Cop Car's Beat

Midway through the holidays

While Hunky Husband and I don't celebrate Christmas as Christians do, we usually have the local members of our family - Dudette, WichiDude, Wonderful GrandDaughter, and Chew - in for Christmas dinner. On occasion, our distant family members - Bogie and her Wonderful Spouse - are able to join us since this is the time of year when they can take advantage of lengthening their vacation time off by combining it with holiday time off. This year, since Bogie and her WS had joined us in October (Boat anchor or computer?) to join in honoring Hunky Husband, we had local family members for dinner. HH and I had a great time! Other than our family members, we enjoyed the entertainment provided by our wild turkey flock and seven of our white-tailed deer population cavorting in our back yard.

Hunky Husband, much to my amazement and appreciation, embarked upon a clean-up operation on his den several weeks ago. He tries to put in 15 minutes each day (even "making up" for missed days!) HH is so self-disciplined that he can actually do that sort of thing. He is making great strides and has thrown out/disposed of scads of papers and such. In addition, he has gone through most of his closet and given me about 25 shirts/tees/polos to dispose of for him. Wonderful!

With such a good example before me, I have started on my sewing room - I'm pitching a bunch of old and new clothes (that had either been accumulated to be "fixed", to be "modified", or to be used in quilting or other crafting projects) and getting rid of yard goods that I know will never be used. I'm even thinking of pitching a cross-stitch bedspread kit that my mother purchased in the mid-1960s. She never got started on it and gave it to me in the mid-1980s. I immediately replaced all of the embroidery thread (I didn't care for the colors that had come in the kit, turquoise and yellowish green, so replaced them with chocolate brown, taupe, and ivory) but never got started on it myself. So far I have bags and bags of stuff to give to the YWCA for their thrift shop that supports their women's crisis center or to the DAV for their thrift stores or sale of rag bundles.

We won't be done by the time we ring in 2010, but we will be well on our way to having clearer decks for the new year.

Apologies for not making it around to my regularly-read blogs for the last several days, but know that I've been and am thinking of you and wishing you a 2010 filled with wonder, accomplishment, tranquility, and/or any good things you desire. Welcome 2010!

The Encounter (a play in five acts)

Yesterday, a kitty that has been "hanging around" our house for a few months now, got up its courage and appeared at our back door, meowing.

 

During the bitterly cold weather that we had for a few days, I placed a ceramic dish for cat food under our back porch. I didn't want this kitty, or the black kitty that we had been seeing hang about our woods, to want for food when it was so cold. I took a fresh supply of food out, hand-feeding a few morsels to the kitty. Although she seemed to be healthy and well cared for, the kitty attacked the bowl of food with great gusto.

Then, Jelly, wanted out on the back porch. While Jelly stayed on the porch, I coaxed the kitty out from under the steps.

The kitty got up her courage and, once again, mounted the steps. The two cats confronted one another! 

 Jelly thought about it for a while, then gave out a low "Grrrr".

That was enough for the kitty. She backed down. I left the scene to let the two work out their peace. 

On another note: A few days ago, HH and I (who were in different rooms of the house) heard a horrid, clattering thud! Investigation showed the source of the thud to be that a macrame-supported table had thudded to the floor. As you may be able to discern in the photo (below), the failure was of the ring that supported the macrame. The ring was, it turned out, made of wood! That it had lasted for over 22 years (I think that HH bought it for me in 1986. I know it was purchased in Old Town in Albuquerque and appears in our wedding photos of April 1988), is amazing.

This is (below photo) the table as it appeared in better days - November 2006. (Obviously, the plant was a different one in those days.)

 
I replaced the wooden ring with a steel snap-ring which should be good for the rest of my life.

And now, to the comics

There have been a couple of "Oh, yes, I've been there!" cartoons in the last few days. I must comment on them!

Saturday's Dilbert (one must scroll down to 12/12/2009) has this conversation:

ASOK: There is a huge disconnect between my enormous technical knowledge and the trivial tasks you assign to me.

Pointy-Haired-Boss: That's a temporary situation, ASOK.

ASOK: Okay, good.

P-H-B: Eventually your technical skills will become outdated.

This sort of thing is, undoubtedly, true in fields other than engineering. It also explains, somewhat, my changing jobs every few years. I always thought that, once I knew my job, it was time to try something else - either within the same company or at another.

Today's Pickles has this conversation:

Opal:  I guess it's going to be just you and me for Christmas this year.

Opal: It's going to seem weird. I don't even feel like decorating.

Earl: Don't then.

Opal: I don't feel like shopping or playing Christmas carols either...

Earl: Fine with me.

Opal: or baking Christmas goodies.

Earl: Hey! Now you're talking crazy talk!

That's how it's been for years at the CC & HH house - except that we have usually had (and hope to have) at least our local family with us for dinner. As long as HH gets his pecan mushkatzoni, his walnut mushkatzoni, his almond horseshoes, his meringue cookies, his nut rolls, his fudge and his Rolla rolls (click on "Cop Car's Chow" in the right-hand sidebar for recipes), I can rest, relax, and enjoy the holidays. So far, I've made a double batch of pecan and a double batch of walnut mushkatzoni, four batches of almond horseshoes, six pans of fudge, and a partridge in a pear tree.

P.S. HH has finished 2.5 pans of the fudge, 1/3 of the pecan and 1/3 of the walnut mushkatzoni and 1 batch of almond horseshoes. Bogie & her WS and Elder Brother & his wife should soon be the recipients of 1 dozen each of the three kinds of cookies and 1 pan (1/2 walnut and 1/2 Heath chip) of fudge. They were mailed, yesterday.

So I thought

Friends and relatives, thanks for all of your input on the subject of cataract surgery. I should have realized that I was naive.

I am severely disappointed to have to write that, not only will I not have the cataract surgery that I feel I need, but that the surgeon suggests that surgery would be difficult because my eyes wander - something that I had felt might be true for the last few months, but which no one else had noticed (and I had not thought to mention the suspicion to my physician!) Dr Qaum told me that the wandering eyes (I think he called it "eye dyskinesia", but I may not remember correctly) may be associated with Parkinson's disease.

Dr Qaum will re-evaluate in nine months; but, a friend who is an RN was in his waiting room with her mother before I went in for my appointment. My friend the RN said that "they" had recently upped the severity of visual dysfunction that must be present to warrant surgery. The written materials that Dr Qaum gave me mention that surgery is required when one can no longer carry on the functions of everyday living.

I'm considering getting a second opinion, although Dr Qaum's qualifications are astounding for one who is practicing in our neck of the woods. (His undergraduate degree is from Cornell, his medical training from Harvard, his residency was at Duke, and he has won citations for his published papers.) Think Annie - "The Sun'll come out tomorrow...."

The eyes have it

Prior to setting out on the trip to KC, last week, I had made an appointment with my eye doctor and had decided that the KC trip would be my last solo cross-country drive until I get my cataracts removed. The drive back from KC, was "murder" on my eyes - driving into the sun, with cloudy, murky, grey skies.

These days I am color-blind, especially when the hue is dark, to the point where I don't know what color trousers I am wearing. (I took a pair of Navy pants to KC instead of the black that went with the rest of my outfits (I think!) Yesterday, HH had to tell me that my pants were green, not the grey that I had thought I was wearing.)

Well...after my gym & swim session last Monday, I did go see Dr McCormick, and told him that I am "ready". He did his usual exam and declared that my brain must work better than my eyes do because his visual evaluation of my cataracts said that they were 20/50 (meaning that my visual acuity could be corrected to no better than 20/50), but that I "tested out" better than that (20/40 or better is required to maintain my driver's license.) Of course I tested out better - I've had years of practice at guessing what letters I'm look at on highway signs, et cetera. There are only 26 letters so it is comparatively easy to guess which one that blur might be.

I'm to see Dr Qaum, eye surgeon, this coming Monday. Now is the time to speak up if you have any wise words of wisdom for me. I should appreciate them! I'm planning to have the implant correct my vision so that I may continue to see "close up" without my glasses, meaning that my vision would remain at about what it is, today. I've been wearing glasses for 60 years, now, and for the last 30 years, I've been taking them off if I needed to see anything up close. Why force me to retrain now?