which are just starting to open.
And it wasn’t just one lovely bouquet. I have three! There is a vase of bright colored blooms in the living room next to my stitching chair. The large vase on the dining room table and the one pictured above which is gracing my sewing table/desk came from Shana & Miriam.
Just a little bight of bright and appreciation.
In fact, early. So the only thing late at all about Thursday’s trip to UCSF is my delay in hitting the send button.
With our usual disorganization, there were five of us going in different directions, all at about the same time. Dani was headed out to a dog show, George had a business appointment, Noah had a job interview which left Alex with his 1330 Ortho appointment at the Mission Bay portion of UCSF. Obviously, this left me as the driver.
So off I went, early as usual since being late for an appointment means getting out really late and landing in absolutely horrible traffic. Mission Bay is also not exactly on BART – it would take BART to Embarcadero, a transfer to the T line tram, then some more fussing around, And this is Alex, my wonderful SIL whose appointment was to asses his progress after his ankle surgery. I was not about to sentence him to pegging blocks on crutches.
You remember the whole saga about his broken ankle and the insurance fight to get his care authorized? Anyway, after picking him up and grabbing him a latte to go before hitting the freeway, we fought our way through traffic that did not meet any criteria for fun. I dropped him off in front of the clinic building 50 + minutes after we left their house in El Sobrante. Which was about an hour before his appointment.
I then drove aimlessly till I finally found an on street parking slot and settled in for what I thought was a long wait. 1327 I get a text from Alex. He is done. X-rays, exam, follow up scheduled. And this is three minutes BEFORE his appointment was even scheduled to start.
Thrilled to say the least, since this meant less traffic going home. Dropping him off 30 minutes from picking him up, I am still impressed. An appointment scheduled, kept, and actually finishing promptly! And yes, he is healing well. PT will be the next step…
‘ere it is!
First things first! Meet the JackRabbit. Pattern from Cottage Garden Samplings stitched with the called for threads – except for the flower, I substituted Forbidden Fiber Cos Galaxy on 16 ct Earthen by Picture this Plus.
the last 150 stitches took the longest – you see all those tiny purple rosettes? four purple with one stitch of white in the center. Wash, rinse, repeat more than 26 times..
After taking time this afternoon to see CODEX (link here to the information on this international book fair). Last year didn’t happen – so this every two years event may well now be on even years. George & Miriam had a wonderful time. Angel also found it interesting. I wandered around, talked to a few of those displaying everything from handmade paper to hand bound art books to ….. you get the idea. Me? As pretty as some of the items were – I am just not the kind of person who wants something on my shelf or table that needs to be handled literally with gloves.
The four of us hand dinner at Saul’s before heading home. This is the first time I have had the experience of using a QR code reader to order and pay for our selections which were then delivered by the wait staff.
Gwen turned 12 today. Quite old for a golden retriever. Posed in her new backyard I know that she got some special treat to eat.
And, finally, I was able to put more stitches into Aries (the third Zodiac Girl) from Nora Corbett
I added to the lower portion, stuffed in some more browns – so far this has been all tans and browns except for the Light Effects – E436 which is actually kind of a brown. You can see a bit of pink/mauve/violet which is Caron Watterlillies 138 – Mulberry. I am close to 40$ of the stitching complete so hopefully I can finish this up by the end of the week.
Most of the time I just mention what I am doing and seriously resist talking about other members of the family. But this morning I just can’t resist. Since I have been home on my longest day of the year (also coincidently April fools…) I have been dragging myself out of bed in the morning and heading straight to the coffee maker.
This morning, George offered to make a latte run. Who am I to discourage such initiative? I used my handy-dandy app and order. AKA – I buy, he flies.
The next significant amount of time passed in a blur of me cleaning up, trying to find the top of my desk in the craft room and plugging in various electronics.
Finally I hear noises in the kitchen. He had gotten the coffees then walked over to Cheese Board for muffins and scones. Problems then ensued. His key fog won’t open the car door. Neither would the key. Blue VW Golf? Check. Parked on Vine between Walnut & Shattuck? Check. He looked around again. There was another VW Golf parked two spaces back from where he was.
It looked a bit tired, and nowhere near as clean. But, jackpot! The key fob worked and he was able to head home with the lattes still pretty warm.
One of the downsides of living on the US West coast involves time zones. What may seem like a perfectly reasonable time to you, in London, Geneva, or Copenhagen is not all that great from my point of view. Especially this morning, which is why I am whining. The Global Health Program out of University of Copenhagen has a regular webinar series named the Nordic Global Health Talks. These, in the past, has been both interesting and informative. The topics have ranged over a wide variety of key public health topics and the presentations have been excellent.
Not so this morning. Ok, from their point of view it was 1400. Early afternoon and no one should be suffering from post-prandial fatigue. But from my point of view – with an alarm sounding off at 0447 so that I was logged on by 0500 – it was dark. And quiet. And a bit on the chilly side.
And yes, I am working my way around to the whine. Last. month the discussion involved the issue of global health and society wellbeing as reflected by the state of migrant health. The speaker was knowledgeable and informative. The topic today was the result of a doctoral dissertation on clinical guidelines for labor and delivery compared to on the ground realities in Tanzania. What started out as a comparison of actual workload at one location in Zanzibar with clinical guidelines turned into an extended rant about how the guidelines weren’t useful or locally relevant. Ok – but 20 minutes on how poorly the WHO guidelines functioned in practice (low resource settings) was a bit much as she never presented a comparison of those guidelines with the ones locally developed, or how they went about the process of developing guidelines or ….
You get the idea. Not organized, not informative after the first five minutes and didn’t give me much information on what could be done to improve the situation.
I gave up before the end of the hour and went back to bed.
——————– 8- < ——– – – – – – – – – —
Alex is home. He has dogs for company. His pain meds are working.
And the dogs – they are still trying to dig up that gopher who is too stupid to relocate.
and the pups were not alone.
Alex’s surgery that is, proceeded without complications and Dani had him back home at a reasonable time. I had spent part of the day out with the dogs. George went back to their house in the late afternoon so that doggie dinner would be on time and was there when the kids returned.
or, in fact, my second day with the dogs. Mostly consisting of letting them out, chasing them back in, and ignoring the cats on the other side of the fence.
Alex is holding his own – surgery is scheduled for Wednesday. So, other than giving him the occasional hand – I am dog watching and stitching. Speaking of stitching – it is the last day of Embroidery.com ‘s Love to Stitch 2022 challenge. The idea was to stitch a minimum of 30 minutes each day and document with starting and ending photos. This is not an issue for the average person who uses Facebook or Instagram. For the non-luddites but social media avoiders, it was possible to email in everyday. It was possible to miss up to four days. Lucky for me – since I remembered on the 2nd (means the first is my first miss), the 11&12th for whatever reason, and the 14th. I stitched on all of those days, just forgot to send off the email!
But anyway – I made a reasonable amount of progress this month – I already noted that I finished the January Quaker, the Fox, the Barbara Ana SAL and the Owl Forest Cook & Cat.
The Swan has been started, I have made decent progress on the February Quaker
I have only the last few days of Feb to add to the temperature bookshelf and have the March shelf ready
and completed another section of the Zodiac border.
and Senior’s Day.
It was the last home game of the season. Following their usual pattern, the women’s basketball team did well in the first quarter, not great in the second and third, then got it together in the last quarter. Once again, however, it was not together enough to make up those last few points they were down.
Traditionally, and I don’t know how it is handled at other schools. I had neither the money nor time to attend games at any university I attended. But here, the final home game of the season is preceded and followed by a recognition of the graduating members of the team. Obviously. there was no season last year. An additional year of eligibility across the board was granted to the players. The end result is that the team included several members who were “graduated” but playing. Or one can take the “gr” designation to mean graduate school. It matters not.
We didn’t stay the extra time. I was tired and there is still cleanup to be done downstairs.
It was a busy day. Alex was seen by Ortho who scheduled him for surgery next Wednesday. Even better – they think they might be able to put him into a boot by two week after which means that he could be at least partially weight bearing. And that is not an insignificant benefit. Dani also took all three dogs and Alex home last night. We are going to see how well the downstair there will work for Alex on crutches. I would rather have him home, and drive out to lend a hand while Dani is at work than leave him in transition forever.
I am just 150 stitches short of finishing the Fox –
All that is left are white snowflake type items. 17 small and three large. I counted. Once it is finished, I can move on to the Swan (Feb) hopefully before the end of the month.
Also related to February is From the Hearts Monthly Quaker.
I was able to stitch almost all of the large dark pink plus the upper green small quaker while at the game. (More about the game at the end).
And then there is the Zodiac series which I completed the monthly portions last year but sort of had planned to stitch the frame as I went, and then didn’t get there. This was followed by trying to decide if it really needed the frame. After today, I think it is obvious to me that I am going to have to stitch the rest of it.
I have two choices; pick out the portion of the frame that I have completed so far (about 3k worth of stitches) or just stitch the rest of it – about the same number of stitches.
Looking at it, I need to finish.
It just looks more complete.
which leads me to the last bit – the bit about the game. The Washington Huskies were here today (which means that they should be playing Stanford on Saturday). The Bears held their own through the first quarter but fell significantly behind in the second and third. After clawing their way back to a tie in the last few seconds, fouls and free throws handed the game to Washington. Literally down to the last seconds. The Washington player missed her two free throw attempts, but Cal managed another foul in the scramble for the rebound. The second of those two free throws won the game as Cal couldn’t get a basket with less than two seconds to go.
The last home game is Saturday. I am hopeful that George will have recovered enough from today’s dental treatments to come to the game with me.
It is not that I can’t cook. And by cook I do not mean ordering take-away, pre-prepared meals, or heating up left-overs. It is just that I really get no joy out of it. But that is probably reasonable: I eat to live, not live to eat. This probably explains why I can spend extended time on cruise ships and return home at the same weight or less. According to my industry friends – the average gain is about 2.5 kg for a 7-10 day cruise.
I also don’t like to clean, but very few people do. But that has little to do with cooking. I am a wizard at finding and disposing of “expired” food and foodlike items in the fridge that are past safe eating. Disposing can include, but is not limited to dropping in the bio-container, throwing in the trash, emptying and tossing the container in the recycle, or just leaving the whole mess in the sink. The last is a hint to the other members of the household that “use it or toss it” is also in their wheelhouse.
As a result, I am really appreciative of the cooking done by Noah and George. I also have no problem eating the same thing day after day after day. Food is fuel. This probably means that I sometimes forget to be grateful that they are doing the cooking since I would be equally happy oatmeal, soup, or microwave omelets as anything fancy.
And, by the looks of the empty shelves after I finished my most recent raid – it looks like a trip to the grocery store is in order.
That I don’t mind.
Not seeing a lot of options, we took Alex back to the ER this morning. The staff was extremely nice – and easily accepted that increasing pain, lack of meds and no assurance that his ankle was healing made for no fun.
Got him checked in and seen reasonably promptly by the PA on duty. And then we settled in to wait, and wait, and wait. The Ortho resident on call was swamped and it wasn’t like we presented an acute emergency. He got some pain relief, a set of x-rays, and finally his loose splint was replaced.
Honestly? DIdn’t seem to be any point in taking up the offer of admission since it wouldn’t increase his chances of getting ankle surgery in the next couple of days. But he will need surgery, and preferably before he reaches 3 weeks post injury.
So that gives us this week to get things straightened out and get him on the schedule. I really dislike the “for-profit” management corporations that have insinuated themselves so deeply in the US health care system that it may take slash & burn to effect any substantial change.
I expect a lot of finger pointing on Tuesday morning as the plan administrator attempts to place the blame for not processing the referral on anyone but them.
(We got back home at 1830 which doesn’t sound bad till I point out that we got there at 0930 this morning).
if the whole thing wasn’t so appalling. Talking about Alex and his broken leg. Last Friday night just to jog your memory. And then the insurance people. The order of events is about as follows:
If anyone needed a demonstration of how broken the US Health Care system is – I refer you to the above list. Yes, as a family physician in a rural area, I might have splinted, then casted a simple tip-fib fracture. But not in a complicated patient. Not in someone with previous surgery or fractures in that leg. It is just asking for trouble.
In their assumption that everyone is trying to get unauthorized care and spend their precious money (so that it doesn’t land in the senior executives’ pockets), the rigid protocols decrease quality of care and actually increase cost.
During my residency, before all the “managed care improvements” we would have splinted someone like Alex, admitted him for overnight evaluation and let Ortho take care of his leg during normal daylight hours. Or, in a rational society, he would have been routinely scheduled and seen on Tuesday when the Ortho person who saw him in the ER said he needed to be seen.
It will be interesting to see if we get what I expect – which is a phone call late Friday saying “yes, he needs his Ortho follow up.” Which means that he will be seen a week AFTER Ortho said he needed to be seen. Still with his leg in a splint. Still with the unresolved question of whether or not he needs surgery to stabilize his ankle, still in a lot of pain.
George quietly informed the person on the phone that, should Alex have problems or complications that would not have occurred had he been treated early as directed, he was going to hold everyone who delayed the care personally responsible.
No, he doesn’t practice law in California, but he knows people who do. There are also various people in the state government who are going to hear about how their “managed care” is managing to not deliver care.
I stitched. I needed it!
Today were the pointer sisters.
who are demonstrating the only time during the day when they were well behaved.
Otherwise, they were running like mad, begging for food and behaving just about how you would expect for two bored hounds.
No, they aren’t mine. These are two of Dani & Alex’s “kids.”
No, not a family member or a football game. But the Cal Women’s Basketball team lost in overtime. I can’t say that either they, or Utah were consistent. Errors were made on both sides. Actually all three side – the refs being the third side with some really stupid calls both made and missed.
Besides the game, two rows in front of us sat Ron Rivera, the coach for the Washington Commander’s (Football team formerly known as the Redskins). He is a Cal grad. More importantly, his wife played on the Cal Women’t basketball team. They were here, in Berkeley today to support women’s athletics. Not in LA, not at the Super Bowl.
Alex is holding it together. Dani’s dogs are doing their absolute best to be escape artists, because, of course, she has enough already on her plate. I am figuring on getting back to stitching and cleaning the craft room sometime after we find if Alex needs surgery or not…
Obviously for anyone today.
Most certainly, Alex did not expect to be still at our house with heavy splint on his leg and a lot of pain. I didn’t expect to be running back and forth from here to their new house, but things needed to be dropped off and picked up. Most noticeably Gwen, the elderly golden retriever, who is really Alex’s dog. She is not thrilled about the move and is doing much better now that she is cuddled up next to Alex.
It was supposed to be a quiet and comfortable brunch for Shana to celebrate her birthday. We had part of it at least – the cake was wonderful.
Lev, in attendance, had his choice of snacks, but they didn’t include cake.
Stitching really didn’t happen, nor did cleaning anything in my craft room. I did some dishes downstairs and hauled trash out downstairs so that Gwen didn’t go “shopping.” I think tomorrow may be more of the same…
And it was moving day. I dropped George and Noah at the van rental place just before noon, then buzzed back home. It took the guys two loads to move all the furniture plus misc. boxes, cases, coolers and the like. Dani ran several car loads as well.
And by early evening, it seemed to be all under control. Except for clearing off a few counters and some items still to grab out of cupboards. And then it happened: Alex has a tutoring job on-line, so he spent most of the afternoon “at work” in his new office area. Gwen, the golden retriever, pretty much kept him company. Given her old bones, she much prefers a dog bed.
(we will not talk about the other escape artists who tested all the windows, doors, and spent time trying to figure out ways to zoom OUT of the back yard rather than it in.
In any case, it happened fast. Whether he caught his foot, his shoe, or his cane on that dog bed doesn’t really matter, Alex took a tumble. His ankle didn’t look great. And, as it turned out, it wasn’t. A trip to the UCSF ER, x-rays, someone with enough sense to provide pain meds, orthopedics, and a splint. Follow-up on Tues.
I will be keeping Alex here for the next couple of days.
bringing joy, challenges and life. They are only ours for the time that you can carry them in your arms, hold in your lap.
It doesn’t seem like yesterday:, rather it was a different place, time and life. George and I were still newly weds (for whatever that tells you) as we had our first daughter. She lived in Minnesota, Germany, Maryland, Washington DC, Boston, and Rhode Island all before the age of 21. She has her degrees, her education, and has faced and overcome numerous challenges.
And now is on her own journey as a mother.
Lev is a character and definitely his own person. Do I have to admit I am old enough to have a daughter in her 40s? And grandchild?
Dani and I made a Costco run.
But before I get into that – my abject apologies for managing to paste addresses into the CC: line for some of you and not the BCC: line. Since my email goes out in two batches due to webmail limits – only ½ of my mailing list was affected. All I can say is — tired and sorry. I don’t think I made this particular error for years and am not planning on repeating it in the near future.
The purpose in the Costco run was mostly to get a rice cooker. And a bag of rice if I could find one that was under 50#. It seems that India, Japan, Thailand, and China package rice specifically for the US market. Otherwise, why would you find rice in 20, 40, or 50# bags? And yes, that is the original pound sign and has nothing to do with “hash tag.”
Those particular items in the cart made sense, along with the boxes of microwaveable Quinoa/rice and that of curry lentils, The kitchen floor mat for Dani also made sense. Dog training bribes made sense. But then there were the other things that crept in.
In the US the particular group is called Girl Scouts. I think the British equivalent is Girl Guides. Social and training group for girls ages 5 and up that featured good behavior, activities and earning badges for various accomplishments (so sue me, I never was one and my girls managed to avoid the whole thing by being raised in Germany). Anyway – the main fundraiser every year was cookie sales. Not home made cookies (biscuits for you Brits, Aussies & Scots) mind you but fancy boxes of them at a significant price. There were about five varieties as I remember, the Thin Mints being the most popular. I was once told that the Girl Scouts only made about 10% of the selling price.
Anyway –
these little darlin’s are
which combine crunch, sea salt, and dark chocolate.
Obviously a bag (or two) came home with us along with a not so small bag of basmati rice, and a few other treats…..
Cross stitch diversion. Surprisingly productive day having something to do with staggering out of bed at 0500 for an online webinar from the University of Copenhagen (1400 CET) on migrant health. The top three…
about another 200 stitches which puts me at about 30%
the Long dog is at 50%
and Rooky Woods gained a squirrel.
Early, or was it middle of the day? It all blurs after a while. I became the delegated driver to transport keys so as to let the carpenter in to finish door jams and weather stripping on Dani & Alex’s house. I don’t blame the carpenter for not wanting to have a ring of client keys. He fixed the gate while waiting for me, so I didn’t feel too badly.
I don’t travel without something to do, so I occupied myself for the next few hours. If I had been brave, I could have hung a few more strips of wallpaper, but that is really a two person job. It also might have helped had I remembered to bring along some lunch. But I made progress on the LongDog.
It was when I was locking up downstairs that I realized that I really hadn’t needed to stay. There are two sets of locks on the door. Yes, I prefer the deadbolt also locked, but the main lock, which the carpenter had engaged, would have been fine.
Trundling on home, I had enough time to find lunch (or was that breakfast) before a Zoom meeting. Two hours later, I had made some progress after a significant amount of picking out and restitching.
Tomorrow is an early day and I am wiped.
Stands for Old Raggedy Thread(s). It is what cross-stitchers call the thread ends snipped off the ends of threads. Mostly when they are too short to be used. There are those who drop them in a small container (of which you can buy various fancy versions on Etsy) or drop them in a cup or a wastebasket. At the end of the year, or so the story goes, you will have an idea of all the stitching you did.
I thought about it for a while, when I started stitching again and decided it was a cross-stitch community/Facebook/Instagram/Flosstube thing. It is not like weaving where the thrums, those end left at the beginning and end of a warp which can’t be woven, might actually be long and bulky enough to stuff pillows or ornaments. In the case of stitching, we are talking small, thin and almost weightless even when smashed into a ball.
All of this led me, while tossing mine in a wastebasket, to think about the origin of the practice. Was it like the story many of us heard during med school rotations about the surgeon on his first job, at a small town hospital. Being handed a suture for closure, he quickly and efficiently made the stitch and tied it off, Middle of the suture at that. The OR nurse looked at him. Quietly reloaded the needle holder with the remaining suture and handed it back. By the fourth time, he was attempting to close the wound with just a tiny bit of suture, almost too small even for an instrument tie. He turned around and asked “Why are you doing this?” The answer – don’t be wasteful. We are careful here and the patient pays for each and every suture pack opened.
Given when I graduated and started my internship – 1975- this story probably has its origin in frugalness and responsibility learned during the depression. Of the Waste not, Want not variety, My mother, as well as her mother were this kind of responsible when I was growing up. My grandmother first worked as a Public Health Nurse in southern, rural Minnesota and then as a bookkeeper for her brother-in-law. My mother grew up with homemade clothes, hand-me-downs and day old bakery bread. My father, on the other hand, grew up in the same era as a child of privilege and never was responsible. Not so, his sister, my aunt, who was one of the most lovely, hardworking, and generous women I have ever met.
Where am I going with all of this? I was evaluating my tendency not to waste thread. To stitch to the end of each length even if it was a bit ragged. It doesn’t make sense, I can afford more floss. DMC here in the US varies from $0.40-0.79/skein. I have a significant supply. Nor is it because I just don’t want to rethread the needle. I am doing that constantly on full-coverage pieces. It might be because, if I run out of a color I am going to have to dig out more? No, actually, I think it stems from a generational knowledge that things may not always be bountiful and that being conservative with the use of one’s things is smart.
In defiance, I stopped off a moderately ok bit about 5 cm long and rethreaded my needle.