Beach Walk Thoughts – 4 November

I wrote this on 4 Nov but didn’t post it. After talking with Karen about blogs at Thanksgiving time I decided to post it.

I’ve been beach walking in the evenings now when the weather cooperates and it fits into our schedule. I usually head out around 3:30 ish walk for about an hour or so and come home. That timing has me leaving the beach at sunset and getting home in time for dinner.

Today I am walking on a portion of National Seashore stretching from Destin Pass to the West. There are a couple of people fishing here and a small family group up the beach – and that’s it. Destin Pass is about a mile and a half to the East and I usually walk there and back.


I usually start my walk just enjoying the sights, sounds and smell. I’m thankful that I can walk the beach, that my eye’s and ears work and that I finally have time to do this. It is truly a visual feast. There are few footprints in the sand. A cold front came through a couple of days ago and we’ve had a 10-15 Mph wind for 2 days. With the lack of footprints the sand has taken on a wavy pattern. There are brush strokes and strange formations around every stand of sea oats. I listen to the squeak of the sand with each step. The tide is coming in and each wave washes over the first hump of beach. The water gets trapped there until it finds a low point to rush back out to the Gulf. The water is nice and clear this time of year showing a lot of the emerald green color this area is known for.


After enjoying the natural beauty my mind usually drifts to deeper thoughts. This is my quiet time. Since it is Nov 4, Karen’s birthday, I think back to the day she was born. It wasn’t expected that the father be in the delivery room back then. It was starting to catch on but many doctors didn’t allow it. Ours did. Seeing Karen come into this world was truly a life changing experience. She looked all confused – like “Hey, put me back into that warm cozy place I was”. Two years later at Christy’s birth I was even more emotional because I had a better understanding of what a child meant to us. I also think about Sunshine and shed a few tears knowing she is getting very weak and won’t last much longer.


I have reached Destin Pass and climb up on the rocks of the jetty. It’s cool today with a brisk wind out of the north. The tide is flowing in at the pass – south to north against the direction of the wind. The pelicans have put this to good use. They coast on the wind looking for a meal from north to south. Then the land at the mouth of the pass and drift with the current back up to their starting point – very energy efficient!


There is a full moon today and it makes for a nice picture above the dunes and condos.

Walking back from the pass I am facing the now setting sun. It casts a reddish glow on the waves. I pass a family with a toddler. The dad is lying on his back flying a kite for the kid. There is a layer of cloud right along the horizon and it cuts the sun in two. We always say “somebody broked the sun” when it looks like this because that’s the way Karen described it when she was small. Since this is her birthday it’s a nice touch. The Sun elongates as it touches the horizon and the sky turns a brilliant red. Soon there is just a sliver of light and it is gone.

As I head back to the car I snap one more picture of the full moon. Beach walking is a nice combination of necessary exercise, thinking time and recreation.

Oral Surgery


Today was step 2 in my 3 step dental ordeal – the crown lengthening. The procedure was painless after the doctor filled me up with lidocane. I never had so many shots to numb the area, but they did do the job. The Doc had no bedside manner at all. He and his assistant chatted about the holidays while he worked on me. He said I didn't want to know what he was doing. They even covered my eyes with a cloth so I couldn’t see. He would periodically interrupt his banter to tell me to turn my head – but I didn’t realize he was talking to me and not his assistant – so he had to repeat the instructions a lot. He also didn’t say how it was going or how much work was left. I got as much feedback as a practice dummy would get. Apparently he did good work, but I didn’t like his style.


So now I have a bandage on the area they worked – it looks like silly putty. The periodontal post-surgical instructions are interesting.


1. Avoid physical activity, exercise, TALKING or other vigorous activity for 24 hours.
2. Do nothing that causes sudden strain for the first 24 hours.
3. Go home immediately and sit or lie in a slightly reclined position with your head elevated. (Once again the recliner to the rescue!) DO NOT LIE FLAT!
4. Do not use heat for 24 hours.
5. No hot drinks - don’t drink from a straw, warm but not hot soup is acceptable.
6. For the next seven days eat only very soft foods that require no chewing or biting.


There is a lot more, but those are the high points. I stopped on the way home and got a lot of soft food - yougurt, apple sauce, eggs, pudding, cottage cheese and jello. We still have some ice cream from the holiday but now I have an excuse to get more when that's gone.


It’s 10 PM now and my mouth is a little sore but not bad. I assume the pain medication is doing its job (I’m on Vicadin, Dr. House’s pain medication of choice). I’ll find out for sure how I am doing at 3 AM when it wears off.

Update: I didn't post this last night (no wi-fi card in the laptop) so I can update how the night went. The tooth is sore but no swelling has occurred. It's uncomfortable but not unbearable. So it is going well. I’m supposed to do very little today – I think I can handle that.

TRADITION!


What a great Thanksgiving weekend we had! Both daughters, our favorite son-in-law, and both granddogs were here and we did all our traditional activities and added a couple of new ones. Once again, the weather cooperated – as it has been doing for us all year – and we didn’t have to cancel any plans.


Wednesday

Everyone arrived safely on Wednesday evening. Penny cooked a pork roast for the arriving hungry travelers. Brie was relegated to our room to avoid being traumatized by all the “strangers” and dogs. She didn’t let Penny and I sleep in on Thanksgiving morning.

Thursday - Stuff the Turkeys

We did find that the turkey had defrosted after sitting in the fridge for 5days so after making everyone breakfast burritos Penny worked her magic preparing the Thanksgiving meal. Our traditional meal is turkey, dressing, gravy, sweet potato muggin, green beans, apple salad, cranberry sauce, biscuits, iced tea and wine. We saw, we ate, we full! Everything was great! Somehow with all the food on the table I missed the apple salad completely. After the meal came the traditional nap. Then Tim went on the telephone in search of someplace to watch the Kansas City game. Christy and Tim went out to see the game. Karen Penny and I stayed home and had pumpkin pie and whipped cream and/or ice cream for dinner. The day ended with planning a shopping strategy for Friday morning.


Friday – Hunter Gatherers

Penny and I got up at 3:45 AM on Friday. For once Brie was not the first one up. Turn-about is fair play! We got to Circuit City at 4:30 – our primary mission – to get a GPS nav system for Karen and Tim. The secondary goal was a big USB hard drive for us. Beyond that we would pick up whatever bargains we could on items we would use. Karen, Christy and Tim went to Target for their mission. It was a chilly morning – about 42 degrees – so everyone was bundled up. There were more than 200 people in line ahead of us and more than that behind us when the doors opened at 5 AM. Circuit City handed out vouchers for the big-ticket items to the 1st 50 people in line so there was no panic of people trying to get those items. The items we wanted were plentiful but if they weren’t Penny would have gotten them anyway. She is a master of holiday shopping. We got everything we wanted and then Penny got stuff for other people in the store as I waited in line.

We took our traditional walk on the beach and decided that we would bring the dogs to the beach on Saturday. We all enjoyed the clear emerald green water and mid temperatures. Later there was the normal consumption of leftovers – a repeat of the Thanksgiving dinner – for our evening meal. Karen, Tim and Christy went to a movie and I went to bed early – Getting up early finally caught up with me (I didn’t take a nap).


Saturday – Dogs Gone Wild!

After a hardy breakfast creation by Penny we packed the dogs in the car and went back to the beach. We got there early enough and went to a secluded part of the beach such that we had the whole beach to ourselves. The dogs loved it! Finn almost never stood still. He ran and splashed and swam and chased birds. Truman waded in and bit the waves as they splashed on him. Truman got so wrapped up with the beach that he forgot us and headed off down the beach and just kept going. Tim got in a good ½ mile run catching up with him.

After the beach we went to Harbor Docks our favorite restaurant for family get togethers. As usual it did not disappoint- good food, nice view, good service. We TiVoed the FL-FSU game and watched it when we got home. Christy was happy her team won.


We went shopping at Big Lots and Tuesday Morning (Instigated by Christy) on our way to eat dinner at Slick Mick’s. Then we finished the day by breaking out our Karaoke machine. Tim and Karen are good at karaoke. Penny did a slam bang “Joy to the World”. I was too shy to do much. Christy sent the devil on down to Georgia.


Sunday – Parting is such sweet sorrow

Sunday morning was blueberry pancakes and church. Then everyone gathered up their stuff and went home. Truman was making sure he didn’t get left behind – so much so that when our neighbor opened his car door Truman jumped in. We all hugged many times – and then it was over.


It took Brie a while to realize everyone had gone. She could still smell everyone. Now after 24 hours she is comfortable again.

I enjoyed the whole weekend and feel blessed that we could have the whole family together.

Smoke and Mirrors



My dental adventure continued today. I had a root canal. It’s probably been 15-20 years since I had my first root canal and the procedure has improved. The worst part of the whole procedure was the numbing shots at the beginning.



First they took digital X-rays – no film – instant results. The radiograph of the teeth is displayed on a flat screen and is visible to the patient for the doctor to explain what he does. After the procedure another radiograph is taken showing the finished root canal.

The doctor even has a sensor to tell him how deep the root is so he can’t go too far. They put a tent in your mouth and a chock between your teeth (so you don’t have to hold your mouth open).


During part of the procedure the doctor heats and melts some material to fill in the area where the root was. When he does this a little column of smoke rises from your mouth. So the job is literally smoke and mirrors!



I was in and out in about a half-hour. When I paid my bill I got a “free” root canal survivor T-shirt

Lory



Gas to drive to Tampa - $50

2-year Busch Gardens Passport - $169

nectar to feed the Lories - $2

Ear cleaning by a Lory – Priceless!

“Probing with their long, brush-tipped tongues, lories enjoy examining the eyes, ears and lips of their favorite person.”



The picture says it all. This Lory really liked me. After we fed it it jumped up on my shoulder and proceeded to clean my ear THOROUGHLY. You wouldn’t believe how long that feathered tongue is or how weird it feels cleaning your ear. After my ear the bird goes on Penny’s head and groomed her for a while. Then it went back to my other shoulder and proceeded to clean that ear.

There was an old Laugh-In line “Blow in my ear and I’ll follow you anywhere”. It was sort of neat having an animal interact that way. It made me want to have one as a pet. I bet Brie would like that!

The Best of Days, The Worst of Days

Yesterday was one of those days. It started with me waking up to discover that the tooth that had been bothering me finally revealed what was wrong. It had split in two and the loose part was hanging in there causing pain whenever it moved.

I went out to the Den to check on Sunshine and while she was still alive, she was looking bad. She had lost control of her rear legs and although she didn’t appear to be in pain she hadn’t eaten for over a week and was just literally skin and bones. She still was appreciative of attention and turned her head toward me so I would scratch it. I knew she would only get worse so I started preparing myself to have her euthanized.


Back to my tooth – I called my dentist and she told me to come right in. She said she expected me to dress appropriately – that meant I should wear my red dancing shoes. That should give you some idea of what type of person she is. After looking at the tooth she said she would have to extract it. I didn’t like that idea so I asked her if it could be saved. She said that if the tooth broke off to the side and not in half then maybe – but you would have to be awfully lucky for that. She juiced me up and yanked out the broken part of the tooth exclaiming, “You are a lucky, lucky man!” The tooth can be saved. All I need is a root canal, a crown lengthening procedure (actually cutting away gum and bone to make better room for the crown to fit on the tooth) and then to have a post put in and a crown applied. Cha-ching! So, I’ve got appointments with 3 dentists to have all that done by the end of the year.


I didn’t like the idea of all that dental work, but at least I would have a solid tooth instead of some sort of appliance. By now I was pretty depressed. It was a dreary rainy day, I knew I had to do something about Sunshine before she went into bad pain and I was facing lots of time in the dentist’s chair. But God was watching out for me. As I left the dentist’s and walked to my car, the clouds broke just enough to let some sunshine through. A beautiful rainbow appeared just for a few minutes. This type of thing has happened before. I take it as reassurance I was doing the right thing and a reminder to have a little faith in him. As I drove home in the rain, I gathered up the will to do the job.


It is hard not to feel like you are betraying the trust that an animal has had with you to take care of it and protect it. Brie, for example, wont trust anyone but Penny and I (and to some degree Christy). So being the one to make the decision and bring our 16-year-old companion to her death was very, very difficult.


After Sushine was put to sleep I wrapped her body in one of Karen’s old shirts and buried her beside Friskie and Allie in our side yard.


Today Brie is visibly upset. She goes around the house meowing looking for Sunshine. She sniffs everywhere that Sunshine was in the last week – even the litter pan, and wanders around in a confused manner not knowing why her friend is gone.


So why was yesterday also the best of days. It’s because we saw Christy. She had to turn in a bid in Tallahassee so we drove over and had dinner with her at Applebee’s. Sorry to say her company did not win the contract but Christy looked good and we enjoyed our time together. We also found out yesterday that the kids are coming home for Thanksgiving.


Hopefully today will be just a normal day or if is going to be some extreme I would much rather have just one of those “best of days”.

November

November 2 is the 306th day of the year (307th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 59 days remaining.


Today I turn 58! That’s getting uncomfortably close to 60. The good news is that for the past year my health has improved rather than degraded. My left shoulder is almost completely pain-free and my strength is good. The right shoulder still hurts – but it is noticeably less each day and no longer wakes me up at 3:30 AM. I figure that in another month or for sure by the end of the year I will be pain free and have normal strength and range of motion in both arms.


My other health issue, my back, is also doing well. I’m back to beach walking with the beautiful weather we are having. Today, after walking 3 miles on the beach, I actually felt good. It used to hurt at least a little with every step I took. After walking that far it would have hurt more than a little. It was nice to feel good. There was a nice sunset too.


So I’m optimistic for year 58. Check back in a year and we will see how I feel about 59.