopie Goldberg, channeling Mike. Jeff, like Mike, gives good hugs. Unfortunately, they don't feel quite as good as the ones Mike gave. I threatened to report him to his wife, Connie, for not being the perfectly loving person he usually is.
I stopped at Ace Hardware to pick up some Velcro dimes. I don't want to wear the medical alert button around my neck or on my wrist. I have a clip from an old pedometer that I want to modify to attach the button to my clothes. We'll see if my plan works.
I made a list of items to pick up from Home Depot yesterday. I don't know why I think of Home depot first. Ace Hardware has often been the store of last resort when I can't find an item anywhere else. Once I found the Velcro, I searched for the other items: toilet seat, motion detection light for my backyard, and PCV pipe and joints.
A young male employee told me where to find all the items. I saw the PCV pipes, but all I could find were the largest joints. I asked if he carried the smaller joints. There was a whole aisle devoted to PCV joints. I told the young man what I had in mind; I wanted to build a standing towel rack out of the PCV. I have only been able to find ones made out of metal. Anything made out of metal is in trouble here. Even the high-quality stainless steel on my refrigerator is challenged by the salt air.
The young man was intrigued by my idea, and the two of us worked together to see if we could figure out a way to construct a stable towel rack. Cab saw the possibilities. I don't know if he saw it as something he could sell on the side or something the store could sell. I didn't take any product with me. It's expensive, and I have too much else to do right now. As I left, I called back to him to tell him about Bob Vila's site, saying how to paint the pipe. I told him he could paint to order. I am anxious to learn what he is going to do with this.
If I am going to pursue this project, I will start with the smallest pipe and joints. I can do just a tabletop model. It doesn't have to start out full size.
I also bought a toilet seat cover that will fit the toilet. As I was driving home, I thought I might change out the whole toilet. Our bathroom is all done in shades of brown, except for this all-white toilet sitting there. When we selected the toilet, we didn't think it through. More to the point, I didn't think it through. It wasn't Mike's thing.
I smiled as I left Ace Hardware, thinking about Mike. He did so many things wrong: gifts he bought for me, ways he physically did damage to me because he was a klutz, etc. But all these things made me smile. He was my funny Valentine, and he made me smile with my heart. Even his foibles warmed my heart. He was always well-intentioned; he was the sweetest person I have ever known. I was never angry at him for the damage he did to my hip. I saw it as an early warning as to what would have come down the line eventually. This way, I had a chance to work on the problems before I got too old. Have I told you how much I loved him?
Sometimes, I would share stories about his mistakes, laughing. This upset Mike. He asked me to stop, but I often found myself doing it again. I now realize the difference. For me, these stories were loving; for him, the stories spoke about things he didn't love in himself. I don't think this would have made any difference to Mike. My love for him wouldn't have overridden his lack of appreciation for himself.
My next stop was at the Friendly Place. I'm on a first-name basis. Lisa and Kelly Ann man the front desk and receive donations. I dumped out 10 polo shirts out of the twenty I found the other day. I needed help carrying the box of shoes: two pairs of hiking shoes and two pairs of sneakers.
Since it was 10 o'clock already, and I had to be at Kaiser at 10:35 for my follow-up shingles shot, I went there directly instead of going home first to shower. I didn't have anything to read with me. I decided to take in the Scrapbook that Randy, Mike's sister, had made for him years ago. It is filled with original documents. His mother's naturalization paper was in there, along with the document of name change his parents made in 1939. His father changed their name from Rosenblatt to Ross. I heard that an older brother of Mike's father changed his name to Ross, and Mike's father thought he had to do the same. This story no longer makes sense to me. Besides the fact that his father was an intelligent, educated man, and I can't believe he wouldn't have researched the truth of that story, he changed his first and middle names as well. He was Solomon Pincus Rosenblatt; he changed it to Sidney Phillip Ross. Whatever the explanation, this is why my name is Betty David-Ross and not Betty David-Rosenblatt.
As I was unloading the car after getting home, Yvette pulled into the driveway. She had an appointment with the vet this morning for Izzy. I knew the appointment was at 9:30am; it was now after 11 am. I was concerned. She told me that it had been a very long appointment. Izzy's 'good' eye is starting to swell up the way her other eye did. Since she was already an old dog, the solution to the problem with her left eye was to remove it so that the enlargement no longer caused her discomfort. Yvette said she has no or minimal sight in the remaining eye. It could be removed without creating more limits for her than she is already living with. She is reliant on sound and smell to navigate. I asked Yvette if she is still getting pleasure out of life. Yvette said she still has a good tail wag on her when she's happy, and she is often happy. The vet recommended several medications. He is reluctant to operate because of Izzy's age and heart problems. Of course, that was the same problem she faced with the first operations. We'll see.
Yvette went down to her house to eat and then came up, gave me a massage, and did some Graston on me. She did some the other night, I saw a difference in how my body functioned immediately. She works gently and systematically. I think she does fantastic work.
After my massage, I called Dr. Marty's to check that they hadn't canceled the whole order I had placed last night or just that part of the order I wanted to be canceled. Dr. Marty's dog food has changed Elsa from a grazer to a gulper. She loves this food. I mix it with her regular food that the vet prescribed for her skin allergies because it's so expensive. With Dr. Marty's, I have to add some hot water and let the food sit for a few minutes. Then I stir it up. All the food is seasoned by Dr. Marty's, and Elsa loves, loves, loves that food.
I found a sale of Dr. Marty's on my email last night. I'm actually not sure if I ordered 12 bags or 18 bags. The bags are small. I may add more of Dr. Marty's and less of the science Diet, which she doesn't like. Judy says no dog or cat likes the Science Diet.
I finished checking all the shelves in the library for the remaining books. None. So I have seventeen books left. I think they're a lost cause for one reason or another.
I lay down to take a short nap before Yvette showed up shortly after four pm to drive us to our joint therapy session. Things are going better and better. We told the therapist that we saw her role as the fire extinguisher if things did go wrong. I told her that we thought she was doing a sterling job. I told her about our bad experience with a previous therapist who was in positive countertransference with Yvette and negative with me. I was willing to hang on until the day she interfered with our discussing a difference, preferring to interpret my opening as an accusation against Yvette. She rushed to Yvette's defense rather than even asking me to make my position clear or ask Yvette how she felt about what I said. It was pretty blatant.
I also felt it was the right time to tell our current therapist that she knew Mike. At first, she was confused, thinking that she knew something about him because of what I had already said. I told her no, she had actually met my husband, he was Deacon Mike, and I was Saint Betty, a way Mike sometimes referred to me. She registered surprise. She knew who he was and had heard a lot of good things about him. She said she had just come across a picture of him yesterday and said a prayer for him. Yvette said she was his goddaughter.
When we got home, I quickly set up Elsa's dinner and put the harness on her for Yvette to walk her. I had to go up to Judy's for dinner. When I got there, dinner was still being prepared; I was given the job of holding little Luke. He was peaceful in my arms.
Little Luke has a genetic disorder called FoxG1. As with every other disorder, there's a spectrum. Luke is at the far end of bad. This means that he is missing a good part of his brain. He will never talk or walk. There's a good chance he will never even recognize his parents. He does have likes and dislikes. But he also will cry and cry and be inconsolable. I had a thought tonight: This child has really been born without sin. He is incapable of doing anything intentionally. It's the first time I've held him. Dinner was finally served; fillet minion, mashed potatoes and mushrooms and salad, everything delicious. Adam and his four-year-old son Leon and his three-year-old nephew Noah went outside to shoot off a few firecrackers.
I went home to watch some TV before I went to bed and do some work on the blog.
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