Altoona, IA - Beatles to the Bard

WHEN I’M 64

When I get older, losing my hair, many years from now
Will you still be sending me a valentine, birthday greetings, bottle of wine?
If I'd been out 'til quarter to three, would you lock the door?
Will you still need me, will you still feed me when I'm sixty-four?

You'll be older too
And, and if you say the word, I could stay with you

I could be handy, mending a fuse when your lights have gone
You can knit a sweater by the fireside, Sunday mornings, go for a ride
Doing the garden, digging the weeds, who could ask for more?
Will you still need me, will you still feed me when I'm sixty-four?

Every summer we can rent a cottage
In the Isle of Wight if it's not too dear
We shall scrimp and save
And, grandchildren on your knee, Vera, Chuck and Dave

Send me a postcard, drop me a line stating point of view
Indicate precisely what you mean to say, yours sincerely wasting away
Give me your answer, fill in a form, mine forever more
Will you still need me, will you still feed me when I'm sixty-four?

                        The Beatles

I remember when these lyrics were darling, quaint even, but they certainly weren’t pertinent to my life. Cute tune, cute lyrics, foot tapping, but 64 was so far away that I couldn’t even imagine being that age. Even my parents weren’t that old. Only grandparents were 64 and you knew they didn’t have any thoughts like these - they were just nice, lovable old people. Now 64 is in the rear view mirror and I’m wondering how it all happened. Much faster than I thought at the time.

My favorite line is the coy, sly reminder: ‘you’ll be older, too.’

I’ve heard that time passes quickly when you’re having fun - and who wants it to pass so quickly? Thus, the solution is to not have fun and your life will pass slowly so you can enjoy it more. Hmmm - let me think about the logic of that.

I’M NOT COOKING THIS AGAIN

Do you even wonder how some published recipes ever get recommended? How did some one ever like that dish well enough to publish it for others to try? ‘My family really enjoys this meal. It’s quick to prepare (and yummy) when you’re running late. You’ll love the easy cleanup, too. ‘ Or ‘Every time I take this dish to church or school functions, people ask me for the recipe.’ So, I made one of these dishes. Not only did we not like the dish, well, OK, it’s not that we didn’t like it, it was just tasteless with nothing to like or dislike, but I think I used every pot and pan in the house to prepare it. Tasteless meal, long clean-up. Yep, just what I like in a recipe. Well, at least, I tried it on us before I tried it on others. Back to the tried and true.

GARY’S WORKSHOP

Obviously, living in a motorhome is a compromise. It’s a small tin box, you have to get along since there is no where else to go to cool off. You can’t go to another room, much less another floor to have some alone time. Gary has lots of tools with us and he uses them all. He’s pretty handy and I’ve shown examples of his work in previous blog posts. However, he does lament the fact that he does not have a workroom for some tasks. Now, he’s replacing the floor we had (see 9/27 blog post) and has actually been working out side to cut the vinyl tiles and to work on them where he doesn’t spread any dust in the house. Well, today it rained all day and working outside with power tools is not the wisest. And, here’s his new workroom. He’s set up a ‘sawhorse’ with two plastic storage boxes and had stretched one of our new flooring pieces across it, held in place with two clamps so he can saw it. That blue stuff is the underlayment we’re putting down but here it is protecting the floor he has already put down. Maybe you think this looks like our bedroom but, no, it’s a workroom. Every project has opportunities to create a mess and this project is not any different. However, you can always clean. A vacuum cleaner, a dust rag, a mop all do wonders to a mess.

Here are some other pictures of the new flooring going in. First, we removed the old flooring which was glued down and now we have a sticky plywood subfloor. We bought some of that plastic that they put in new homes to protect the carpet and laid this down throughout the RV. Pretty green, isn’t it? You can see the new flooring going down on the left under the table.

Some of the glue was so thick and so sticky and lumpy that, after I scraped it as much as I could,  I bought some of those plastic cutting boards in Target and cut them up to cover the stickum. Pretty art work don’t you think? I'm ready for the Louvre to call me. Luckily it will all be covered with the underlayment and the new flooring. Oops, where is the driver’s chair? Gary says he wants to stand as he drives from now on. Ha ha.

Here the flooring is not level with the hatch covers to the diesel motor under the floor in the bedroom. Gary has taped some of the underlayment together to step up to the higher level gradually. The new floor will go over this.

Obviously we had to move the furniture around so we could work on different parts of the floor. Here we’ve moved the sofa away from the wall on the left so we can lay the new flooring down there. Makes a nice comfortable seat for me.

But, here is the final look.

I will admit that we did have about 4 weeks of chaos (and part of that time I was recovering from my hernia surgery) but now we really like the new look. It’s much lighter, reflects the sun, will not show the dirt so much and matches the furniture.

HERNIA

Today was 10 days after my surgery and I had an appointment to see the doctor for a follow-up visit to see how I am doing. I have resumed my walking schedule and am putting in about 4 hours a day, I stopped taking the paid medication last Sunday and I am feeling fine. However, I am still a bit black and blue in some rather private areas, my abdomen is a bit tender to the touch and where Dr. Grossman made the 3 incisions on my waist still are also tender. Not only that, but the tape them put on the small gauze patches they put on the incisions won’t come off. ‘Will fall off on their own’ is what the nurse wrote on my Post-Operative Instructions. ‘Fall off on their own’ my foot. This is hundred year tape, and hasn’t shown any indication that it will ‘fall off’ without some help. Even showers haven’t shown any propensity to dislodge this tape. As I said in a previous blog, I fully expect Dr. Grossman to say ‘let me look at the incisions’ and want to take the tape of then and there. Ooh.

But, he didn’t even want to look at anything. He just asked how I was doing. I said fine and asked about when the tape might ‘fall off.’ ‘Oh, you can take the tape off’ he said. The stitches I put in the incisions have healed over and they will come off on their own but you’ll never notice. Yeah, that tape is pretty sticky he admitted.

Let me recommend Dr. Paul Grossman to anyone who needs surgery in the Des Moines area. Very good. He explains it all, answers all questions fully and, most important, does a great job. Both Gary and I have been extremely pleased. Even though - I really don’t want to see him again. 2 hernias in one lifetime are 2 too many.

By the way, the pain medication that I was on was oxycontin, which, I understand is in high demand - and not by patients. Thus, I wasn’t sure how to dispose of it. Firstly, it is a narcotic and a highly prized drug in certain circles. Secondly, I certainly didn’t want it to get into the water supply. Thus, disposal is a problem. I called the drugstore from which I got it and they said that their annual disposal day was last month and the next one is in 3 months. They suggested that I could take it to the police station or to the hazardous waste disposal area, which is actually just a few miles away. They also said that I could crush it up and put it into used kitty litter or into coffee grounds and then into the trash for disposal in a lined land fill. So, there I was, opening up the little K-Cups, scraping out the grounds, piling them in a empty milk container and adding the oxycontin for a potent mixture. I felt like one of the 3 witches in Macbeth.

‘Eye of newt, and toe of frog,

Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,

Adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting,

Lizard's leg, and howlet's wing,--

For a charm of powerful trouble,

Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.’

                        Shakespeare