Christmas 2018

     Although some traditions remain, Christmas for the Cloutiers is changing. The tree is smaller and the decorations, simpler. There are fewer presents and participants. It is quieter, slower moving and does NOT start at sunup! Fortunately, Cindy is still here to share it. Otherwise we would probably lose almost all the flavor of a celebration.
     Before we get to Christmas, I am happy to report that Durelle's GRWS (Golden Retriever Withdrawal Symptoms) are no longer evident.

     Christmas Eve has, for a long time, meant a dish of lasagna with salad and garlic bread and this year was no exception. 

     Our tree is no longer one that would be suitable for the town square. Thankfully, the cat has decided to leave it alone.

     Although they weren't here,I thought I'd include recent pictures of our two youngest great-grandkids: Madeleine and Anthony.

     I hope all you kind folks out in the blogosphere had a wonderful Christmas and are looking forward to a healthy and prosperous new year.

Two "great" grandsons

     This past weekend, from Friday to Monday, we hosted David (32) and Kevin (30) as they were in town to run in the half-marathon on Kiawah Island. If they are not "great" grandsons, there aren't any. They enjoyed the use of the Corvette, but on race day the rain and the alternate parking caused them to return and switch to the Jeep. I noticed today that the Corvette had a full gas tank. I have not yet checked the Jeep. They ran together until the last couple of miles before the finish when Kevin out-legged his "big" brother. They both finished and were happy with their times. I didn't ask what they were.

      

    
      Since I have neither the mobility nor stamina to position myself at the finish line of such an event, I have resorted to using images provided by Dave that are for sale by a vendor who does. 
     The following morning (Sunday) they teamed up to make a generous breakfast for the five of us. Can you tell that they are brothers?

     The race determined a couple of meals. They night before was a big bowl of spaghetti. Carbohydrate loading is a common pre-race tactic. The pre-race breakfast was just energy bars. Saturday night I grilled some pound and a half ribeyes. I expected them to consume more beer than they did, so I'm going to have enough Yuengling to last me a while. It was a most pleasant weekend, and we could not have asked for a couple of more enjoyable guests.
     On another front; our "dip your toe in the water" start of a search for an assisted living facility has stalled out. I'm mentally more ready than Durelle. While I'd like to make the commitment while we are still healthy enough to enjoy the new lifestyle, Durelle is not yet ready to embrace a change of that magnitude. We'll work it out together, eventually.

In Lieu of a Golden

     As mentioned in the last post, Durelle is having some serious Golden Retriever withdrawal issues. Assuming she eventually succumbs to the persuasiveness of my arguments and agrees to move into a unit of independent/assisted living, only small pets are permitted. Seventy five pounds does not qualify. The compromise was a cat
     So, Friday, Durelle and Cindy went the Animal Society to find a cat. There were very few adult cats to choose from. They came back with a little (71/2 pound), scrawny, flea-bitten, black short-haired thing whose only redeeming virtue was that he came over and climbed up into Durelle's lap. The pick of the litter she was not. Durelle named her, "Bettsy", and the spelling is intentional.

     She made herself at home with no fuss. She quickly found and uses her litter box and bed. She eats as if she were recently starved, and we think she was. It appears that her coat is cleaning up and filling out nicely. She is well on her way toward being a good looking, well behaved house cat. She's not a golden, but she's just as affectionate. Now all we have to do is get her leash trained so Durelle can take her for a walk.

Goblins and a Ghost

    For decades we have enjoyed sitting outside the front of the house dispensing normally scarce confections to hordes of artfully disguised urchins. Luckily, we live in a neighborhood where it is safe for pre-teens to be walking around after sundown, albeit with a parent lurking in the background. Durelle managed the candy bowl while I handled the camera. Here's a few.

     In addition to these creatures of the night, we had a real apparition (oxymoron?😕) visit us. Durelle now uses her many old golf towels as dish towels. Recently she draped one of them over the lid of the clothes hamper to dry a bit before relegating it to the hamper. When she looked at it the next morning she saw the face of a golden retriever. Granted, she still dreams of goldens, but even a sceptic with a bit of imagination could find the face in the dirty towel.

     What do you think?

Status

     For some reason the entire update in the last posting disappeared when I hit the "Post" button. I'd bet that there was another extraneous keystroke in there, but I won't admit it. I will reconstruct.
     I've been waiting for all the lab orders, interpretations, diagnoses and pontifications to be finished before putting together this post, but it has been too long since the last post. I had an incident whereby my resting, automatic breathing rate and depth were not adequate to provide the necessary oxygen. I was forced to consciously breathe deeper. The "urgent Care" doctor, who was excellent, took X-Rays and found fluid in my chest cavity. He prescribed Prednisone, an antibiotic, an inhaler and a diuretic that caused me to lose ten pounds in a week. And, he sent me to a pulmonologist. They, in turn, created six lab orders: a pulmonary function test (PFT), a dye assisted CAT scan, an ultrasound search for blood clots in the legs, blood tests, a stress test and an echocardiogram. The last two are not yet scheduled, and I have not yet actually seen the pulmonologist. So far they have not found a smoking gun. That's no surprise, because I have never smoked.😊 
     So, I'm back to normal or as normal as the neuropathy will let me be. Last night I got down on the floor and lit the pilot light in our gas fireplace. I got back up using a kitchen chair. So I still have the minimum required mobility. My maximum walking range is probably a slow, waddling hundred yards. Driving is not a problem because I can do that sitting down. Entering and exiting the Corvette is less than graceful, however. Fortunately, Durelle is a lot healthier than I am.
     We have been looking at retirement home facilities with graduated levels of care. We did some significant downsizing when we moved here in 2004, but we still have an abundance of "stuff" that is an impediment to our making the transition. Durelle recognizes the inevitability, but adding some housekeeping assistance here for a while may allow us to delay the big change. Change is hard, and it is harder for the "nestbuilder" than it is for me. 
     I really hated to turn this into a medical blog after ten years of pictures and travels. I knew, however, that there were many caring folks who wanted to know how we were.

     Thanks for caring,

     Frank

Pam Anderson visits Charleston

     Now that I've got your attention, it wasn't that Pam Anderson. Durelle's father and Pam's father were brothers, so, it's "cousin Pam". Pam and Jay Anderson live in California and recently made a tour of the right coast to visit family and friends. You'll note from the previous blog that we took them to Husk. The next day they played tourist in our new home town. Jay is a fine photographer so I wanted to highlight his Charleston pictures here.
     One of the first places they visited was the famous "Angel Oak". This a four hundred + year old example of a "Live Oak" that is a Charleston landmark usually seen dripping with Spanish Moss. 

     From there they wandered downtown to Riley Park for a couple of great shots of the pineapple fountain.

     
Jay also had a well-timed shot of a departing cruise ship in front of the USS Yorktown.

The downtown icons did well in Jay's camera, too:

     He even captured a bit of wildlife. 

     It was certainly a wonderful visit, and we'd love to have them again,

A Visit to Husk

     Durelle has a first cousin who lives in northern California. From time to time they like to make road trips, often to the east coast. Yesterday they dropped into Charleston for a visit and to play tourist. Cindy was off, so she could play driver and tour guide. They did a short tour of a few iconic, touristy spot and ended up back at Husk.

     In a town full of really outstanding restaurants Husk stands out as one of the very best. The James Beard Award winning chef, Sean Brock, is the guy in charge. You can count on classic southern fare with a little innovation. At our table the entrees ranged from a corn-meal breaded, fried catfish to a surprisingly tasty and tender octopus. Guess who tried the octopus, and, no, it did not taste anything like calamari. I was greatly surprised to order a German white wine and get one with a screw cap. It was a nice summery wine, however. 
     It was nice to get out of the house with good friends. Pam and Jay were very pleased with their lodging at the King Charles Inn.

Hurricane Florence

     We decided not to evacuate ahead of hurricane Florence. We were partially packed and ready to go if necessary, Since joining a million person cavalcade departing the coastal areas on roads that can't even handle a rush hour would be a major hassle in its own right, we wanted to be sure that it was necessary. It is true that the SCDOT made all lanes of I-26 into westbound lanes, but that only helped part of the problem. We would be taking 78 to Augusta.
     The three scourges of a hurricane are the winds, the rainfall and, for coastal areas, the storm surge. We had to consider all three. In reverse order, the storm surge is the most predictable. The storm surge is a large wave that is pushed by the wind ahead of the storm as it travels over the ocean. When it comes ashore its height is added to the state of the tide at that time. This combined height can be calculated fairly precisely as can the geography of the creeks, tributaries, rivers and bays along the coast. Our portion of Hanahan is far enough inland that prior storm surges had not reached us, and the predictions for this time were equally reassuring. Similarly, we have had major (>10 inches) rain events in each of the last three years without any local flooding.
     The remaining wild card was the wind. Even if we stayed dry, I did not want to stay around for any roof-ripping gusts. The track predictions said it would come ashore near Wilmington, NC. It did, and it missed the geographic prediction of five days and 1500 miles before by two miles! By then it was a Cat 1 hurricane, soon to be a tropical storm. It turned southwest and then west passing 50 miles north of Charleston. Since the southwest quadrant of such a storm is the least threatening, we would have a comfortable margin.
     I must say that Durelle, Cindy and I spent a couple of days looking at the possible scenarios and decided that, as long as it looked like the wind here would be manageable, we should be fine sitting tight. 
     The center of the storm is now a hundred  miles onshore and heading up and around Virginia, so it appears we made the right decision. May we always be so lucky.

Tony Zotos...New Great Grandson

   
     Well, here he is, our first great grandson! That's big sister, Madeleine, doing the honors. Some details are still uncertain as Anthony was born in Sydney, AU on the other side of the international dateline...14th or 15th? I think he was 8 pounds and 21 inches. That picture shows two of our three great grandchildren. Thirteen year old Brielle is in the 8th grade in NH. Mother, Melissa, and Dad, Illia are the proud parents.
     There is the same age difference between them as with our pair, Cindy and Mark. Be prepared for big sister/little brother clashes. Another novelty would be if he were born on the 14th. BOTH my folks and Durelle's parents were married on 14Sep1935 in MA and ME respectively.

Care Package

     Few of you remember the original Care Packages, but they were boxes of goodies that brightened the day wherever and whenever they arrived. In 1945, the newly formed CARE (then the Cooperative for American Remittances to Europe) initiated a program to send food relief to Europe, where large numbers of people were at risk of starvation in the wake of World War II. The organization obtained permission from the United States government to send U.S. Army surplus "10-in-1" food parcels to Europe. The "10-in-1" parcels had been prepared for an invasion of Japan, which never transpired. Americans were given the opportunity to purchase a CARE Package for 10 dollars to send to friends or relatives in Europe. Packages were guaranteed to arrive within four months. Even when a donor did not know an address of a beneficiary, CARE would find that person using the last address known. The CARE package thus became a "missing person" service in the chaos following World War II.

The content of a CARE Package in West Germany 1948

The first CARE Packages contained:

• one pound (450 g) of beef in broth
• one pound (450 g) of steak and kidneys
• 8 ounces (230 g) of liver loaf
• 8 ounces (230 g) of corned beef
• 12 ounces (340 g) of luncheon loaf (like Spam)
• 8 ounces (230 g) of bacon
• two pounds (910 g) of margarine
• one pound (450 g) of lard
• one pound (450 g) of fruit preserves
• one pound (450 g) of honey
• one pound (450 g) of raisins
• one pound (450 g) of chocolate
• two pounds (910 g) of sugar
• 8 ounces (230 g) of powdered eggs
• two pounds (910 g) of whole-milk powder
• two pounds (910 g) of coffee

Later CARE Packages included food for different cultural diets as well as non-food items including tools, blankets, school supplies, and medicine.

     Now that you've had your history lesson, today we received a wonderful Care Package. There was no Spam, but a wonderful hunk of Salami and cheese that will be tried soon. The gift goes a long way to soften the edges of discomfort caused by our not sitting on the edge of Penobscot Bay for the summer. Here's a shot of the package from Morse's Sauerkraut. 

      Many thanks to Dick and Eleanor Roth and Bernie and Ann Dunn.

We're still here

     Would you believe that we got a phone call today...and it wasn't from my favorite blogstalker...that said, "You haven't posted a blog in a month. Are you OK?" Hey, does the fact that I haven't been generating any blogworthy material work as an excuse? I thought not
     We have visited four Independent/Assisted Living Facilities. We have one to go that won't be ready to show until the first week of October. To use Durelle's vernacular, the leader in the clubhouse is Daniel Pointe. The new one that we have to check in a month is: Atria.
     Our magnolia tree is a spring bloomer. This year, because of the wet warm summer, I guess, we are still getting blossoms. Cindy took a picture of one of the buds with a very nice sunset in the background.

     So, we're still here, doing our gentle thing; making plans for change. As a matter of fact, tomorrow we are going to one of those facilities for a seminar on "Change".

RIP Mocha

     Never was Mocha more content than when she was curled up in my recliner. She had two years with us after spending ten years with Sharon L who was compelled to move into an apartment that did not allow dogs. With a large dose of serendipity and a friend of a friend, she moved in with us lock, stock, bed, and dog toys. We had just lost Baxter and were ripe to adopt another Golden Retriever. She was a calm senior citizen which matched our life style just fine. 
     For the first year or so she and Durella enjoyed their after supper walk. As we began to spend our first summer in Charleston instead of in a motorhome on the Maine coast, even the evening cool was not cool enough and the walks stopped. She thoroughly patrolled the back yard and kept the egrets at bay. She did NOT like thunderstorms which began to occur almost daily as the summer progressed.

     Yesterday (15 Aug) everything was completely normal. She ate, took care of business and went to bed as always. There was no vomiting or diarrhea. I noticed the first change when I got up at seven. She always sleeps by our bedside, making it difficult for me to climb out of bed. She was gone. I found her curled up in a recliner in the living room...red flag #1. She opened her eyes, but did not raise her head...red flag #2. I decided to let her go back to sleep while I went into the study. Durelle got up at eight, and Mocha was still in the recliner...red flag #3. With a lot of coaxing Durelle was able to get her outside with hind legs that were not completely coordinated, but she just lay down without peeing...red flag #4. Durelle managed to get her back inside and offered her a Frosty Paws. We have used them with her and other goldens to counteract seizure symptoms. I think it helps the blood sugar. She wouldn't touch the ice cream...red flag #5.

     I called the vet and asked them to standby as I was unable to carry her into the office. Then we slid a blanket under her, enlisted the aid of our daughter, and slid, dragged and carried her to the car. A couple of experienced young techs carried her to the first exam room. A thorough physical exam revealed a misshapen, bleeding spleen, lethargy, and pale gums. The next step was ultrasound. It confirmed the damage to the spleen, a tumor on it, and bleeding into the abdominal cavity. Durelle and I agreed to immediate emergency surgery.

     Dr. Brent Lerma has been Mocha's only vet on our watch. He would be doing the surgery. As expected, they found the damaged spleen and the bleeding, but the liver and other organs looked clean. They stopped the bleeding, removed the spleen and were about to close up and turn off the anesthesia when the heart rate and BP plummeted. They used emergency meds to try to restart the heart and they did CPR, but they lost her. Later when I was talking with Dr. Lerma, I swear his lower lip was quivering when he said, "We almost saved her. We were that close." The tech who assisted was also distraught, "Damn, we were done!" They all gave it their best, caring shot.

     Dr. Lerma summed it up, "We had to try. If we had done nothing, she would have died tomorrow."

     It was only six hours from first red flags until she was gone. Quick is painful, but I suppose slow is worse. She had a good life with two caring owners. She was the queen of the campground in Maine where people volunteered to walk her if we were away. She died while anesthetized, without pain. Rest in peace, Mocha.

Jeep

     Most, be not all, of the readership of this fine blog are RVers, and most of them tow a dinghy behind their motorhome. It is to that audience that I address my comments today. Between looking up the tailpipe of our '98 Bounder and our 2007 Allegro Bus, our 2003 Jeep Liberty has eaten over 100,000 miles of being towed. Plus, the odometer says 97,000 of being driven. When we got back from our trip to Asheville, there was a disconcerting front end noise that only was audible at very low speed. It sounded like and old leaf spring that needed a squirt of WD-40. Since our Asheville trip had included a very steep (30 degree) concrete driveway with a sharp turn, AND since the Jeep had been towed for over a hundred thousand miles, the front end noise warranted inspection.The front drive shaft comes out of the transfer case with a coupling that had failed. It will be $1000 to fix it. In addition, the there are some front and rear axles that need some additional lubrication. So I guess it will be an expensive trip. 
     So... if you re towing a dinghy, check that front end.

Frank

Ashevlle, NC

     A fully equipped Jeep takes less time to pack than does an Allegro Bus motor-home, but there is a lot less room to work with. Last week with Cindy playing instigator and motivator, the three of us spent a week in a mountain cabin in Asheville. It was meant to be a transition from the motor-home to a simple vacation away from home. It worked just fine. We packed over the weekend and left at mid-day on Monday. Check in was at four on Monday.
     It was a simple, four hour plus drive up I-26 and then a bit of local maneuvering. I drove the first half each way. We have dabbled with the Blue Ridge Parkway before, mostly in Virginia. Asheville, of course is the home of the famous Biltmore mansion and grounds that we've also visited before. Cindy visited the Biltmore on Wednesday because the best weather for exploring the Parkway was Tuesday.

     How can you not sit there? It might be a good spot for a Happy Hour.

     These pictures clearly show where the name came from. The Blue Ridge Mountains are generally forested over the top. There is no timberline. So, even though they lack the "purple mountains majesty" of the Rockies, they are no less attractive to contemplate.

     Wednesday Durelle and I crashed at the cabin while Cindy toured the Biltmore Estate. George Vanderbilt spared no expense in building America's greatest castle, and its classic beauty has stood the test of time. Cindy said that the ostentatious opulence stirred her inner socialist soul, but she could still appreciate the magnificence. The pictures, obviously, are hers. There is one interior shot of the library, and the rest are taken in the gardens.

     It was a planned self-sufficient community with many aspects that were well ahead of its time. AND it is beautiful. It should be on a lot of bucket lists.

     Entirely unbeatiful, but the height of luxury for my old bones was the cabin's hot tub. I used it so much that I didn't even bother the last night. The ladies did not join me so I did not even have to completely remove the cover.

Blue Ridge Mountains

     The week after the fourth of July we, Cindy, Durelle and I, decided to spend a week in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. Call it, "RV_lite". An internet search turned up a company that has an assortment of cabins scattered over a wide area. Although 4WD is not required, it sure makes the trip more relaxing. Cindy's bedroom was on the second floor. Our's was a king-sized bed, and there was a hot tub on the deck. So far I've used it twice, and the ladies are planning to try it tomorrow.
     Today we wandered along a section of the Blue Ridge Parkway. I can download pictures from the camera to my computer, but I don't know how to download them to my tablet. Fortunately, I can download pictures from my email to the blog. Cindy sent me some pictures, so mine can wait. Here's me trying to get some pictures.

     Here's another picture of some attractive chairs.

    
     Can you NOT sit there?

    The pup Is doing fine.