Lately, I’ve been wandering around the house looking for my prescription reading glasses. I have two pairs, the red ones still yet to be found. Until 2020, I had worn eyeglasses, or contacts, for 50-some years to correct my nearsightedness. That year, the first year of the Covid pandemic, I had cataract surgery in both eyes. The clarity, sharpness, and colors of nature, as well as being able to see words, things, and views far away that I could suddenly see after each surgery was delightfully amazing. The downside was I could no longer see the finer things like tiny letters up close. I can live with that.   Blurriness began in third grade for me. I thought it was normal to see wiggling letters on the blackboard. In fifth grade, the annual school eye exam showed I wasn’t seeing normally, so off to Daddy’s eye doctor Daddy took me. Dr. Green was his name. A nice old man with white hair, smelling crisp and sharp like his white medical top. His examination room was interestingly odd ...

Ugh! On this fifth day towards becoming 70, I woke up with another glaring owie. This time, it was my right knee shouting, “You overdid it, Palsy!”  A month ago, I joined a weekly yoga class that focuses oldsters on stretching, loosening up our joints, and building up our balance.  Probably all that bending I did at class on Tuesday would’ve been okay if I hadn’t done a bunch of bending yesterday clearing out the geraniums. Ouchy growl! Until this morning, I forgot that my poor swollen right knee, called Song, is still the bad knee. She  has done quite well keeping up with Sing, the left joint that was totally replaced last year, which was my gift for turning 69. Poor Song. Hopefully, I can find another compatible, trustworthy surgeon to fix her in 2024. Sing’s surgeon retired. He was amazing, even straightening my leg when he said he couldn’t.  The poor Husband. He kept running over to see why I was suddenly groaning, moaning, cursing, or growling so very loudly...

I liked how today went. I did a load of laundry in our new washing machine and gave succulent cuttings homes. The Husband and I packaged and mailed persimmons to friends and cousins, got Chinese takeout, and went to an exercise class that focuses on balance for old people.  At the post office, I  talked with a happy guy who was there to get his passport in order because he was moving to Italy. He had sold his business and his home to live in a house he inherited that he didn’t know existed until an attorney got hold of him to ask if he’d like the house. The happy guy gladly said “Yes” before even hearing where it was. The house belonged to his grandfather or great grandfather and somewhere down the line family stopped living  in it. Now the house was his. So very cool!  The best news today came from the happy nurse at my doctor’s office. The results of my chest x-ray were negative, which (after she told me that was a good thing) I took to mean my lungs were c...

Mama visited the ophthalmologist twice a year. She begrudgingly went with the hope that the doctor would miraculously get her to see well enough to pass the DMV eye test. That was not meant to be. Her doctor was a charmer. He liked to engage with his patients, to put them at ease.  He never failed to ask Mama for her secret of looking young. Sometimes, Mama would answer, giggling and smiling, “I eat rice.” Other times, “I like to eat fish.” Whatever she answered, he’d follow up with other questions, such as “How often do you eat rice?”or “”What kind of fish?” He sincerely was interested, so I observed.  Another thing he never failed to do after the initial look at Mama’s eyes was to turn to me and say, “Thank your mom for your good genes.” I appreciate that I have Mama’s genes. Mama was a super ager. She lived to a resounding 94 years old before her body hit the wall. That’s how her doctor described it. Mama fell a lot that last year. A lesson for me to build up my balanc...

Two things I did today. One. The Husband and I took a short walk around the neighborhood. Yay! We included a slight hill to give us more of a challenge. Along the way I picked up a pine cone and clippings of California fuchsia to try to grow.  Two. I switched the drafting table and desk, which I use for the sewing machine, in L Studio. The drafting table sat in a corner, trapped by the ironing board, so the table was nothing more than a surface to hold stuff. Now that it’s accessible, I can do things again, such as lay out patterns and cut fabric with a rotary cutter. Simple pleasures.

Thanks to a segment of Bob’s Burgers , I walked in circles around the living room and kitchen for more than 15 minutes this evening.  I stopped when the commercial came on. That took about 12 minutes. I wonder if syndicated cartoons have fewer commercials. Before I started my trudging, I was searching online why  “legs ache at night.” One possibility is having fatigued muscles from over use, while another is being inactive and sitting, standing, or lying in one position for a long time.  Bingo.  Up and off the couch I was. Heel, toe. Heel, toe. . . . When all was done, I felt energized. My legs tingled in a happy way. Guess what I’ll be incorporating into my life. 

Relief.  This morning I set up an appointment for the Husband and me with an insurance agent to help us enroll in a new Medicare Advantage (MA) plan. Hurrah! The insurance company that handles our plan decided to quit serving our county as of January 1, 2024, which means a lot of old folks in town are scrambling to figure out what to do for Medicare. The insurance agent, who we’ll be meeting, said that nearly all she has been doing the past week or so is help people figure out what kind of Medicare plan is best. We have three options. One, get on another MA plan, which is through a private insurance company. Two, go back to Original Medicare under the federal government, along with purchasing both a Medigap and a Medicare Part D (drug coverage) policy from an insurance company. Or, three, the same as number two option but without a Medicap policy to cover what Medicare doesn’t or won’t.  The third option is a high risk move, so I think, with the cost of healthcare. Than...

This morning I read an article about flat feet not being a bad thing. Good! Guess who has flat feet? According to the news report, some British and Canadian podiatrists think that flat feet are not abnormal at all but simply on the healthy spectrum of what is. These experts didn’t think inserts or special shoes really make a difference for alleviating pain. What may be more helpful, they say, is waking up the foot muscles to do their job. Interesting, huh?  A few weeks ago, I began adding feet exercises to my regime. I can wiggle my toes again. Yi-hah!

The prompt for  Friday Writings #54 (at Poets and Storytellers United ) is a letter to a stranger. Four days later, I offer mine.   Dear Future Artificial Left Knee, Today it has become real that our surgery will be happening. The insurance company has approved the procedure and primary Doctor B has said I’m good to go. And, Dr. G, the surgeon who shall wield the tools to hack out the bad tissues and replace them with titanium, plastic, and other non-natural materials, gulp, has given me my pre-op pep talk.  I am confident you and I will like each other. It’ll be slow going at first as we get to know each other and what we can do. Ah, the fun we’ll have when we get into step. Then, once our future artificial right knee joins us, oh my, we’ll truly be ready to rumble, dance the rumba, climb mountains, jump over the moon, and so forth and so on. The pain I shall be feeling will be worth it. Yi-haw!  Don’t get me wrong, I‘m not taking this lightly. I am scared. B...

1) Four glorious days and nights of rain, off and on, enough to soak the ground, but not to get it ookey-muddy that I sink. Wish it did though. 2) We've been in a drought since 2011, not including the one year that the governor and experts said it was over. Really, though, we ought to go back to 2007. The experts said it was over in 2010. Ha!  Poor plants. 3) The experts predict that our part of the world should experience another exceptionally dry winter. I hope not. 4) From four days of collecting rain water and a couple of buckets of grey water from the kitchen, we have filled up a 30-gallon garbage can and a vintage metal milk churn (also called a milk can). Hurrah! 5) Yesterday, I got in a panic that the insurance company hadn't approved my upcoming knee surgery. Usually, it sends me a copy of any authorization it makes for me. Not seeing anything in my online account, I called the orthopedic center. The gatekeeper put me on hold to ask the nurse, returning to say the nurs...

(1) Let’s see, today, for our main meal the Husband and I ate a melange of five left over dishes from the last two days, or three. Or, four. Garbanzo butternut soup, couscous with chimichurri sauce, sauteed onion and squash, ground turkey   burgers, and roasted red and green peppers. The flavors blended quite well together, surprisingly and with great relief. We ate our portions all up. No leftovers, hurrah! (2) To go along with our meal I concocted an ooh-la-la drink. Passion fruit juice with a jigger of rum. Ooh la la! (3) The Husband and I toasted to the last day of our 25th year of marriage. Tomorrow: Hello 26th!  Clink, clink.   (4) Maybe next year we will be dancing with our friends and family to celebrate our 27th anniversary. I also would like us to throw a party for the septuagenarians among us. We shall see. (5) The last two weeks I’ve been working on my entries for the county fair. That’s some of the craft entries in the photo above.  (6) Yep, that’s a jui...

Nine pounds. That’s how much I’ve gained in three months. So said the doctor’s scale this morning. Bummer. I knew I was putting on weight, after all, I’ve been eating fudge, potato chips, and other yummy fattening snacks regularly the last month or so, but I didn’t think it would be that much. Maybe 5 pounds, I thought. It’s a good thing I had a doctor’s appointment today. The good news is that Doc was fine with my blood pressure, and he saw nothing problematic in my electrogram. Hurrah!  The nine pounds? Time to sweat.

  1. This morning I went all the way down the stairs on my feet, without a gasp or flinch from my knee. Yay! I had been making my way down on my butt. Thump. Thump. Thump.  2. The first morning I bumped down the stairs, Missy Molly the pinky-nosed (wilde) Cat tried to help me at one point. She actually got behind me and pushed on my back. Such a sweetie!  3. The Husband has been carrying and fetching stuff for me. He also reminds me to stop doing things I ought not to be doing.  I'm still not used to be taken care of. You'd think after three surgeries in the last four years, I would be.   4. Between the Husband and me, we have had six surgeries since Mama died in 2016. The Husband got a pacemaker, I had my reproductive system removed, and we both had cataract surgeries for our eyes.  5. Molly says don't forget me. "I was the first one to have surgery, miao, miao." Poor baby. She had dental surgery, a month after Mama's Spirit moved onward and upward....

March, march, march to my own drum. A congo drum, please. It's a gorgeous California no-rain-in-sight early Spring (late Winter, if you prefer) day. I would be playing outdoors in the dirt right now if I hadn't wrenched my good knee on Friday. Maybe wrenched isn't the correct word, but the pain certainly matches the word.   I stepped sideways on uneven ground in the front yard to show the Husband something when my left knee buckled. A chicken leg being snapped at its joint flashed through my head.  I am very glad to report that my sense of decorum and appropriate behavior are still intact: I did not scream out in pain nor utter a curse word for the whole street to hear. Indoors, another story. Before that all happened, I was playing in the yard, deadheading, raking, trimming, planting, and doing all kinds of fun things. At one point, a robin flew into the ornamental pear tree and we had a pleasant time hanging out. The robin even let the Husband join us. We wondered whet...

Hurrah! I got my blood pressure down sufficiently that the doc said he'll see me in three months. And, I went home without having to be prescribed medication. Another hurrah!  I know I'm not in the clear. I'm simply happy that my top number is back to borderline rather than over it. It does help to count potato chips and to eat a banana more often, so I think.  Have a wonderful weekend, One and All!

1. We went into a mandatory Stay-Home-People! on March 18, under the order of the county public health head honcho. The next day, Governor Newsom decreed it for all of California. 2. Does shelter-in-place work? 3. California's population is nearly 40 million. The total of COVID-19 cases as of April 1, 2020, were 8,155 with 171 deaths. The count for our county was 23 confirmed cases, ten recoveries, hurrah! Alas, one death. 4. I'm glad we have pro-active leaders at the local and state levels. 5. A neighbor sneezed loudly and profusely in his backyard. Could his droplets make its way up and through our hallway window upstairs? I hope he's healthy. 6. While working in the front yard yesterday morning, I felt a very tiny drop fall on my face. It wasn't raining nor was it foggy. Hopefully that liquid was only morning dew. 7. I've been experimenting a lot in the kitchen. That's a good thing. 8. The other day I made flour tortillas, using smushed lentils and sesam...

1. Aren't those avocados gorgeous? Handsome? Ooh-la-la? 2. The middle one in the front was picked about two weeks ago. It didn't seem right to take a photo without it. They are from the same tree, after all. 3. This morning, the Husband and I went out to the avocado tree expecting to pick the last one of the season. The tree graced us with four HUGE fruits. Thank you, tree. 4. "They're as big as the ones that grow in Hawaii," said the Husband. Not really, but we can dream. 5. We saw another avocado hanging way up in the tree. Perhaps that's the last one of the season. 6. A couple days ago, our county public health officer called for a shelter-in-place until April 7. We're required to stay home unless we work for stores, companies, services, and government agencies that are necessary to stay open for the community. We can leave our houses to shop for food, see doctors, pick up prescriptions, and do other essential things. We can also go out ...

I forgot what I thought I wanted to write about. That's what happens when too much time passes between Ah-ha-I've-something-to write and turning on the computer, which may only be a matter of climbing the stairs to the office. Obviously it wasn't anything worth saying out loud. Ever wonder if you've said or written something that was quoted by others? Wouldn't that be cool? Yesterday our governor (in California) urged all of us, senior citizens, to stay put in our homes so that we won't risk contracting the coronavirus. The Husband and I pretty much hunker down most of the time, so this suggested decree is not a burden. Although I did panic for a moment when I thought we might not pay our property tax bill on time because the bank and the tax office may suddenly close. Then it came to me that we can use a credit car to pay online or over the phone. I'd rather not, so I may suggest to the Husband that we go out in the world sooner rather than l...

1. Been working in the yard, I have, I have. It's so much fun, especially when the Husband and Molly the (wild) Cat are hanging out there with me, doing whatever they do. (By the way, the Husband took my photo.) 2. "How did you get out there?" asked the Husband when he saw Molly sitting on the front steps through the screen door.  "Did you climb the fence?" 3. Oh, oh. I forgot that Molly came out the front door with me earlier today.  I get easily distracted, which means I need to come up with a system to remind me that Molly is still wandering around the front yard. 4. Thankfully, Missy Girl forgave me. So I think. She laid on my lap for a while. 5. Good medical news #1 that I got on Monday: Doctor Eye has me down in mid-May to remove the cataract in my other eye. Whoooo-hoooo! 6. Good medical news #2 that I got this afternoon: The result of my routine mammogram is normal. Yippieeee! 7. The Husband and I voted yesterday by mail-in ballots.  Yaa...

1. Pop! went the left lens of my eyeglasses. So much lighter with just one lens. And, when I perch the frame on my nose just so, and hold my head just so, everything straight ahead is clear and in focus. 2. It was one week ago that steady-handed Dr. Eye made that slit in my eyeball, extracted the cataract, and implanted a brand new artificial lens. Hmmmm. What if the science fiction stories about implanting chips into unknowing people were true?  Shudder. 3.  Purrrrrrrrrr. "It's only your imagination," says Molly the (wild) Cat. 4. Yesterday, the Husband drove me to the library. I don't want to drive until I have full vision in both eyes again. That may be May. Was that a sigh I heard? 5. "I'll take that." The Husband carried my bag of books from the house to the car, then from the car to the library counter, and vice-versa.  I'm not supposed to handle anything over 10 pounds for a while. Jiggity-jig. 6. I'm not allowed to bend,...