Just need to talk to my friends (223)

I knew where all those things were to check in my old car but not in my new car of 8 years. I let the mechanics check when I take it in for servicing. I know I should know how to do these checks.

I rested all day today. Yesterday I went to the church Craft Fair and I won a $25 gift card. I bought two snap bracelets with the gift card. My friends got some Christmas decorations and some air plants. We went to The Cheesecake Factory for lunch and of course had cheesecake, but five of us shared one slice. Then we went to Goodwill and I bought books. Tomorrow starts another week.

Iris

Good morning

Ron

@BethL

I've not been to Falling Water. It's all the way on the other side of the state; I'm about 6 miles away from NJ. That said, DH and I did tour a modest FLW home when we were looking for our first home. We were both intrigued by the idea of buying what was essentially a work of art but, TBH, the design wasn't really livable (I like closets) and the location wasn't great (on a smallish suburban lot that required curtains and had noise from the interstate). I've also been to the synagogue he designed for the funeral of a friend's dad. I also driven through Suntop in Ardmore which is his as well.

HB

Tires…I will pay more attention. Luckily Hibdon's is on my plateau.

Falling Water…oh how I would love to see it.

Good morning.

Thanks for the kangaroo pictures. I don't think I've ever seen one in person or even in a photograph.

Iris

Two cuties, Beth!

I used to attend a Frank Lloyd Wright church in Kansas City, but they built an addition and he made them remove his name.

Carl - I'd never heard of the band Murder by Death either, but that song is a good one. It's a little bit country.

I saw the movie Murder by Death and loved it - it was really funny. Great cast. It kinda reminds me of The House of the Long Shadows …. one of those "spend the night in a haunted house and get a prize" movies. It was really funny too. It had Christopher Lee, John Carradine, Peter Cushing, Vincent Price (chewing every single piece of scenery he could get his hands on), and Desi Arnaz Jr. as he guy who has to spend the night in the house.

Beth - your photos are great. I especially love the fireplace at the FLW house. The merry go round is cool too. And the koala bear is adorable.

My first cataract surgery is this Wednesday. I've started on the eye drops already. I worked out with my trainer today, and I'll get tomorrow as well. Then I'm banished from the gym for awhile.

HB - I hear you about the darkness in the morning. I woke up at 8am and it was barely light outside.

I'm laughing about your aunt being a "flower lady". It's kind of over the top, but not in a bad way.

Lorita - a new little kitty cat! 🙂

I've been trying to get things done before I'm out of commission for awhile. I think I have all of the house things in order now.

I also wanted to get all of the changes made to the blog - substituting all of the text that the lawyer wanted changed, as well as changing the names of various people to protect their privacy. I got all of that finished up this afternoon. Now all I have to do is the rest of the permissions for the rest of the folks, but that doesn't require extensive computer screen time, so I can do it during my enforced rest.

A few days ago I got a very pleasant surprise. Someone I used to work with back in my UC Santa Cruz days tracked me down. So we got to catch up. That was really nice. Now that we both know where we both live, I can stop by and visit on my way down to the Bay Area - she's kind of on the way.

Now I have to go get more eye drops. Death Guild is later on tonight.

I bought a bottle of Head Country BBQ sauce and it is really good. I like also that it is made by a company in Ponca City while KC Masterpiece was long ago bought by Kraft, and that HC, unlike KCM, isn't sweetened with high fructose corn syrup. I'm a convert. Thanks for telling me about it.

The koalas reminded me of the Teddy bear trade at the senior center. An old man buys TBs at thrift stores and yard sales and brings them to SC to give to old women. Some of the recipients carry them around and sometimes give them to one another as precious gifts. You don't have to be a little nuts to hang out at SC, but if you are it will be well tolerated (I fit right in). Various stages of dementia are on display in some cases.

Good morning. Sunny and seasonal today. C&P until Monday. This is my kind of boring.

Lorita— I wonder if Fallingwater is an anglicized indigenous name. My idiot semi-ex-BIL's mom's dad was Lenape. She was born a Broadwater.

Carl— I remember reading about FLW and the KC church. It makes me wonder why they didn't commission him or one of his protégés to do the addition's design. Probably money.

It's nice that the SC is so accepting a place. It's kind of the opposite of middle school. When I cleaned out my folks' place in FL ahead of the sale, I found bags and bags of stuffies of all kinds— mostly bears. Mom explained that dad, by then in the middle stages at least, had taken to buying them at yard sales and thrift stores. There were always a few there when I visited and it was such an odd choice given their previous hard-core Danish modern preferences.

Beth— The koala is cute. Normally you see pictures of them weeing on members of the British royal family on tour. This was a nice change.

Gothic G— It must feel great to be wrapping up the loose ends on the blog.
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My new glasses came and I hated the frame. It's a torti frame with cream and brown and the pair they sent had one side cream and one white— not mixed at all. I took them back and they popped my lenses into the pair in the display. Much better. Even more important, I'm seeing better out of them. My eyes were watering so badly during my 2025 exam I don't think the prescription was ever accurate. I hope these help a bit with glare. I drove home from a friend's house Saturday, and it was glarier than ever.

Mom's got a haircut today and then she wants to shop for glasses. That part should be fun anyway. Her prescription hasn't changed much, but she wants a larger lens than she currently has.

I hope the outing improves her mood. Last night on the phone she was talking nonsense about getting rid of her summer clothes because she won't be here next summer. She claims her doctors told her she's going to die soon. They did not. We did ask about what the progression of pulmonary hypertension with CHF and COPD looked like. He couldn't and didn't give a timeline of any kind, but he did explain using hospice to relieve the anxiety around poor breathing. Mom has a lot of wacky ideas about hospice including the notion that once you're on hospice, they no longer feed you. I reminded her that my late MIL was "on hospice" for 5 1/2 years and that she absolutely ate food.

I hope all have a safe and pleasant day.

HB

GG…please let us know when you are back home tomorrow

GG, I read about Walter Koenig (RIP). He was so authentic. Best wishes for your surgery tomorrow!

Lorita, I hope your arm doesn't hurt too much.

Iris

Good morning. I'm up too early and it's still dark here. It should be a nice day though. Cloudy but dry with a high in the mid-60s. I hope I can get a decent walk in later.

Lorita— I have to google hackberry tree. They likely grow around these parts, but I've never noticed them. The fall foliage is gorgeous. Do yours flower as well?

I hope your arm feels better today. I got both jabs at once and less than 1" apart which left my arm tender. Sleeping on it actually made it hurt less.

How did Darwin's poor wife get into broken glass? Did she drop something in a fall? I hope she's on the mend as well. That must've been upsetting all around.

Ron— Good morning to you. You're up early today.

Iris— There were many tributes to Walter Koenig floating around. George Takai's was especially touching. Star Trek was so influential and ahead of its time. The original series only ran for 3 seasons.

Carl— I try to avoid corn syrup sweeteners; that stuff pops up in odd products. I have an old cookbook with some BBQ sauce recipes which I've made when I have the time but then I have to hunt down the ketchup made with real sugar.

Beth— My aunt seems to be rebounding nicely. I'm sure she'll be up for her turn as a "flower lady" on Friday. TBH, I suspect she's really just having second thoughts about traveling down from Boston. She's in amazing shape for her age, but she is 92 and struggles mightily with AMD and essential tremor.

Gothic G— All the best vibes today for your surgery. I love that your doc provided you with a chart to track your medication. DH's didn't so I had to go into Excel and create one ahead of time. It'll be 10 years since DH had his surgeries; the old protocol was ridiculous. FTR, he is a man who cannot instill his own eyedrops.He had meds 3 days prior and 28 post-surgeries with 4 different drops in one eye and 5! in the other. And the 2 eyes overlapped for a little over 2 weeks. It was a whole thing.

Love the DG's cheeky sense of humor.

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Yesterday was a mom-day. She had a haircut at 1:30 and then I took her to pick out new glasses. She really liked my new ones which have since been taken off the display luckily for me. She wanted larger lenses than her current pair but kept picking pairs that were way too big for her face which kind of made her look like "Edna Mode" (a character based on designer Edith Head from Pixar's The Incredibles). The optician talked her into a greenish frame that was quite trendy that looks really great on her.

She was not having a "good breathing day". She was as winded as I've have ever seen her. At the optician's she was willing to sit and have frames brought to her; normally she would have been bouncing around trying on everything. After, we walked 4 stores down to pick up a fried chicken dinner for her and she was so beat I turned up her oxygen and I brought the car to the curb to pick her up.

I need to work on picking a Medigap policy for next year today, but I think I might spend some time there tomorrow. She's torn her closets apart and doesn't have the energy to finish swapping everything out. Speaking of Medigaps— does anyone have any wisdom to share in terms of what works for them? DH's retirement plan used to come with options but won't next year so this is a first for me.

Be safe out there.
HB

Good morning!