LIFE: Happy Black Friday. Saturday and Sunday! We survived the overhyped snowstorm on Wednesday and Thanksgiving was a fairly normal day. Betsy, our daytime aide, had the holiday off, but Pat came and got Kathy ready for bed. I shovelled as much as I could without killing myself. I need to keep the little parking area as clear as I can for nurses, aides and visitors.
I was determined to have something resembling a Thanksgiving for One. I was figuring I would get some turkey drumsticks, but they looked as dry and unappetizing as my own legs. And as old. Instead, I baked turkey cutlets with peppers and garlic. I don’t use recipes so I can’t remember what I did. People always comment on whether a turkey is “moist”. This was not. It was in the oven too long while I was changing Kathy. I baked some red potatoes and two sweet potatoes. Marty and I will eat them as left-overs. Marty is Mr. Potato Head. He loves them. I made some butternut squash ahead of time and decided to make them into mini something-or-others. They looked like a muffin but tasted more like pie. They were really pretty good. Again, no recipe survives.
I poured myself a glass of Chardonnay, but decided to share it with Kathy. I soaked a suction swab and let her suck the wine from it. She really enjoyed it. Granted I had to do some extra suctioning, but it was worth it. Then I took what was left in the glass and gave it to her in her feeding tube with a syringe. It probably was only two ounces at the most. With the psychological meds she takes I can only play around so much. We also received calls from two of Kathy’s sisters. I put them on speaker-phone so Kathy could hear their voices.
I’ve been looking for a snow blower and finally found one on Friday. With all my other health care expenses and buying the generator, I didn’t want to go into too much debt buying a brand new one. Work has been a little slow lately. The small two-stage ones out there are pretty crappy. Most have one forward speed. I want a fairly small one that I can yank back up on the porch between snow storms; and up to the back yard for off-season storage. There is nothing quite as lovely as a rusty snowblower on your front porch in the summer: The Extreme Make-Under look. I am holding a used one from a caretaker at a church in Longmeadow. He buys the old ones that get traded at a dealer. He fixes them up, if they need it; then he sells them on Craigslist. They sell so fast I can never get there when he has a nice small one. When I got there Friday he had a new looking Ariens 20″ that I almost bought. But it just had one speed. He had one big Ariens for sale but it was a tank. I decided to give him a deposit for a “snowblower to be named later”. By the time I got home he sent me photos of two he had just picked up. I had him hold an older Craftsman 22 inch blower for me. He said it is ugly; but it runs great. It was just a little strange buying one at a church. Can I get an amen?
Saturday an old friend of ours is coming to visit Kathy. When her family lived here in Hampden it seems like we did everything with them. Once they have moved to a different part of the valley we lost touch. Kathy was deep in her anxiety and isolation stage and she didn’t want to see anyone. She just found out about Kathy and I just found out she is a three-year breast cancer survivor. Life happens and we all have something to give thanks for.
Dryer Update: I had a request for a photo of the new dryer. Here it is and a close-up of the scratch that gave me a discount.
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