READING, WRITING AND 'RITHMATIC

READING, WRITING AND 'RITHMATIC: Reading: I was an early reader. I do not remember being coached to pronounce words other than “Breakfast” when I was still in diapers. My childhood books were: The Bobbsey Twins,Black Beauty, Beautiful Joe, Little Women, Jo's Boys, Eight Cousins, Huckleberry Finn, Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, Glenn Balch (Idaho author who wrote about teens and horses), Reader's Digest Condensed books, Junior High Library from which I was once banned until my grades improved, The Emmett Public Library where I discovered “Stranger In A Strange Land” by Robert A. Heinlein as well as Isaac Asimov. Google “Death of a Foy” and prepare to laugh your arse off. Speaking of Humor, I was at Uncle Paul's house in Boise years ago. I picked up a book lying on the table next to the couch. It was of all things. “The Bishops Jaegers” by Thorne Smith. I giggled, guffawed, snorted, gasped and chortled. At one time, Aunt Wanda asked, “Should Roycie be reading that?” The book was written from the view point of the characters' underwear. My favorite was Aspirin Liz. She wore sturdy cotton drawers held together with a safety pin I collected books for many year. When I moved to Barrow, Alaska in 1989, I sold off my SciFi collection. They were all snapped up family browsed the many cardboard boxes. I did take some of my favorites. When we finally settled in Coquille, I began collecting with a vengence. I also purchased several folding bookcases. I now possess about 3500 books, most downstairs pretending to be a library. There are also bookcases in the hallway upstairs, four or five in the upstairs north bedroom and one bookcase in the dining room. As my cataracts worsened, I was unable to read small print. Doom! I purchased my first Kindle in the 2000's. It was fabulous and had scalable font. The more recent Kindles allow me to make comments on the books as well as highlight a word to get a definition. Boy have a learned a lot of stuff. This year my cataracts were both fixed. I can now read anything including the Klingon subscripts. Turns out they were not arguing about ingredients for spaghetti sauce. AND I can read my physical books. Hooray for technology. WRITING: When I was in the fourth grade at the old Wardwell School, I was started on drawing loops, swirls, tornado things all in an effort to learn cursive. All of the kids taught by this teacher had the same lovely cursive writing, lt was legendary actually. I was left handed and learned to do it all upside down. As a result my palm was perpetualy stained with lead pencil. Finding a left handed school desk became my mission. 'RITHMATIC: I was in the first grade and we were given a test to write out the numbers zero through ten. I distinctly remember whispering to a classmate, “How to you make a three?” My only other instance of cheating was as a Freshman at Emmett High School. The entire class average for one English test was a solid D. So we were told that we would do the test again next week. I did not study. I memorized the letter answers from the last test. The teacher presented the same material but in a DIFFERENT test. I promptly got a second F. Me and arithmatic never did get along, until Algebra, It was like telling a story only with numbers. Geometry was part art form because I typed the theorems and used red and blue ink to demonstrate the figures. I love Turbo tax! God bless who ever invented that program! HAPPY NEW YEARS! Gotta be better than 2020.

GOING TO THE MOVIES

Going to the movies: 1. When I was a kid, we would occasionally go to the drive in movies. If Dad asked Mom if she wanted to go the movies, we paid instant attention. If she said, “Oh, I don't care.” That meant we were going! We would all pile into what ever station wagon that was being driven. We wore pyjamas. There was no food or drink taken along. We would park in one of the inclined spots. Dad would put the speaker in the window. The drive in at the time had a playground. Can we go play? NO! The drive in had a concession stand. Can we go? NO! The first movie I remember going to see was King Kong. Then we went to see The Long Grey Line. The first inside movie house I ever went to was the one in downtown Emmett. Grandma Berglund had drooped us off to go see The Wizard of Oz. At the point where the witch is riding her broom writing “Surrender Dorothy”, my brother and I looked at each other and exclaimed, “I'm scare!” “Me, too!” We scurried out of the theater and wandered around downtown until we saw Grandma Berglund. She was upset that we had left the movie early. We went to lots of afternoon movies, we would beg Dad for pocket change and go. That was downtime for them. The theater had a concession stand but we never had enough to purchase anything. I was particularly fascinated by the Radar Range hot dogs. It was just hot dogs rotating on a rotisserie and they looked wonderful. The theater had loge seating where teenagers liked to occupy in order to make out. In the mid seventies I took Charlie there for a donate-a-can cartoon fest. We sat in the loge with what felt like a hundred kids. I could barely see the screen. But I was not going to let Charlie get trampled in that mass of kids. I was afraid the place would collapse. The only other time that I went to that theater was in the mid sixties. I had come home for Christmas. I went there with a high school girlfriend and we shivered and watched Dr. Zhivago. Yikes! When I first moved to California, I stayed with my cousin and his wife for a few months. One evening Carl said that we were going to the Petaluma Drive in for an EIGHT HOUR Beach Blanket Bingo extravaganza. I sat in the backseat of the 1965 Mustang. Very hard seat. Also the fog rolled in, he fog rolled out. In the late sixties, I went to a drive in movie with Judy Jones in West Virginia. The top of the mountain was shaved off and the place was segregated. While working at Fairchild, I went with my first roommate to go see both Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music. A date once took me to go see ”2001 a Space Odyssey”. He fell asleep. The hippies all got up and waltzed when they played the Blue Danube. I once drove to the city to see of movie all by myself. There was a very long line. I cannot remember the title but it had hippies and war protesters and it was fairly humorous. When I was married, first husband and I went to see Patton on our honeymoon. It knew it was going to be an Oscar winner just from the music alone. We went with friends to see In Cold Blood purely by accident It was a very good film. We also went to see The Godfather. I really liked that one. Also, another pair of friends went with us to go to a little place called The Screening Room. It was a porn theater. Seating was sparse, we all sat together in the first row. We had a tremendous view of a 12 foot tall pudenda. Unshaven. Most of the scenarios involved naked women masturbating. There were no men doing so. Also there was an advertisement looking for actors for these movies paying fifty dollars an hour. Um okay. Did not go back, no plot. The summer that Charlie was born, I talked Mom and Dad into letting my sisters stay with me. Mike took us to a drive in, I only remember that it was somewhere in Marin County. I am fairly certain that the property has since been developed in very spendy housing. In the late seventies I went with family to go see Close Encounters of the Third Kind. And of course sprinkled in here were Star Wars. I only wanted to live long enough to see the trilogy. When the long awaited Star Trek came out, I took Charlie to go see it. During the start there was a very long shot of the approach to the Enterprise. Charlie asked me, “Is this the exciting part, Mom?” Uh not quite. One summer I took Charlie to the drive in movie in Boise to see Star Wars. We were interrupted by a train going by fairly often. Pretty sure that drive in no longer exists. One good thing that came out of Covid this year was the popularity of drive in movies. Wonderful. I hope they stay after things go back to normal.

2020

2020 what a year! Let me try to do this sequentially with an occasional meander off topic. January – I stopped driving in January because I found that I could not discern movement in shadow. I was terrified that I would hit a pedestrian. This all due to my cataracts. Eeesh, husband is a wonderful chauffeur. February – we started to hear about Covid 19, out of China. They buttoned up pretty well. Built huge hospitals to treat Covid patients. It spread very quickly. March – On Friday the 13th I had an appointment with Dr. Kumar. We went, I had labs done and Dr. Kumar told me to report to the hospital in Roseburg because I needed dialysis. I went, the dialysis tech said he did not like the looks of the dialysis shunt. So I was scheduled to have a carotid cannula put in the next day. That went well. I was admitted after for observation overnight. Discharged the next day. That night I went up stairs to sleep and developed severe shortness of breath. Husband took me to the hospital. I was seen in ER. The doctor looked over my record for Mercy Medical Center and reasoned that I received too much of a medication and he would give me something to counteract that med. However I got a little too counteracted, the nurse kept reminding me to breath. I was transferred to Bay Area Hospital in Coos Bay. While there, they determined that I needed a higher level of care because I had developed long pauses in my heart beat. I do not remember anything after that. I was transferred to Mercy Medical Center in Roseburg to have a cardiac pacemaker put in. That went well. I was awake for that and felt like an elephant was stomping on my left chest. I was discharged with 19 medications! Husband ordered a large plastic storage container with five drawers to hold all of those meds as well as my supplements. I got home and did well getting all the meds sorted out. The next part I do not remember (Self diagnosed with petit mal, more later. At any rate, I probably took an additional dose of my meds having forgotten that I had already taken them). Husband says I was not responding so he called 9-1-1 and I was sent to ER at CVH. From there I was sent to Mercy Medical Center. I remember most of that visit. I told every old joke that I could think of. I was discharged. Within two days I was directed to go to Bay Area Hospital for dialysis because Davita was working on paperwork. I was told to report to Davita two days later to begin dialysis there. We got lost and got better diretions to find the correct clinic. We really needed a map. That session went well. April – it was during this time that I realized that I had petit mal. This is a strange little neurological diagnosis that involves a sort of seizure in that something triggers a total loss of memory. I was watching Wheel of Fortune one night and I realized that I had missed the last fifteen minutes. So I Googled “absence” and it took me straight to petit mal. I informed my PCP, Dr. Holland who scheduled me for an EEG and referral to a neurologist. Eh, I can cope without that. I have begun to record more TV. Oh, and this usually only happens when I am watching TV. It has happened a couple times at dialysis. I lost a half hour and an hour. Meh... May – I did not blog for May, perhaps I forgot? June – nothing. Covid. July – nothing. Covid. August – Had my cataracts removed. Got new glasses. So lovely, now I can read the Klingon subtitles on the screen. They were not actually arguing about ingredients to spaghetti and meatballs. Black Lives Matter happened somewhere in here. It was about time. I think police need repeated training in descalation and should probably carry tasers more often. More young black men would wind up alive. That is not the solution but it is a good start. September – Gale and her MIL came to visit. I can't believe I did not blog about that. We had a lot of fun. She brought her four month old Golden Retriever, Betty. She was a hoot. First thing that happened is that Gale locked herself out of her car. We were milling around outside. Joann asked our neighbor if there were any locksmiths. Yep, use Triple A , use my card. The Triple A guy came in about an hour and during that time my neighbor had volunteered to puppy sit miss Betty. The next day we got breakfast and set off for a day of entertainment. We went to Bandon and every place we went to eat was closed. So we drove to Coos Bay and ate at Shark Bites. They have fabulous fish and chips, I had black cod. Gale had halibut. The dishes came with cole slaw, mine is better. Dressing as follows; half cup may, 1/3 cup apple cider vinegar, four packets Splenda. Stir, pour over slaw. Delish! Got that recipe from a friend in Dillingham. The next day was dialysis day so the girls dropped me off and went exploring. When they picked me up, we went to Charleston for seafood. They had wonderful clam chowder. I had the scallops and prawns in a wonderful sauce. Next day they returned to Idaho. Hope they can come again next year! Also while they were here, Gale helped me clean out the upstairs bedroom closet. She liked a few things but we filled up ten huge bags of stuff to take to Bree's a local charity shop that raises funds for women who cannot afford mammograms. October – Covid. November – dreams. Reminiscing about Clover Drive. Mom and Dad's first home. Scheduled for procedure at BAH. Revision of upper vessels of the shunt. Dr. Rogalsky tied off two branches to force blood in to the remaining branch so it will enlarge. Thirty days Davita can begin using the revised shunt. Yay. Eventually will get the carotid cannula removed. December – weird little family mystery solved. A few months ago, I called Aunt Wanda to chat. She told me that #1 brother had called her to ask if Mom had ever been married before she met Dad? Nope, I didn't think any more about it. A few weeks ago, I found an Emmett Highschool website. I decided to post a question. I asked if any of my classmates of 65 knew if a grandfather or great uncle had married Virginia Horn. She may have been known as Ginny. I got an answer, Francis Frisbee. So I told #1 brother about it. He reported that he had applied for a copy of a Gold Star family drivers license for mom. He received a notarized copy of an affidavit for correction of a birth certificate. Mom's last name had been submitted as Horne and was corrected to Horn. Also her last name was changed from Frisbee to Berglund. Huh. I do wish I knew more about Mr. Frisbee, where did he serve, etc. Brother #1 is still investigating. Perhaps there will be more to talk about in future.

WELL THAT WAS INTERESTING

I have been scheduled for day stay surgery on the 30th of November for a couple of weeks to be performed at Bay Area Hospital. On the 23rd, I went to North Bend Medical Center for labs; blood work, EKG and Covid. We stepped outside so I could remove my mask, open wide, swab in the back of the throat. Gag reflex. The day stay nurse called to interview me and said they would confirm hours, date, etc. Someone did call and requested that I have dialysis BEFORE surgery because of electrolyte imbalance concerns. What, they ain't got Gatorade? I called Davita and asked if I could come in at 5 am. No problem, we will save you a chair. We got up at dark thirty and took off in rain, the usual Winter condition on the Oregon coast. Got there a little bit before 5 am and rang the outside bell. Husband to come back to pick me up about 9 a.m. He called me to let me know that BAH called to say we could come over after dialysis. Originally the scheduled call for me to arrive at 12 noon, prep and be in OR at 2 pm. Yeesh! I stupidly assumed my schedule had been rescheduled for sooner. Nope. I sat in that room for FIVE hours. Did not take in my Kindle, there had no TV, nuthin'. Husband took my purse with him to the waiting room, otherwise I would have asked me to fetch my Kindle from the car. The nurses gave me a call button but I promptly lost it over the side of the bed. Backing up a bit, the nurse left instructions for get nekkid (Dammit!) with nice warm paper washcloth. Front back, top bottom. Husband did the bits I could not reach mostly back and sides. Got into hospital gown, put on grippy socks. Got into the bed. There was a warming blank, silvery top that was hooked up to hose pumping warm air. Wonderful! One of the nurses who popped in introduced herself as Brajia. I did not tell her that one of our cats was named Braja. Very original of her parents. About hour two, husband decided to go the waiting room to watch his Kindle. Room time began at 9:30 and at 2:30 pm I was told that I would go to OR. Finally. Oh, and the nurse put a shiny aluminum hat on my head. I assume to prevent heat loss and apparently block my super power of mental telepathy. Nice anesthesia lady put me on a bit of oxygen by mask and then take a deep breath, here comes the anesthesia. I woke up in recovery and shortly wheeled back to room nine. Husband showed up, I received discharge instructions, no showers for two weeks, change dressing Thursday, here is some Oxycodone for pain. I have a fairly high pain thresh hold, so decided NOT make big pharma richer. Nurse took off all the monitor stuff and the IV. I was free to get dressed. Husband helped. Nurse rolled me downstairs to the front. Husband drove up to where I was. Got in the car, thanked the nurse and we drove straight to Mickey D's. I had not eaten since last Sunday night. Ordered small hamburger, small fries and an iced flavored coffee. We were gone from home for 12 hours. Because it was dark, we got to see all sorts of Christmas lights. The best display was the railroad museum, it was light up and very pretty! Got home, got comfy. Husband took a nap and I puttered around a bit. Pretty sure I do not want to do that again very soon. The people at Davita can use use the revised upper fistula in three weeks. The procedure which Dr. Rogowsky was where there were three branches on the upper end, he ligated two branches which will put more blood flow into the single fistula. The reason they ordered this done was that the upper fistula was deep and easy to extravasate. When that happened a couple of times, the blood did not resorb for a couple of weeks, bruising was ugly and extensive. The area got hot, hard and hurt. While they were letting the fistula rest, they used my carotid cannula. That cannula will probably be removed once the repaired fistula is working well. Crap! That will be another trip to Bay Area. Hope it doesn't take another twelve hours. I WILL take my Kindle.

MORE DREAMING

Woke from a strange dream this morning. The first part was where Jason Mamoa (sigh) was cooking a huge pot of spaghetti sauce. There was a nice meat sauce bubbling away and he added chopped fresh tomatoes. There were also six apples prepped for roasting. The second part of the dream was a bar. All of the male bartenders were putting on wigs and make up to look like Jason Mamoa. The third part of my dream was that I dreamed that Jason Mamoa was showing how to build a log cabin. The top area was left open for air circulation. The next three feet or so were end cut logs wedged apart in order to stuff with insulation. Dream symbols are cooking, celebrity and log cabin. A to Z dream site says that cooking shows my desire to influence others or to express my creativity To dream of a celebrity is to believe in what the celebrity is known for. For instance, Jason Mamoa is well known for his love of family and conservation. To dream of a log cabin indicates success, self reliable, independent, humility and that I prefer the simpler things in life. I ain't complicated. Good news. I wonder what the symbol for good humor is, gonna remain a mystery for the time being.

CLOVER DRIVE

Ah..Clover Drive. I have many memories of that little home. Shortly before I entered the first grade, our family moved to Boise, Idaho. In particular, Clover Drive. It was a small subdivision located behind The Old Soldiers Home. The house was two bedrooms, one bath. It was located at the end of the street. In back the house was pasture for the dairy herd at the Old Soldiers Home. We never saw any cows in that pasture. The only reason Richard and I did not haunt the place was because there was a big old bull pastured there. Dad assured us that we would be safe so long as we stayed on our side of the fence. Soon after we moved in, Dad took me to my first day of school. As it turned out, I needed to be at a different school for which I had to take the school bus which was fun. Our neighbors to the south of us were Pat and Betty McCoy. He was a meat inspector and she was a pretty plump housewife. They asked Mom and Dad to cat a Siamese kitten for them. It was about two weeks of crazy kitty dashing about. Then the kitten was shipped to it's forever home. There were lots of kids in Clover Drive. We happened to have an old shed in the back that contained a twin bed which stood in as a trampoline. One time a bunch of us decided to put on a show. We went around the neighborhood telling the adults when it would be and we would be charging a nickel a piece. Unbelievably, a few parents did show up and watched a bunch of giggling kids jump on that twin bed and sing, I think. The parents were very polite, if not a little relieved when we finally stopped bouncing and yelling. One weekend my older cousin, Carl, came for a visit. He cooked cracklings over a wood fire built in the backyard. I still like real cracklings. Just past the end of the street was a farm house next to the Boise river. The farmer's wife would ring the triangle when it was time for her husband to come to dinner. One weekend several parents and mine went to the river to enjoy the water. We kids played like crazy. At one point, Richard said that he could swim. Can't. Yeah, all you gotta do is move your arms like this1 and in he jumped. I believe one of the parents spotted him jump and got him out immediately when it became obvious that he did NOT know how to swim. (Which prompted the swimming lessons one summer while Dad worked in Hell's Canyon). Both Richard and I each had a couple bouts of both chicken pox as well as measles. Immunization did not exist in the 50's. If you got it, you got it. I remember lying in a dark room listening to the radio trying to figure out how those little people got inside the radio. I looked very carefully but never did see anyone. I really liked school. Especially painting. I actually had a piece of my work hung in the Boise Art Gallery. It was a giant white rabbit painted in profile on a bed of very green grass. There was a tree trunk on the right with rounded foliage and a quarter yellow sun on the left. I imagine the entire class had their paintings there on display. Probably titled something “First Grade Realism”. I actually joined Brownie Scouts. I don't remember much other than it was from these meetings that Mom acquired the recipe for Chocolate Mayonnaise cake. That and I learned how to sew a tiny felt coin purse with s snap to keep my pennies. One of my favorite toys or maybe much borrowed from other kids, was a pair of skates. I adored skating. Of course there were minor injuries. I got the web of my thumb caught in a little metal rifle when I pulled the handle back. Ouchie. We had a pair of little wooden folding chairs. The back lifted up for folding. Richard lifted the seat while still sitting and pinched the heck out of his fingers. We had television for the first time while living on Clover Drive. It came on about noon and was on until about 5 pm. I remember Dad telling us that we were going to visit Uncle Carl and Aunt Rosalie who had TV that broadcast all day long! I was terrified of one program, it was Flash Gordon. Just about the time he was going to get eaten by the giant octopus, I was peeking at it down he hallway. There was a house I had to walk by each day that a fence behind which very noise German Shepherds barked at us kids on our way to the bus stop. It was very scary. One time on the way home on the bus, just as I was getting ready to come forward to get off the bus, I noticed a couple of dumb old boys talking and pointing at me. As I passed, one of them jumped up and kissed me on the cheek. I got off very puzzled and didn't have time to hit him. Another time, as I walked down the lane, a butterfly landed on my dress. I was enchanted. We stayed at Clover Lane for a couple of years. I am not sure why the suburban life ended but I am pretty sure that Dad lost his temper at someone or other at Idaho Power and quit. Aunt Wanda reminded me that Dad purchased a drag line after that in order to bring in a living wage. We lived on a farm near Payette at that time. We went to school there in a lovely old story brick school house with a lovely safely slide that I never got the opportunity to go down. Dad told us years ago that a man can always find a job. He could not stand laziness. He the army a qualified mechanic and knew his way about any kind of motor vehicle. His passion though was large machinery. He operated caterpillars, back hoes, drag lines but never got to operate a crane. Our favorite toy as kids were cotter keys used to hold the teeth in a back hoe. We thought we had the keys to the kingdom.

ONCE MORE, ONLY IN BARROW

I have not previously documented this story. It was summer in the mid 90's. A young man came into the hospital durig afternoon walk in hours. His story was that he hitchhiked the Dalton highway. Whenever he saw a truck coming, he would lie down in the middle of the road. The Dalton highwas is 414 miles to Deadhorse. Coldfoot is the last small village to get gas for the next 240 miles. He wound up in Deadhorse. There was no medical facilities there to treat his seizures. He was put on the next Alaska airlines flight to Barrow. They gave him a little cardboard suit case to hold his things. He was red headed, did have cerebral palsy and stunk pretty badly. There was nothing that the medical staff could do for him. They were pretty sure that his seizures were fake. He was put on the next jet to Anchorage with his little cardboard suitcase for Anchorage. I do wonder occasionally if he is still lying dow in the middle of a highway somewhere hoping for a ride.