I was impressed

I spent much of yesterday with Laura at the hospital.  Three years ago she had her tonsils and adenoids removed and a tube placed in each ear.  The well child check up I subjected Laura and Emily to this summer got Laura a bad ear tube report and a trip to the ENT.  Under the microscope one tube was slipped right out, but the other—impacted and infected.

Two weeks and a course of antibiotic/steroid later, the tube was still too painful to address.  Laura had to be under anesthetic for the tube to be removed and we were scheduled for yesterday. The topic came up over the past two weeks, and Laura said she was not worried, except she wished she could be put to sleep without the mask.

It seemed totally reasonable to me that an IV anesthetic could be used for a ten year old and I told her we would see about it at the hospital. Emily went off on the school bus yesterday; I ate breakfast and took care of the cats.  Laura slept in, a reasonable solution to nothing to eat or drink.  Then we went to the hospital.  This was not her grandma’s Children’s Hospital.

There were directions or people with directions at every corner.  We rode up a glass elevator and through the glass walls and floor watched a sculpture with hundreds of moving parts .  At our floor a person at the desk checked us in, and we were taken away by a floor aide who turned us over to our nurse.

The duty nurse checked Laura in, and explained another nurse, the anesthetist, the doctor, the operating room nurse and the child advocate would visit. Each would explain his role.  Laura need only change her clothes to hospital pajamas and open her curtain, and it would all begin.  I nudged her and whispered to ask about the mask.

“I don’t like the mask,” Laura said.  “Could I have something else?”  She and the nurse had a discussion about IV’s, and the nurse told her to by all means, talk to the anesthetist.  More people on the list came and went, then the anesthetist.  A nice fellow, with a rather strong presentation.  He was deep into grape, strawberry or raspberry chap stick before Laura gathered courage to interject “Actually, I don’t like the mask,” and explained her IV wish. 

The anesthetist turned his attention to me and said an IV was a possibility but the mask was his first preference.  I told him it was not Laura’s.  He would see if it would work out.  He left.  There were tears in Laura’s eyes, but not on her cheeks.  She’s a resilient little girl.  And, the next person in the room was the child advocate.  Serendipity.

I explained the anesthetist was strongly in favor of the mask; Laura wanted a go at an IV.  Laura and her advocate had quite the chat about the ickiness of the inside of the mask, plus you must breathe at least five times before falling asleep.  Laura was very concerned the anesthetist would use the mask.  “Well,” said the advocate, “I’m going to suit up and go in there with you and tell him you do not want the mask!”

She left and the operating room nurse came to wheel the bed away.  She was a cheery nurse, chattering about the chap stick flavors, when our advocate came around the corner, dressed head to foot in a white suit.  Laura hopped down to give me a hug, hopped back up and went away with her operating room nurse and her advocate. 

I went back to the waiting room and read several chapters, until I was called to the recovery room.  There she was, eyes lids trying to flutter awake, but failing. There was a covering on an IV needle on the back of her hand! I sat down to read some more, and the advocate came in.  She leaned over the bed very near Laura’s ear and said “How did you like the IV?”  The eye lids fluttered a bit more, but no sound.  I tapped the advocate’s shoulder and pointed.  Laura’s thumb was straight up.

I hope you’re reading this, Jan

I was putting the wrap on last night when the sound of Toby attacking the coat tree to have Tom’s hat for his own came from the living room.  Turning on lights as I went, instead I found Ryon’s great behind sticking out of the waving stand of walking sticks crashing and clattering over his head.

“Get out of there!”  He backed out immediately, pursuing a very small mouse that moved along the wall’s edge like a wind-up toy, no visible legs.  I cursed quietly, not to wake up sleeping girls, and headed for the kitchen for a towel to drop over the little fellow.  Taking mental cat inventory, Purrl was out all evening, so I didn’t have him to blame.  There would be only two cats and me after this mouse.

The nimble left this grandma long ago; I could not move furniture or myself fast enough, or elbow two cats out of the way soon enough to capture a very young mouse that already knew rule one of houses:  hug the wall.  Twenty minutes in I wished for Purrl, who knows exactly how to dispatch a varmint. These two house softies were all wound up with a magnificent toy.

In the end I left the mouse to his own devices and went to bed.  It was midnight.  At six I woke up and saw Emily in the hall.  Behaving the good grandmother I asked if she wanted me to drive her to the corner and wait for the school bus.  “I’m OK, Grandma.  It’s not raining.” God love that little girl; I went back sleep.

I got up at seven and found Laura eating breakfast.  She put down her spoon and told me her adventure.  Toby had a mouse on her bed at midnight!  She grabbed the mouse tail to get it away and Toby bit her and grabbed the mouse again.  She hit Toby on the head with her book, but he ran away with the mouse.  She shut her door and went back to bed.  But Ryon scratched the door until she let him in.  He didn’t want petted so she let him out and shut the door and went back to bed.

There was no sign of a wound on Laura’s finger, but Grandma sent her to wash her hands really well, again, and went to the door to let Purrl in.  When I turned around, I read Emily’s note on the blackboard.

Then Laura and I drove to the corner in the pouring rain to wait for the school bus.

Remembering Angus and the UPS man

Jan is away at Quilting with Machines this week, Tom went home to southwestern Ohio for his brother’s wedding, and took Euba with him; the girls and I are home alone.  Laura and Emily have a list of things to remember posted on the cupboard door.  Bring in the mail.  Lock the doors.  Emily eyed the list with suspicion last night.  No cooking.  Grandma has that covered; a nice family restaurant down the road.  They will be so pleased.

The UPS man brought a delivery today, and took a biscuit from his pocket for Euba.  She took it away without even saying Thank You.  He looked sadly at her and said he missed those other two.

Euba

It’s been a year since Angus left to join Fiona.  They always heard the UPS truck pull in.  Two little faces were in the window as he came up the sidewalk, up the ramp, and rang the doorbell.  As if he needed to do that.  The barking and the jumping for joy alerted the house. 

Two biscuits were in his shirt pocket.  One went first to Fiona, who went straight to her place and kept her biscuit between her feet until long after Angus finished his.  She tormented Angus exquisitely.    Angus’ biscuit was next.  The UPS man broke it in half and gave Angus one at a time cautioning “Chew it up, now.”  Of course Angus swallowed them whole.

When no one was home the package and two biscuits were left on the little table on the porch. Two Cairns met the rude persons who had not been there for the delivery and herded them to the front door, clamoring for the biscuits on the front porch.

Fiona

One day the UPS man pulled out one biscuit and looked around.  “Where’s the little one?”  Jan explained Fiona had run the last great run of her bad heart the previous Saturday, and laid down and died. 

The poor fellow said “Oh.”  Blankly he handed Angus the biscuit in his hand.  Angus dispatched it in one swallow.  The UPS man turned and went back down the ramp, slowly patting the other biscuit in his pocket.  Jan watched him go, with no words to say.  Angus went down the ramp with him, bouncing on his Tigger springs.  You have another biscuit.  I could eat two!  The UPS man was still patting his pocket when he got back to his truck.

Angus

Soup that Dad made

When I was ten years old, sixty odd years ago,  the world was more calm than now.  We went to school, came home, went out to play.  Mom was always there when we went in the house; dads did not come home until supper time.

One day early in September I came home from fifth grade, ahead of my brother Walt in the third grade and Mel in kindergarten.  I always beat them home; they had too many rocks and sticks to handle, gutters to investigate.

My dad was home!  Not Mom.  Dad!  He said he was waiting for Grandma to come from Cleveland and sent me out to wait for my brothers.  Our Grandma worked too, in the baby department of the Higbee Department Store on Public Square in Cleveland. 

Grandma had not arrived when three kids gave over playing and trouped back into the house behaving like hungry children.  Our dad came into the kitchen and announced he would make supper for us.  This was such a novelty we stayed to watch.

Dad found a tall pot and filled it pretty full with water, put it on the stove, put on the lid, lighted the fire and waited for the pot to boil.  He took a package of ground beef from the refrigerator, broke it into chunks and put it in the pot.

He looked in the refrigerator for some vegetables to cut up into the pot.  All he found was a stalk of celery, so he cut most of that up and put it in.  While the meat and celery simmered he opened and closed cupboard doors until he found a package of macaroni.  He put that in, and stirred the pot occasionally.  Then he told us to set the table for soup, and we did.

That big pot of soup, with milk and bread, was the best soup we ever ate.  Then our grandma came and dad left.  Grandma cleaned the kitchen, then put us to bed.  The next morning we got up for school and Grandma told us we had a baby sister.

One night some time later one of the three of us who could talk asked for soup like Dad made for supper.  We had to explain the ingredients. “That’s just depression soup!” Mom sniffed.  We out clamored her, and there was Daddy Soup for supper.  Of Mom’s meals, Daddy Soup and Swiss steak with mashed potatoes were the meals we requested.

Daddy Soup persists, unchanged, past the Grandpa Soup generation.  It was Grandpa Soup, for years and still is; easier to say than Great-Grandpa Soup.  It has been experimented with, but returns to the original—ground beef, celery and pasta.  We had a big pot of Grandpa Soup on Jan’s birthday this week and told Laura and Emily why it is called Grandpa Soup.

Some of the Grandpa Soup generation, fall 1976. Michelle, Roy, John, Shelly, Beth and Dad.

Lost time

            

I’m looking behind the cushions and out in the garden.  In the meantime, Linda took this in the rain last Thursday.