11 June 2014: Wednesday ... Douglas Alan Nyhoff's 56th birthday ... early AM call nice ... Renee & Juli, consummate at their jobs, fitness instructor and RN ... Mom funny pics ... donation & note to Music School of Delaware, Kate Ransom, Pres. & CEO ...

   
Photo Booth on the iPad is a lot of fun to play with and mom took these photos, one sent (left) to Doug and the other sent to Liz with a short note, "love you", typed out by mom.

It's starting to pour outside now as it approaches 11:30 p.m. and I hope Dancer is under the shed. She was yesterday when it poured cats and dogs in the afternoon as Nick Moretti waited for a friend to pick him up. It taps continuously on the roof in the TV room and the sound is not unpleasant but disconcerting because I wonder about Dancer.

Today is Doug's 56th birthday and we had a nice talk this early morning. He seemed at ease and it felt good to share with him on this day, his entrance onto this planet in Bridgeport Hospital in 1958. He was headed to work this morning and had a full day but his girls, Norma and Norma, planned a gathering this evening.

Had a strenuous Body Pump with Amy and an equally challenging Body Combat with Renee. Asking her afterward about a "zone" feeling during her workout, Renee said that she couldn't get too distracted from the routine because it requires focus but that the act of exercise made her a better person, a better mother and just made her feel great. I marvel at her concentration and the beauty of her execution and the verve of her fitness. On a different level and skill set, Juli, the PRN nurse for Hospice, came by for about the 3rd of 4th time and spent significant and meaningful time with Mom. She is so thorough and always has excellent suggestions after her history. She told me something remarkable about her interaction with dad -- I think she saw him just a few days before his passing -- and he made a confession to her about his own health state and how he missed the diagnosis and felt bad about it. She remembered telling him that we cannot diagnose ourselves, we are no good at it, we cover it up and cannot be honest about our condition. I found it an amazing declaration.

On a sad but necessary note, she mentioned the passing of her father about 5 weeks ago in the Compassion Wing of St. Francis Hospital. DE Hospice rents a floor dedicated to hospice care at St. Francis and that's where her 88-year-old father died after being there just a few days. I mentioned a touching obituary story of an individual on WBUR radio this morning where an 88-year-old cardiologist died. He'd gone into medicine to find out the cause of his mother's early death and went on to meeting his only girlfriend and wife for life -- they had 10 children -- and he'd take them on a vacation to the mountains and work as a doctor in a town that had had no doctor or medical care during this time. It was such a touching and wonderful story about a regular guy who led an extraordinary life and touched many with his dedication and skill.

The Remembrance Project: Dr. Charles Keevil

"Dr. Charles Keevil died April 8, 2014, in Lincoln, Massachusetts. He was 88 years old, worked for 54 years in the same hospital, and, with his wife, had 10 children. During summer vacations, they packed various family configurations into a VW bus and drove to a coal-mining district of Appalachian Kentucky, where he volunteered in a hospital that had never seen a cardiologist."

19 May 2014: Monday ... Doctor/Nurse visit from Hospice ... refill bird feeder (Mom's lovin' it) ... Associates at Forwood Independent Living (success ... Thom is back, not singing, yet) ... beer at Tyler's

Gordon and Margaret and the rest of the Associates participate 
in the group sing following our performance at the Forwood Manor Nursing
Care Independent Living off Marsh Road (near Graves Road), negotiated by Joanne's familiarity
of the area with Robbie on this Monday evening. A delightful evening with
participatory elderly who sang the songs and truly enjoyed the visit. 

So, mom loves the bird feeder and asked that I refill the depleted store of seed that had been eaten by mostly small birds and thankfully, no squirrels, to date. And I found a chair in the document room of dad's office and went out the door, rarely used, and set it up under the feeder and refilled it this morning. It was satisfying.

A call, in addition to mom's, just before Body Combat with Renee indicated that Hospice was sending one of their physician managers to do an evaluation of mom along with a nurse, Renee, one of her case managers. I left early to get back in time but they beat me there and I got to meet them in the bedroom -- Dr. Altimuro (sic), tall and muscular and Italian with a New Yorkish accent and the toothsome Renee. It was a good visit and I believe mom will be ok'ed for continued maintenance through DH. The other call, which I did not answer, came from the insurance company and the voicemail detailed that an adjuster would call and arrive in the next two days to check on the claim for water damage in the living room.

I got that call from at Dan Hathaway and he will arrive at our home this Wednesday at 1 p.m.

And I forwarded Composer's Datebook to Larry Stomberg and he responded with gratitude and the need to sign up for the e-mail. It concerned the first performance of the B-Minor Mass of J. S. Bach in this country, the first full one being New York with 500 performers and a full house. There was mention that one director send off to Europe for two oboe d'amores for historic accuracy.

            Oboe d'amore by Johann Wolfgang Koenigsberger,
Roding, Oberpfalz, Bavaria, ca. 1730. 
... the University of Southern Mississippi choirs and the Meistersingers Civic Chorus as they perform Johann Sebastian Bach's Mass in B Minor

A great example of how a simple, mundane exchange can lead to a revelation with a simple comment. Bought two cards -- a birthday card for Lindsay from her grandmother (only card in that category) and a congratulatory missive for Susan on her upcoming marriage -- the cost being $6.28. I asked the cashier, a young lady, whether she could compute the money returned from my $10 bill in her head without looking at the register. She assuredly said "Yes" because she was going to be a math teacher and loved the subject. We shared a few words on the basic and integral nature of math in all of life's endeavors and I mentioned my experience with a good math teacher, who it turned out also was good at spying on me and reporting to the principal but all is forgiven. We do what we need to do for our family and if it means throwing someone under the bus, well, it's hurtful but sometimes necessary. Back to the exchange, it was uplifting, almost exponential in benefit to my spirit.

    

4 April 2014: Friday ... Talk from Pam Howard (concern raised) ... Mary Jane's story ... meeting at Mary's ... Skeesha makes it mid-afternoon ... Veronica, RN, comes after 4 ... Phillies play Cubs on 100th anniv of Wrigley Field

You would think that I'd have a system down by now for notating the important events of the day in some semblance of order so that I can, when the spirit moves, go back and try to find the digital jottings that I made on that certain and now, perhaps, nondescript day, and recall a feeling or a person that made an impression, maybe a real difference during the passage of the sun through the sky and the earth's diurnal rotation.

Well, I haven't yet, thus, the paucity of prose on these pages and the usage, quite blatant, of FB photos copied and pasted on this Google blog. It is shameless and too easy. Here goes, once again, an attempt at consistency and routine and developing need for this expression and not overwhelming and incapacitating fear.

It's coming!

18 March 2014: Tuesday ... sick this AM couldn't make yoga (darn!) ... recovery in afternoon for Body Combat w/Renee ... texts w/Christine and Katia ... Flyers win in OT vs. Blackhawks on Giroux last-second goal ...

https://conf.abrf.org/program (March 22-25, 2014)

Albuquerque, New Mexico 

Introducing the ABRF 2014 Annual Conference

ABRF 2014 “Team Science and Big Data: Cores at the Frontier” will bring together leaders in these emerging disciplines to address the role that core facilities are playing in the information revolution. At the meeting, facility directors and managers, staff scientists, administrators, government sponsors and industrial partners will convene to present their latest research results, technologies, programs and products aimed at facilitating Team Science and Big Data initiatives. 

(S3) The Cores as the Heart of Translational Team Science: Building New Tools for the Clinical Investigator - Cimarron / Dona Ana Room

Session Organizer: Katia Sol-Church, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Thomas Jefferson University, and Director, Biomolecular Core Laboratory, AI duPont Hospital for Children

Speakers: Katia Sol-Church; Shawn Polson, Assistant Professor and Bioinformatics Core Coordinator, University of Delaware; Erin Crowgey, Graduate Research Assistant, University of Delaware

Scaled the sofa to take this photo of a recumbent, solar-warmed Dancer. Got one frame off. 

Just finished watching interview, his 10th appearance on the Colbert Report, of Neil deGrasse Tyson by Stephen Colbert. Humorous, of course, but the astrophysicist, who knew he wanted to pursue that field since he was 11 and visited Carl Sagan in Ithaca when he was 17 in 1975, reminds so much, with his hand movements and mode of speech of David Keesee. 

14 December 2013: Saturday ... the day of dad's funeral visitation at Mealey Funeral Home and afterward home reception ...

Nick had a good night's rest in the bed that six days earlier held his dying grandfather. It was a proper cycle of birth and death, the grandson moves on, the grandfather departs.
The church crochets these prayer blankets for the ailing. Susan presented one to mom this visitation morning as Stacy worked on touching up her hair.


Dad's portrait at the visitation with his trademark black-rimmed glasses.


Bob Papp, who is a volunteer EMT, helped change out the oxygen tank for mom at the visitation. As you can see by her exhausted expression, the event really took a lot out of her but the son of Mimi and Alex (he still lives in his family home on Yale Road and commutes to Philly to work, a 90-minute effort), like so many who knew and loved my father, gave of themselves to share on this day that threatened snowfall. It came after the event.


Laura Graziano Farabaugh, who knew mom so well from her father's gatherings on the holidays when she was a little girl, has a special bond with my parents as can be seen in this connected gaze between the loved ones. She plans to come by some time with kids over their school vacation this holiday.

Didn't spend enough time with my best buddies but we got together for a portrait at the command of Kathy Okarski. We followed her orders, willingly. At least Bob and I did. Ronnie was non-committal and mouthy.

Friends made the visitation and I was so grateful for my mother and myself,
they are such good people. We will get together this Thursday for a meal at Bob and Alice's. (At this addition to this page, on 12 January 2014, I have not heard from them other than a cursory e-mail from Bob linking me to his most recent published law article ... "Interest-Convergence and the Disability Paradox:
An Account of the Racial Disparities in Disability Determinations under the SSA and IDEA".




The grands of Dr. Rudolph Nyhoff were treated to dinner by their uncle and father, Dr. Douglas Alan Nyhoff: Great meal and even greater camaraderie of family at the Hartefeld Restaurant, on the grounds of the same-named golf course, in Avondale, Pennsylvania, on a chilly and rainy Saturday night, 14 December 2013, on the day of Dr. Rudolph Nyhoff's funeral visitation. It was chilly and wet evening which epitomized the main event of the day but not the family togetherness around the dinner table. That was bright and sanguine.
It was a "blessing" to have my family at the visitation. I do not know the taker of this photograph. It was not I, but having Susan and the children at the visitation was a wonderful gift and a joy. I believe they were happy to be there and experiencing the celebration of their grandfather's life. 

4 December 2013: Wednesday ... the pill (Vicodin) is not "stultifying" ... there is a "pill hierarchy" says Beth Kincaid at 1:50 p.m., when it comes the point where he can't swallow properly ...

Five Things I Am Thankful For This Day ... Wednesday, 4 December 2013:

The use of the word "stultifying" ... to cause (someone or something) to become dull, slow ...

1. Delaware Hospice for all they do. Had a great visit from Beth Kincaid who talked and resolved problems posthaste for my father. Such a gift.
2. Credo phone service ... it appears that the new iPhone 4S will work out as I phoned some friends today and the service was fine.
3. Elaine Crawford, who is a caregiver like me and who always has a gentle, wonderful tone to her voice. Talked to her for the first time in over a month and it seemed like just yesterday. So nice to touch base again.
4. Melody, also from Delaware Hospice, who heads volunteer services for the business of care at the end of life and her promise to see about a sitter for my parents this Friday night when I attend a concert in Wilmington with Linda Lucero.
5. For my father's incredibly generous donation, his final one, to the annual educational fund of the Delaware Academy of Medicine of $500.00. I wrote down his name as a person to honor for the donation. Self-serving? No, he deserves this recognition.
   
   Visit of Beth Kincaid from Delaware Hospice this early afternoon ... many issues were discussed and handled, I felt, positively and quickly. 

• humidifier bottle for the oxygenator (for the irritation he feels in his nose) -- Skeesha from DH brought the bottle and the long nasal cannula (2X) that afternoon. (On Friday, she brought a connector for the hosing and parked in the driveway, front pointing toward Pickwick and was just ready to leave when I arrived from a trip to the bank -- new checks --, Pathmark -- my prescription and some food items -- and Bachetti's -- Am. cheese, liverwurst, and Virginia Baked ham, all 3/4 lb.)
• saline nose spray, help it feel less dry
• longer line for the oxygen, they might have one at the office that can be sent out
• need to get a pill dispenser ... did not have that on her person, said Beth 
• coughed up blood yesterday ... size of a quarter ... Is it happening on a daily basis? (no, not regular)
• timing is everything, if it's happening a lot or increasing in amount ... Is it time to take you off the plavix? We don't want there to be a bleeding problem. (hasn't reached that stage, yet ... plavix is for the boomerang stents in his legs)
• Request for a sitter this Friday evening through Delaware Hospice -- Melody Klein or Ralph Plumley, who are the volunteer coordinators -- Beth has already sent in the message. Ralph started in "bereavement" and is now heading the "volunteer" department. (I got a call within 10 minutes ... Beth pegged it when she said that the call, on our home phone, was from Melody. It was. She had a boyfriend in Limestone Acres and is married now with 6 kids, said Beth.) She told me that she would work on getting a volunteer sitter for this Friday evening. Just an amazing outfit this Delaware Hospice!!!
• How is the pain in your back this minute? He did not complain and has not, although, later, he did ask for 2 Vicodin, which I supplied more than willingly. 
• And he says that he's still handling the steps. (I did mention the falls at the top or bottom steps, 
• Regarding BMs, he says that he can still make the bathroom but that will change and we will be looking at a bedside commode. (Later, he came down the steps in a panic and did not quite make the toilet. It was formed stool but still nasty to clean up. Took the rug to the wash and cleaned up the toilet area with the spray cleaner and paper towels under the sink. There was also some on the light socket from his hand turning them on -- he had been reaching to extract stool with his fingers and I think he cleaned his hands thoroughly). 

Just mailed Dad's last check to the Delaware Academy of Medicine for its annual fund drive in the amount of $500.00. Initially, he said to send $100.00, but upped the amount when I went back up in the TV room at his request. It is, serendipitously, the last check in this set and the insert asked whether the donor wanted to remember or honor a certain person, I had the presumption but no, the privilege, of writing my father's name down: Dr. Rudolph Nyhoff.

It will be his last donation to the organization he treasured.

Delaware Academy of Medicine Beginning in 1968, more than a dozen artists produced original watercolor paintings under the brush surname 'Gray' - beginning at the same time Gray's Watercolors became the working company name. Prior to that time, originals were produced under a half-dozen names/brush names. Any print bearing the signature of Paul McConaughy, Paul Andrews, Peter Sawyer, David Gilbert, Jack Westridge, or Wayne Johnson can be dated between 1965 and 1968. 

What is this fascination I have with the numbers 1, 8, and 6 which form the number 186, my zeta number of my fraternity, Lambda-Beta, of the national Lambda Chi Alpha. Was it the 186th chapter, University of Delaware, of the national? I don't know. But tonight, using one of my favorite apps on my iPhone, Digifit, I went 1.86 miles when I reached 4546 Pickwick Drive at the time of 8:16 p.m. Coincidence? Certainly, but if I believed in the supernatural, what would be going on?

Well, the Flyers just scored on the power play against the Detroit Red Wings to tie the score in the first period and I go to watch on the wide, HD screen of my mother and say goodnight to my beloved father. It has been one day to remember. Glad to have been able to document at least some of it. 

4 November 2013: Monday, a day where the end has a new beginning, we began the process of hospice with Delaware Hospice and Social Worker Drew Biehl ...

Social worker Drew Biehl with Delaware Hospice, the oldest and only non-profit of 5 hospice groups that service Delaware, hands dad some of the initial paperwork requiring his signature. He signed and the process is underway. A nurse, Erika, comes later to work on the medical issues and fill out the rest of dad's file. It's been a great, meaningful visit.

Phew! We did it with the help of an understanding and patient social worker from Delaware Hospice, Drew Biehl, who explained so well the importance and vital nature of getting hospice people in early to my parents that they became true supporters and believers in getting a relationship with the medical professionals of hospice early so that when they are truly needed, the experience will be all the more beneficial. 

The paperwork has been started and we have a folder and a refrigerator magnet and the number to call, 24/7, affixed in at least 4 critical places, 302-478-5707. 
We await our nurse visit this late afternoon and the start of the process of care that will make the transition all the more peaceful, palliative, and loving. 

Great visit from the admissions nurse for Delaware Hospice, Erica Tarpine, a young and attractive lady who was detail but compassion oriented in her many questions and information delivery this late afternoon, after the sun had set and she arrived after having worked already from 8 - 5. She is a young mother with an 8-year-old boy and a 5-year-old girl, who truly love Halloween, the boy dressed as a Ninja and the girl as a princess. She just left and dad will qualify for hospice, no problem, and the calls will start coming from nurse/case manager, the social worker and others on staff at Delaware Hospice. All of it is paid by Medicare. We get no billing. It's all paid for under the taxes that were secured from dad throughout his working life. I feel good about this service as dad enters into a challenging and last phase of his life, the transition that we all must face. This may not be alone and with those compassionate and those who love him. 

Dad with Delaware Hospice Admissions Nurse, Erica Tarpine, after his check of vitals. 

15 October 2013: Tuesday as dad rests; laxatives at RiteAid (got a card), Bhutanese bball, texts from HCofA in Martinez,

Woke up way too early and stayed up to doodle on the iPhone, moving posts from the "Sent" file to various files on my gMail, most going to "Family", "Parental Care", or "Friends". I have been writing short notes to friends and family ... today I wrote a concerned short letter to Lindsay, mentioning her comments in her 2 letters to her grandparents, in particular her thought that graduate school might not have been the right decision and her worry about lab experiments, just a general sense of unease in her words that made me pause and be concerned about her. 
Have been making up to 10 cups of coffee in the Mr. Coffee maker and drinking at least 3 while I read the News Journal.




        
Tried the citrate with 8 oz of water and his hot chocolate sat nearby, still not imbibed. He sipped a little, I finished it (sweet and delicious but needed to be warmer and have whipped cream).

"One thing at a time", he said, "let's see how the magnesia works." The suggestion from me was what Doug had mentioned in his e-mail, a drug, it read:

"Lactulose 15-20 cc po each day works well. But it needs a prescription. Dr. Landis my oncology friend uses it. And dad should stay on the colace twice a day," he wrote. My response, which dad asked about, puzzlingly, was: "Got it. Will mention to dad. He's in a bind, literally and tres uncomfortable." 

Have traveled to two stores this morning. RiteAid to get the laxatives, where I got a $1 of MiraLAX by printing a coupon off the web after installing the coupon printing app on the HP desktop computer and signed up for a RiteAid card from thin, blonde Megan (who looked older than her age but quite professional); and then Pathmark where I bought a gallon of whole milk rather than the usual 1/2 and nearly a pound of liverwurst, which I am lovin too much, among a few other items including bananas and bread. Used the scan checkout and bagged my own groceries in two plastic bags. The day is beautiful, temperature mild, just a gorgeous day. At 12:13 p.m., poor Dancer still has not had a walk but that will change posthaste once I get away from this computer screen and enjoy the outdoors. Dad is resting, quietly, on the bed behind me. Wish he'd have a bowel movement.

Funny piece in the NY Times, which I bought to day for the outrageous price of $2.50 but it has the Science Times and this wonderful article of the country Bhutan and the love of the game of basketball, especially by the royalty.

"Students at the Pelkhil School in Thimphu, Bhutan. Few in this nation of 742,000 are taller than 6 feet."Big problem: no height. Few of the Bhutanese are over 6-feet but they think they can beat the Maldives, an island that is sinking due to global warming. If they played at Thimphu at a height of 7,700 feet that might give them an advantage and a first-ever victory on the international sports stage. In the meantime, the royal princess, 23, scores big numbers because there is an inherent fear to foul her. Funny story.

Spoke, via text messaging, with nurses, Sandy Adkins (who I texted, actually) and Mary Kirkland, from Hospice Care of America in Augusta. They suggested to call hospice now but I asked about the above and they suggested dad drink the entire bottle of citrate of magnesia and also take some laxatives, too. Dad is acceding to the suggestion and drinking the rest of the C of M, but he is not going to take anymore laxatives. Stay tuned.

They are both asleep, I think, as Light Classical plays on the HDTV cable TV, one of the high number stations that just play music, this crystal clear October day at 2:16 p.m. or thereabouts.

This is not Light Classical  but an all-classical radio station,  89.7 FM in of all places, North Carolina, where there is another terrific all-classical station out of Davidson College, WDAV, 89.9 FM, in the Charlotte area. Go figure. The state that brought us Jesse Helms, who probably loved classical music -- he was in the band, according to Ray Weldon House, music teacher extraordinaire at Monroe High School.   
I'm about to take off for a walk with my ignored pup all morning and into the mid-afternoon. Think I'll head Delcastle way again. Earlier had an exchange with David Aaron Keesee who is airing his emotional issues on FB in a rather open manner. He's conflicted and I worry about him as he has "cut" himself in the past and I just don't know what he'll do. He has some issues.

Before I left, Dad asked for me to check into Highmark Delaware, a Blue Cross Blue Shield of Delaware service or in this case, an onus of faxes being sent to what they saw as a continuing provider and not a retired physician. "Could I stop the faxes from comin'", asked Dad, "there's no phone number." Went to the web site and found one and called and left a message with the Provider Relations Representative, Bobbie Deck (302-421-3497) and also sent an e-mail with the concern (a rep will call back some time during the hours of 2-5 using the home phone number). Hopefully, it will get resolved.
 

Walk interruptus with an absolute delight of a woman, Eleanor Hyde, in her early 80s, survivor of metastatic breast cancer where she abandoned chemotherapy but told me that when she was on it would go to Howard Johnson's on a Wednesday, when she couldn't eat anything else, and have the New England Clam Chowder and a grilled cheese. Her appetite would get better by Friday. Ernie is still hangin' in there at 91 and appeared and waved from the front doorway, apparently looking for the mail, a daily ritual, said Eleanor. So good to see her on this crystalline blue, mild October day on Nicholby Drive.

 
Eleanor Hyde petting Dancer on a picture-perfect Tuesday afternoon
on Nicholby Drive on her front lawn.

Started the walk again about 1/2 hour later and decided to shorten it through Milltown Park and the creek. Decided to call and got Allison McKinney on the phone. Had a charming talk. She is well and all is going along at Augusta Gardens. She does get out, less frequently because she needs an attendant to push her wheelchair. Sometimes her daughter fills that role. 

Allison's apartment looks out onto this area.

In Sheridan Square, along Nicholby Drive, where Dancer did her duty and I fiddled awhile trying to separate a pickup bag to collect the doo-doo on a pristine, green lawn with a car in the drive and the front door open, I decided to phone William (Bill) "Hercules" Sheridan on his 87th birthday. He answered as I remembered him 40 years ago. Same tone and timbre to his voice. He sounded great and had had lunch with his daughter Cindy to celebrate. It was so good to touch base with him.
 
Hercules was the son of Jupiter by Alcmena, wife of Amphitryon, king of Thebes.

 

 

 

4 October 2013: Friday, Foggy walk clears to brilliant sun shining through drawn curtain ...

The fog was intense this morning as I took Dancer up Pickwick and into Sherwood and then an early arrival on the campus sidewalks of St. John the Beloved Catholic School, its classrooms quiet, the posters bright and descriptive -- READ -- the carved inscription over the entrance to be honest is the best action, then walking past the Vianney House where the nuns and priests (?) reside and then out onto Milltown and into the development of Maplecrest and then around to Milltown and then back onto Pickwick, the fog still think and I notice one car without its lights on and I think, damn, that's dangerous and what it might have meant in my accident over 30 years ago at nightfall, perhaps that's the reason I pulled in front of that car, never saw it.

St. John the Beloved Catholic School

But today I had an appt. with Jim Nacchia, Jr., Director of Human Relations of /Homewatch Caregivers of Delaware,a patient care biz, run by his family -- father is head and brother, sister, and mother also work for the biz -- and I filled out the background check and took home the application for the details of places where I worked and people who know my work history. Learned of the Certified Nurse Assistant program for free and called, later, and left messages about details of the program from the two teachers.

Newark Free Library in the University of Delaware town.

Drove to the Newark Free Library and got on the computer to register web sites for the patient care biz and the Delaware program to train CNAs or Certified Nurse Assistants. (Just got through messaging John "de Gooser" Webers -- HIS FIRST TIME doing this type of interaction on FB -- who is driving down tomorrow and will call me when he gets into Delaware. Parents are looking forward to his trip, especially mom.)

Organic, mostly, tomato at Farmer's Market at Carousel Farm.

1 October 2013: Tuesday, Daily Musings & Events -- Day #2

Today is the 89th birthday of James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr.,  the 39th president of the United States and what a birthday present he has received from our government.

 It is partially shutdown due to a serious impasse between the House, under Speaker John Boehner, and the White House under President Barack Hussein Obama. The ACA or Affordable Care Act or colloquially, Obamacare, starts today online with registration nationwide. House conservatives, particularly the Tea Party, despise this legislation and want it out. They have voted over 40 times to kill the bill, revoke it, only to be stymied by the democratic-controlled Senate, which will never have the 51 votes to OK its revocation. Regardless, the WH would veto the legislation and there is not 2/3rds majority to override.

It is also the UN International Day of Older Persons this October 1st, 2013. Sweden treats its elderly the best and Afghanistan the worst. Perhaps appropriate that this is Jimmy's birthday, for, in a way, it honors his presence and import on this earth of ours. He has made yeoman contributions to humanity. 

Today is a RED letter day as I made mom and dad's tea and toasted her bread and spread the "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter" and Dutch jam (Rozenbottel) and actually transported it to her room where I saw her take small mouthfuls of water to swallow her 10 pills (2 lasix for urinary output, 2 Hydrocodone for pain, 2 metoprolol for heart rhythm, 1 Vitamin C & D for body systems, 2 Fergon for her body's iron).

Got to fix dad toast and two hard-boiled eggs this morning and he ate them with gusto, finishing his plate and then washing them with an abundance of dishwashing soap. A concerning event(s) was his call to check his checking balance. He dropped the phone on 3 occasions and said voiced his displeasure each time. Do not know whether he was balancing it on his year but think he held it with his left hand. It is a sign of weakness and he is feeble but he did share with me his finances and when he gets his 3 checks (i.e., SS, two annuities from AllState and the Hartford, the only one he has to cash by going to the Wells Fargo in Greenville, a lengthy but pleasant jaunt where he can have a nice lunch, too, hopefully into the future with me). I want to get him out and away from the thought of continual discomfort. 

I leave my father, his eyes closed as he listens to the Prelude; Good Friday Music of Wagner's Parsifal, conducted and beloved by Arturo Toscanini and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. We talk about operas. He's only heard a few in person but he remembers Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro in Moscow but cannot recall if the libretto was sung in Russian. He traveled to Russia twice, once with mom and another time with Doug. (I never had the pleasure, other than our trip down the Colorado River on raft and a trip to Alaska, to be with Dad, alone on the river, and with mom to our most northern state).

Earlier I left mom, who I'd  brought the paper up for, with the promise to return and work on the crossword, which I started this morning, before my walk with Dancer where I phoned and spoke to Mr. Rotter for a little over 14 minutes. We shall get together to share the B&Ws of Rich with Kim and their newborn boy, Jason, and other amenities in the near future. I just wanted to touch base after talking with Mrs. Rotter on my trip up from Georgia last Tuesday in the early evening. 

Dad mentions the composer Joachim Raff and the remarkable, nay, unbelievable, memory of his idol, The Maestro Toscanini, who wrote out the score of his 5th symphony, "inspired by Gottfried August Bürger's ballad Lenore, set during the Thirty Years' War", by memory flawlessly. Dad says I pulled info from Wikipedia, I imagine, on this obscure (now) but
famous-in-his-time composer.

The sounds of a lawnmower (the business is owned by Kevin Manley Lawn & Landscaping, who lives at 4504 Pickwick as the street turns and moves up, his house in on that curve), fast and furious, operated by Alfredo, who will cut up to 40 lawns today, whirs on the side of the house and both Dad and I worry about the power seeding and the the effects cutting the grass will have on the seed distribution. Will it all be for naught. I motion to Alfredo and he stops the mower and we check the lawn and we decide, after Dad appears walking from the backyard in his jacket, that he will cut it "slower" and this will prevent seed loss. Due to the arid nature of the backyard, no cutting is done. Later, when Juan comes to blow off the leaves, he asks whether I want to move the Honda Accord. Initially, I say "No" but Dad suggests it and tosses me the key, a little short of its destination (my hands), and I run down Juan to tell him that I will move the car. He returns and blows off the driveway and then I return the car to its original location. Exciting, huh?

Before the call from Lisa, had the opportunity, at Mom's suggestion, to put her red socks on and to apply, prior to sock placement, lotion to her swollen feet and calves. It feels good and she does not complain, at least much when I rub her feet, ankle and calves. When I place pressure there is some distress but all in all, it's okey-dokey. 

Lisa just left. She is a phlebotomist working for LabCorp and the preferred blood drawer for my parents. Flawless, she drew three vials and then patiently held a wadded gauze on the entry point and then taped the covering to her right arm. Mom has this done each week so I wonder about injury to the tissue but the arm and the vein look fine, perhaps a little bruising but she weathers it like a pro. It's all okey-dokey to her. Lisa leaves and we all ponder the origin of that term which she uses as she goes out the door, dropping the long "ee" sound and just saying "Okey-doke". It works.

Well, the afternoon as it has progresses has been eventful and event-filled. Paramount has been the initially, "dilated pupil" my dad just says to mom -- they opened up the capsule and corrected the imperfection of the previous cataract in the LEFT eye, which was clearly marked in the operation prep room at the Surgery Center at Limestone Medical Center where the ophthalmology associates (at least a dozen of them) have their cramped offices on one side of the medical building and the SC is on the opposite end, we traversed both destinations today and as I began to say and was distracted by dad's voice, the short lived (all laser surgeries are short and punctual and piercing, naturally) surgery appears to be a success. Dad barely wore the paparazzi/Cannes-Film-Festival glasses and then we were out in the bright sun and he had no problem. It looks good.

Tammy,a blonde, attractive RN, began the drops for dad's eyes and then went on break and Chris took over and finished. It took two sessions to have the pupil wide enough, according to the eye doctor, Dr. Ralph Milner, middle aged and dapper and collegial, offering his hand, immediately when he entered the prep room. Dad had been dissatisfied with the previous surgery and carried a mild animus toward the amiable doctor, but Dr. Milner assuaged his concerns and the surgery went quickly and apparently, successfully. We were asked to traverse, by car, to the other end of the building and have the doctor take a look at the procedure. I have a photo and he motions in the picture for me to take a look. Had no idea what I was looking at but saw a half-parabola looking incision that he proclaimed was the opening and exactly what he wanted. I concurred. We left without making the next appt. in a week or two. A call later promised another call from the office to confirm a time. Any time in the afternoon during the week but not in the morning on Tuesdays or Thursdays, said Dad. 

Afterward, we crossed Kirkwood Hwy on Limestone Rd and ate a nice meal at The Crossroads Restaurant nestled in the juncture of these two busy thoroughfares. Dad had a Chardonnay and a favorite of his, a lengthy split hot dog with the fixins'. I had a stuffed pepper and cole slaw and a Diet Pepsi. Dad had a coffee after his meal. So glad he ate with his usual, though less seen now, fervor. We ordered, as requested by Mom, a takeout cheeseburger, which turned out to be huge and eaten, completely, by Mom with a salivating Dancer close by. (I don't think she got any of it. Mom ate a good portion of the baked beans but couldn't manage the pickle, but what an admirable job of delightful gluttony. I returned with a cup of tea, as requested, and then, later, another scoop of sugar for my "sweet tooth" mother, a third heaping tablespoon -- but she can use it for the calories and I don't mind.)

I received my first Amazon-ordered item, resting by the patient door on the driveway, the book by the retired UU minister and native Delawarean, Rev. Edward Searl, entitled Around the Delaware Arc, is a compendium of 101 People, Places and Lore around the First State. Even though it was a self-gift, I wrote a preamble on the first pages:
 

Tuesday, 1 October 2013

     The author, a retired UU minister, who practiced in the midwest 

but who is a native Delawarean, came home to the border near Pennsylvania

to care for ailing parents. He had already written a number of books and was featured

in an article in the News Journal article the last week of September, the time 

I returned to Delaware to care for my parents.

     The journey continues and this book, all about my home state, is a fitting foundation 

for a life forward.

Here's the e-mail that I sent Rev. Dr. Gay Williams Ortiz regarding the book/article above:
"Dear Rev. Gaye,

I thought this serendipitous article in the Wilmington News Journal that appeared Thursday, 26 September, 2013, in the New Castle County Crossroads section entitled, "Sacred space and place - Delaware native explains what makes the state's arc unique" might be of interest to you and others in the Church. It is a homily of sorts on the home territory (I've ordered the book through Amazon) of this retired UU minister, Ed Searl, who served several decades in the Midwest and then returned to his native Delaware to "care for his parents." 

http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20130926/LIFE/309260035/-Sacred-space-and-place-

Enjoy and once again, I miss everyone but I will be attending the Unitarian Universalist Society of Mill Creek this Sunday and will attempt to join the choir. Voice and life moves onward. 

In loving humankindness,

rudy"

Just responded to a FB post, within seconds, from Lindsay about a podcast about Science Signaling. "Am I being too nerdy?", she asked her FB friends. I answered and "Like"d:

"Sounds intriguing to me Lindsay. Have no idea what Science Signaling is? A podcast might help."

http://podcasts.aaas.org/science_signaling/ScienceSignaling_130917.mp3

This is an amazingly detailed Podcast with terms that require an advanced degree. 

Got a call from Lindsay this afternoon and she had the time, she's talking to her grandfather right now about eating and his eye surgery and he asks her about her studies and I hear her voice over the iPhone (her voice does stand out). On the TV is the conclusion of the NewsHour and Ray Suarez is doing a feature on Rita Moreno. She called on her way back from Vanderbilt, a commute that can run into serious traffic. She does not like one of her classes and she is having some difficulty with her lab director, Dr. Peggy Kendall, who tends, she says, to have too many pots on the fire and a little too disconnected. I think she needs a little more direction in her investigation at the lab.
 
Rita Moreno, 81, is a Puerto Rican singer, dancer and actress. She is the only Hispanic and one of the few performers to have won all four major annual American entertainment awards, which include an Oscar, ...