23 September 2014: Tuesday ... 20 days since ... Why? ... watching Netflix movies ... caring for mom ... stuck in house ... Dr. Maged today ... First Day of Fall 2014

A gorgeous, chill, sunlit day today as Mom just yelled to me this midday, as she does on occasion and I'm watching Netflix with my earphones on, and initially, I am perturbed, but she told me that a nurse was arriving soon to see her. Did not get her name but the door is open on this crystalline-blue first day of fall in Delaware in the home, that is not mine, and where I feel imprisoned because that is my decision.

  

        Silver Linings Playbook with Jennifer                   Brad Pitt, starred in the zombie flick,
Lawrence, who won Oscar for role, and Bradley           World War Z, quite a decent film with superb 
Cooper in 2012, in a painting renderings of the end       special effects.
of the film where their love is expressed.                          

Leslie, a new nurse, young, petite and married, is here at this time (1:01 p.m .) checking mom. As all the other personnel from Delaware Hospice, she is thorough and professional and engaging. They were laughing a few moments before I typed these words. It feels good to be at least making an attempt to record feelings and events in my life. About 2 hours from leaving for my appointment with Dr. Maged, who is my named provider through Delaware Care. (I have it mentioned with the numbers for the service on my phone.)

The visit to Dr. Maged was so worthwhile. He's a listener and he provided me options and feedback that made me feel whole when I left. I'll have blood levels taken (after a 12-hour fast) in the morning and I've already secured medication for my mood swings from Pathmark this afternoon, which after presenting my Delaware insurance card, cost me a total of $1, after Divya reconfigured the amount.

My relationship, the physical one by necessity, with mom reached a new level today when I did what she did to me when I was a baby. I wiped her bottom with a washcloth and you just have to get over it and deal with it and not be embarrassed by it. There are needs and one just has to get on with it. I did and she did and we moved on.

I phoned my new and developing girlfriend (for wont of a better term), Peg, today about my appointment and I had a welcome ear. She listens, much like my doctor, and she is responsive to the needs of others and she provides solace and answers to life's challenges. She is a remarkable person who I am very fortunate to have got to know, whether through her guiles to mom-sit or not, it has been in that word often forsaken by UUs, a "godsend" in my life at present. Thank you Peg for being there for me and my mother. You have the heart of gold and a steel determination and wealth of knowledge and experience. I am lucky to be able to share in its bounty. 

4 July 2014: Friday ... Independence Day ... Wimbledon semis for men ... World Cup quarters ... a lightning-bug lit ascent at Carousel ...

I should always attempt to write something, even if I'm unwilling, as I seem always to be at the end of the day and all I want to do is dull my senses in front of the tube, because something will come of it (the writing that is) and discipline has never been my forte, in fact, my debilitating and calamitous weakness throughout my working and academic life. When will I learn?

Today was overcast, initially, part of the remnants of Hurricane Arthur, which apparently showed its mettle on the NC coast and elsewhere to some degree (i.e., winds reached 100 mph, et al.) but here, no rainfall and mild winds, and by close of day and my early evening/dusk walk with Dancer, the sky was clear and a hemi-moon stood in the early night sky. 

Bryan Wilson, owner of Miller’s Waterfront restaurant, braves floodwaters to check the damage to his property as wind from the Hurricane Arthur pushes water to his parking lot in Nags Head on Friday, July 4, 2014. Arthur struck North Carolina as a Category 2 storm with winds of 100 mph late Thursday, taking about five hours to move across the far eastern part of the state. HYUNSOO LEO KIM — THE (NORFOLK, VA.) VIRGINIAN-PILOT VIA AP

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/07/04/3984271/fast-moving-hurricane-arthur-pummeling.html#storylink=cpy

We watched tennis and I actually enjoyed a semi, where one of the old guard, the #1 seed Novak Djokovic, who I like but am tired of in the finals, all the time, played a great match with the unseasoned but up-and-coming Bulgarian with a name starting with "D" and 8 letters (No. 11 Grigor Dimitrov) like the famous Serb. But alas, it was not to be. Experience on centre court won out and Novak took two tie-breakers from the young upstart, but he will be heard from. The era of Big 4 is being challenged. And Federer, closing in on 33 and now with two sets of twins (his boys just born two months ago) will be the other finalist, the 35th time that Novak and Roger have met in tournament play.

On the World Cup soccer front, let's see if I can recall. Germany slid past France, 1-nil; and the match of the tournament, Brazil-Colombia, was a nailbiter with the host hanging on at the end after a penalty kick made it a one-goal lead. Unfortunately, Neymar, Brazil's soccer star is out with a serious injury -- he fractured a vertebrae on a hit, that I must admit and apologetically so, I thought he was faking. They always dramatize their falls and this looked similar but he is out of the tournament and hopefully he will be able to recover to play again. Thoughts of healing to the young, vibrant Brazilian futbol star.

Well, it will be Germany-Brazil in one semi on Tuesday and the other semifinalists are being decided today, Saturday.

31 January 2014: Friday ...

First group fitness class on the bike and it was challenging and sweating experience that took a lot out of me but was well worth it. Need to bring a towel and water the next time I do the class and set my seat forward a little bit, but overall, a good experience. 

 World Cafe Live at The Queen: A small ensemble, the same instruments used by Igor Stravinsky
in his piece, "A Soldier's Tale", played the first piece for the concert
by instrumentalists of the Delaware Symphony Orchestra directed by
David Amado. In "Dead Elvis", composed by Michael Daugherty, the principal bassoonist of the
DSO, 55-year-old Jon Gaarder, took on the mantle of "The King"
and played exuberantly, one tune in particular, the "Dies Irae" of the
Latin Mass, an allusion to the Hell and Heaven battle that occurs with
some individuals, particularly Faust and in this case, Elvis Presley. 

5 October 2013: Saturday, "My powers of description are limited" he tells me ...

Trying to find a typeface that works better, a little more separate and decipherable than the fusing letters of Arial. Today has started and continues to be filled with memorable activities, new-found knowledge thanks to asking my mother dates to birthdays and complete names [e.g., Nicholas Albert Vertucci, my grandfather, and his first-born male child after two girls -- Carolyn and Virginia -- Nicholas Albert Vertucci, Jr.; and then Raymond Charles (?, she is unsure of Uncle Ray's middle name) Vertucci, who would have turned 80 on October 4, 2013, if he'd lived.]

Dancer ponders entering the Mill Creek behind Limestone Acres. The path was thorny off the bank and I had to find a way through a large downed tree leading to the intersection of Milltown and Limestone Rds. Always busy where

one needs to be attentive and patient waiting for the light to change.

Swiftered and cleaned the kitchen floor on the suggestion and the direction and finding of the swifter by Dad in the closet down in the old record room of his office.

Just messaged the above pic to Nick and Lindsay. And just returned from the library, where I got a poetry anthology with the work of Wallace Stevens, and the pantheon of booze, Wine World, where I bought (tasted before) a bottle of Pino Gris (Pinot Grigio in Italian) white wine with a 10% off for $12.59. Am getting set to head over to the Literature Lover's gathering at the home of Linda Lucero at 415 Clane Drive, a huge 1/2 of a duplex that overlooks the valley and you can see Christiana Hospital complex.

Wow ... that sums up, partially, the evening shared at the home of Linda and the culinary genius of Susan. Both combined to make a resplendent evening, two men and ten women, that was memorable and tasty and mind-enriching. More to come on Susan, Donna, Ginger, Judy, Linda and the one male, an admirer of Emerson, who read from him and got through most of a biography on him, Jack.   

Jack, the other male at the UUSMC Literary Lovers' Gathering at the home of Linda Lucero (seen on far right, next to Donna, the vocal doppelganger of Liz Johnson), reads a selection from Emerson, a Unitarian icon of the 19th century, on Saturday evening, 5 October 2013. 

Linda reading and laughing from the book "The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir" by Bill Bryson she brought or pulled from her library at the UUSMC Literary Lovers' Soiree/Dinner/Reading at her home on Clane Drive. Fantastic evening.