Perhaps I should sleep less

When I was in rehab for various broken bones, I had the aids find extra pillows to prop up my legs, keep my heels off the bed.  After eight hours on my back, because I couldn’t sleep on my side because of broken bones, or the other side because of “terminal osteoarthritis”, geeze, did my heels hurt! Probably I could have sourced a pair of those foam heel protectors, but they are damn hot. So I hit on a pillow under my legs, and slept until I woke up.

I’ve been home from rehab since mid November; six weeks, and waking up miserable most nights from aching heels. At Ann’s I remembered the pillow trick, and scored another pillow. Actually, I intended to write a post about the pillows, and her kitchen towels. Ann and Pat were married twenty five years ago, and we gave them handwoven stuff.

Mom was still alive back then, and would not tolerate a sewing machine if she could hand hem something. We occasionally made pillow cases then. Mom made herself happy by hemstitch hemming them. I doubt any customer realized what they were getting.

My sister wove a lot of dishtowels, too, mainly to experiment for the future use of overshot patterns. This is a twenty five year old dishtowel. The woven pattern is called “dogwood”.  Ann uses a dishtowel one day, and consigns it to the laundry. This towel probably has been through the washer and dryer a thousand times in the last twenty five years. The dogwood flower pattern is woven with carpet warp, and pretty faded, but the towel still does its towel job.

That was a sidebar. I decided I needed a new pillow, to use the old pillow to keep my heels off the sheets. Amazon delivered it today, together with a new set of pillowcases. The pillow was rolled, bedroll style, in the plastic cylinder, flatter than a pancake. We got it out, and in the pillowcase. Eventually I turned around and looked, and assumed it had taken on its load of air. That was three hours ago. It’s even bigger now.

I wonder if it will toss me out of bed tonight.

Heavy weather

We flew to Wisconsin for Christmas, to spend time with Ann and Pat. I went to a month before Christmas to book tickets. I toyed that long with the possibility of driving, after realizing there no longer is a direct flight from Akron or Cleveland to Milwaukee. 

As I sat diddling with the screens, weighing a layover in Charlotte, Detroit, or Chicago, the price went up a hundred dollars. Flash, just like that. A hundred bucks. My finger twitched, and we were on American, laying over in Charlotte.

I made a mistake booking an 11 a.m. flight, not an 8:30 a.m. flight. There was little freeway traffic, no airport congestion. The flight was seven hours, including layover. Driving would have been exactly the same, including the distance from the airport to Ann’s house. A direct flight would have been two to three hours.

Speed at the airport would have been significantly diminished without the wheelchair. Wheelchair service seems to have become a standard airport business, since I had that stroke eight or nine years ago, and waited twenty minutes for the pre-ordered chair to arrive at the gate.  Now the one I order is there, or hustling on up. The best thing about chairs is, they go to the head of the line, or better yet, to the TSA gate, where there is no line.

When we left Milwaukee for home, Wednesday night, Laura’s boarding pass announced TSA Precheck. The counter agent looked at it several times, then said Laura had been randomly selected.  

Our baggage was scanned, and Laura was summoned back from the seating area. The agent asked her to open her suitcase and show the bag of round objects. Hamilton’s bag of jelly beans was examined front and back, and she and our luggage were excused.

The chair only takes me to the head of the line. I used to set off two alarms, my titanium hip and my titanium neck. Now my new shoulder rings another bell, and eight or ten inches of new leg metal rings a lot of bells. Miss Prechecked sat and waited.

At the gate, a new gate was announced. At the new gate, a new time was announced. Heavy weather on the coast was delaying incoming flights, and one of those, from Charlotte, was our connecting flight back to Charlotte, then to Akron.  I explained the problem of missing the flight out of Charlotte, and was told it was raining so hard there, we would do more than miss the flight. The ticket agent offered us a bus ride to Chicago O’Hare to connect to Akron.

The agent assured me there was more than enough time for a bus trip from Milwaukee, Wisconsin to Chicago, Illinois, to catch the last plane to Akron, including four detours off the interstate to pick up passengers. She was correct; we reached the counter with ten minutes to spare. 

There was no plane at the gate; it was late from Charlotte. But, it did arrive, and we were home and in bed by midnight, only an hour late, and, according to Ann, just a mundane adventure later.

The newly waning moon, through the airplane window, above the rain from the coast. I still need to call American and see if there is a refund for the difference between bus fare and air fare.

Brexit and Brump

             

Current events have me re-reading World War II memoirs, notes, analysis, I think for the purpose of strengthening in my mind the relationship and bond between America and Britain. I wonder who knows where our ships of state will drift.

As you know, I think Britain’s exit from the European Union is a mistake. I think the election of our current president, Trump, is a mistake. Both were attempts to return a sense of nationhood to the majority who voted.

Isolation is no longer a solution. It wasn’t in World War I, either, but it took ships a lot longer to cross an ocean then, and planes barely could. As for our current situations, the cat’s among the pigeons, as the saying goes.

If Britain attempts to force a new referendum on Brexit, the rule of law, their constitution is undermined. Then they might as well try for two out of three. I think get on with it. Exit on March 31^st and see what the members of Parliament can do to make it more palatable. But do it.

This country has got on with it with Brump. It’s not fun; it’s good for very few. A solution is coming: 109 weeks down, 98 weeks to the presidential election. Our opportunity to redirect the ship of state.

The outcome of Brexit can only be known in giving it a try; make the effort. If it’s as ill-fitting as Brump has been over here, re-join the EU.

Don’t say it’s harder than that. Of course it is. Life is hard. Solutions are hard.

People are dying from Brump. Jobs gone, lives changed, countries changed. But make changes through agreed upon rules of engagement. There are too many problems to re-solve. Starting at GO with revolution is no solution. Laying a course from here forward can be.

I don’t know why I shoved these words and paragraphs together. Perhaps to draw the straight path up to the madness. Neither country is ready for the chaos that will ensue. Like us, I think, Britain is not prepared. Time’s up. Who will clear the next border export? Can that ship come into port? Whoops, the mail’s piling up.

Who will pay to Secret Service to guard the president? Hell’s bells, how will we last the 109 weeks? That damn Paul Ryan, announcing there will be a shutdown if there is no wall, and how many of those lame ducks will come back to vote, one way or another.

And in the meantime, we get up in the morning, go to bed at night, feed the dog and cat, make supper. Come on, you government guys. Load the dishwasher. Put the laundry in the dryer!

Let’s all have a happy Christmas, and see you when it’s over. Perhaps there will be a glimmer then.

Desultory day

I could have packed today, but still having tomorrow, little point. I'm certainly not the person I used to be.

Laundry was on my list, for a couple of days. Transporting even my little basket through two rooms, one handed, isn't fun. For a while I used the rollator, and that was convenient, save my great dislike of the thing. So easy to roll anything about the house. It's what I took to DC, so I could sit while the girls went off visiting Lincoln, Washington, and so forth and so on. That ended badly.

Actually, the rollator would be so convenient to use, except  it's so heavy and awkward. I cannot lift it into my car by myself, for instance, and once I  grew accustomed to two trips to transport my breakfast one handed I just was tired of seeing it hanging around the living room. I had Laura put it back in the shed, and I hone my one handed skills.

On one trip to the laundry room I noticed a package at my neighbor's door, across the way. On another trip, the package remained, so I called Cathy. "You have a package!" and we kept on chatting while she retrieved and opened it. Then a cry of dismay. Nothing she had ordered. The big reveal; it belonged one street over. Christmas will be over soon, and we hope Amazon delivery will improve after that.

I spent some of the day weaving. All my current stock is gone except one person I have not heard from, and one pair of pea green towels. I just realized the color is similar to this piece of packing tissue I ironed and hung on the wall. 

While exploring the whimsy, this little vase on the sewing table qualifies. While in Wisconsin last summer, we spent some time at a town with art shops down one side of the hill and back up the other. One studio made things from things. Laura came away with a picture frame from construction materials, and bolts and nails and all manner of one man's trash.

There was a box in the back of the room that said FREE, and full of things deemed useless detritus. This pretty little vase was both unbroken, and cheerful. The price was right, and I had a use for it. The shopkeeper even wrapped it in newspaper to protect it from all the metal parts of the picture frame in our bag. 

A beautiful day today

   

Total sunshine today. I took a new header picture of the corkscrew willow, without broody grey background weather.

Another hard day of pinochle. Nancy returned from Texas “at a reasonable hour!” (11 pm last night; “I booked it that way!”), but yawned a good deal, which didn’t affect the score. We lost by about fifteen points. Each side took a set back, but it was a day of decent cards and great play.

Next week is a toss up for playing.  Tuesday, of course, is Christmas Day, and Laura and I get back from Wisconsin about 8 at night on Wednesday. A reasonable hour to be rested for playing Thursday or Friday.

I was laughing with Yam yesterday; there is a drain in my brain, for the exclusive use of nouns knocked loose by those two brain injuries. Nouns I want to use can go over the edge faster than lemmings over a cliff. Yam posted a series of pictures that included a dried hydrangea, posed near a reindeer (tis the season). I could not put my finger on hydrangea, hard as I tried, so I did my usual google trick, and asked. It said its best guess for the picture was reindeer. So much for AI.

This is all to say I hope I have accomplished all I must do to leave. The techiest part is delivering the cat to the boarder on time, in the morning or evening time slot.

I also must stop questioning myself on a 7:30 a.m. pick-up by my sister for the drive to the airport. AKC is normally a half hour drive, but she points out it’s rush hour. Our departure is 11 a.m., and even though it’s our little regional airport, it probably is a good idea to give us a three hour window.

I have a book to read, a Robin Williams biography. If I don’t like it, I’m also taking Michelle Obama’s book, for another read before I leave it at Ann’s, for her library.

Three houses in a row in town have a continuous display. This is one only, and not up the other side of the house. Ho Ho Ho.