Jim and I have 3 cats because we both have always had cats and love them.  Now we are told that pets make you live longer, a nice bonus.

 

Every cat has it's own distinctive personality.  And it learns how to get it's way with you early on.  They also keep time, and come and tell us when it is time for their canned food.  They start by sitting and staring.  You can pet them and they purr.  But if you take too long getting up to feed them they begin their plaintive meows.  Ours expect a small treat at bedtime and when we first get up in the morning.  We take all the meds that doctors have prescribed for us, and then give them their little bits.  By then they have jumped up on the bed expectantly.

 

Ayesha is a tiny little thing, a Balinese Blue Point.  She was a stray that some one dropped off or she got away.  We watched her all summer and she was skittish so we didn't try to feed her.  But in October jim and I were standing in the garage, and she came in rubbing our legs and purring.  Jim said "she's ours".  The vets said she was between 2 and 5 years old.  That makes her between 14 and 17 now.  She slips a lot when she jumps and shows her age in other ways.  But it is so funny, that when I sing, she comes running and gets right up to my face.  In winter when I wanted her for a lap warmer, all I had to do was sing and she'd run downstairs and jump up.  I liked to tease her and sing, "how much is that doggie in the window?"  She didn't seem to mind.

 

Willie ( William of Orange}  and his sister Tillie ( Matilda) joined us as 8 week olds in 2000 when we lost Tolliver and SiRacha of old age.  Willie and Tillie were supposed to be tabbies, but they grew up to be biggg, Maine Coons.  Willie, of course , is orange and the friendliest and only fellow.  But his tail is always curled up over his back and the tail touches the middle of his back.  I call him my teapot as he looks like he has a handle.

 

Tillie is what they call silver in color.  Sne is beautiful and very dainty.  She learned well from her feral mother to be afraid of everything.  If a car door closes out front she is upstairs in a steak like lightning.  Some times Willie will run too but unless there are children he will usually come back.

 

So this is our fur family.  They are spoiled with love and petting and intertain us with their antics.  So this is the story of the nest that emtied out 5 children, and brought in 3 cats.  

This morning I took Jim to church to run the sound system for Vacation Bible School.  The church had no air cooling.  Today our area hit 104 and Olympia got 106.  It is the hottest Seattle area ever got in 118 years of records.  And last night had the highest low, in the 90's.  So all the teachers and kids were trying to make the best of it.  I had to smile at their ingenuity.  There was one room set aside with cold drinks and snacks that teachers or children could go in any time they felt need of it.  Drinks including bottles of water were on ice but it did all melt before the morning was over.  Their recreation was two teams who had some large sponges that they would soak and throw at each other.  I don't know what the rules of the game were, but it must have helped to cool everyone off.

 

Outside on the other side of the church between two buildings, there were two large hoses raised up on posts, with large hoses attached to create huge mists and the kids could go and stand in it whenever they felt like it.  And they did.

 

There were no lights on in any of the rooms.  And all the doors were open, except mine.  (I was working at setting up a library system that would be useful.) I thought closing my door helped a little.

 

People were setting up snacks and drinks for the kids in a large fellowship hall, now called a youth room, in the dark, and it was dark.  Everyone seemed to survive but I was glad to get home afterward.

 

I had a long list of things I was going to do while Jim was at church this week.  They were errands that have accumulated as we took one day at a time with all the medical appointments.  It worked for two days!! :o)  I am so glad we have our heat pump.  The TV advertizes places people can go during the day to stay cool.  Only 13% of the residents in Seattle have A/C.  Every store sold out every thing they had in the way of fans and coolers.

 

Well tomorrow is another day and some day it will probably cool down, though not in the forseeable future.

 

Music is  a very real therapy for a lot of people, including me.  No matter what my mood or life concerns at any given moment, hearing music that I love makes me feel better.  Often in the evening when I come upstairs to my computer to visit with many friends and relatives on the web, I open Pandora.  Pandora is a free site where you write down some of your favorite singers, and they begin to play their songs and similar artists.  Each song you can click on "thumbs up" if you like it or "thumbs down" if you don't.  As time goes by you have developed something like radio stations of just the music you like.  One of my favorites is music from musicals like "South Pacific", "Oklahoma", and many others.  Another includes vocalists popular when I was younger, and throughout my life.  So I pick one and as I work, my spirit rises with the songs.  And this is free.  I believe it is one of the best things offered.  You can play it while you do other things, or even while relaxing with Solitaire or TriPeaks.  I offer this so that if you haven't tried it, you might want to pull it up and see what you think of it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two weeks ago my DH woke me say9ing he had terrible pain in his chest and couldn't breathe.  I called 911 and two ambulances came with 5 paramedics.They did an ecg right there in our bedroom and found he had atriole fibrilation.  We went to the hospital where they assigned him a hospital cardiologist.  He was not a good one.  We initially saw him in the ER.  He admitted him and we spent two days in the hospital.  They decided that the pain was from his hiatal hernia and acid reflux.  But they they couldn't figure out why the heart problem.  That doctor failed to leave permission for Jim to eat  and the nurses couldn't find him so Jim had nothing to eat for 26 hours.  Well that's only part of the story but needless to say we will not ever go back to that hospital. 

 

So we saw this doc one more time for about four minutes and he made a bunch of med changes.  Well we had read that you should not mix asperin and Ibuprofen.  He screwed up his regular meds and added two prescriptions.  He also wanted us to call and schedule an ultra sound, but by this time we were really concerned.  so we didn't do any of that.  Our MD was off last week so hey got us in today.  I handed her the prescriptions and she was shocked.  She said one of them would have been the worst thing for his acidic stomach.

 

She had an ecg done there and his heart was still eratic.  She arranged for more tests and I had already made an appointment with the Cardiologist that she had referred me t a fgew years ago and he was good.  Jim is to go on Cumadin or warferin, but it has to be managed.  so tomorrow, after he does the sound system for vacation church school, we have an appointment to see the people who specialize in that part of medicine.  And she had more blood tests done and has ordered an angiogram.  So the next few weeks we will be busy with the medical stuff.

 

The good news is mine.  The CPAP has really helped me get over much of the fatigue.  So I feel better most of the time.

 

The point of all this is that this is just one more instance where you have to have some knowledge of health issues, and if something doesn't seem right, follow your instincts or get another opinion.  We both thought5 we should not follow that doctor's orders and we are so glad we didn't.   

Saturday started out as a very special day.  Our grandson, wife, and our 15 month old great granddaughter were visiting from Utah.  So the local family came together for breakfast.  Three of our sons were there, a rare treat.  Also our other two great grandchildren and our granddaughter.  It was wonderful to watch everyone interact and hear about their latest activities and interests.  Our son Jim Jr. and his wife Suzy set it up.  It seems kind of strange that Jim Sr. and I are now the senior members of our family.  When did it happen?  When did we cease being the active ones raising our young ones. 

 

Well, this is the way it is.  I must say we are very lucky and I thank God daily for each and every one of our family, those near and those further away.  We are blessed to have people we are proud of, and who are so good to us.  In early October our away son and daughter will be here and hopefully we can all get together again.  God bless each of you who read this counting of blessings.