I feel like I have spent most of it seeking warm sun. I think that is how most of us in the northern hemisphere spend the first two quarters of the year, once we reach a certain age. The Middletown studio was virtually unlivable before May. And yet, I managed to get some pretty good work done there. That whole scenario helps to explain the ( Read more... )

I finally made it to the ICU yesterday afternoon, but, choosing to forego a lift from Big Bro' meant making a big navigating mistake on Google and winding up walking about two miles between two units of the same hospital that were on opposite ends of a Nassau County town ( Read more... )

February is the manic-depressive of all months. First of all, it doesn't even have a set number of days; every four years the Romans added an extra day. And, yet, it still comes up short. Even at 29 days it is still the shortest month of the year. Plus, it comes after January, after we've toughened up and February's cold and freezing weather no ( Read more... )

It's probably not a politically correct term (cultural appropriation?), but, to my generation it is an irresistible reminder of autumns past, when walks home from school turned too warm to wear a jacket and the only question was whether to tie it around your waist or stuff it into an already overstuffed book bag ( Read more... )

Today was a good day. The overcharge in Mom's pre-paid funeral bill has been rectified and a check for the surplus was forwarded to the cemetery to cover their burial bill. It was something that was casting a pall over the summer's events ever since the day of her viewing. For reasons I will never quite understand, the Funeral Director left us ( Read more... )

June has not augured well for Mom. A peaceful winter eased its way to an uplifting Mother's Day which was followed on May 20th (a Friday) by a rather successful afternoon spent in the nursing home garden, one of my favorite places on the planet. It was an astonishing 74 degrees of -0- humidity and windless sunshine.The caddy for Mom's oxygen tank ( Read more... )

I had a nice bus trip to the nursing home. I sat right in the middle of the rear row of seats, looking straight down the aisle and out the front window. I had a panoramic view of the little stone castles and faux English villages that lined the way of the route. The canopy above - or what's left of it after so many storms (including, Hurricane ( Read more... )

It's felt like forever since I visited Mom. Between RC support groups week, Sis's birthday and shopping for a new laptop (all those Trojan horse attacks finally caught up with the old one) a solid week had passed by. I finally geared up to set out to Flushing right after one of my own doctors appointments in Manhattan last Friday. It was the day ( Read more... )

December has been unusually mild and a lot of us are looking forward to our first "two month winter" in a long time. Visiting Mom has been a pleasure. I have discovered a new bus route to the nursing home that lets me off about a ten minute walk away. New Yorkers can never have too many alternate bus and subway routes at their command ( Read more... )

Visited Mom yesterday for only the second time since she was settled back in. She had just returned from the shower and I had to wait outside in the hall while they put her back into bed, reconnected all her tubes and generally tucked her in. Fifteen minutes later, the PA opened the door, pushing the old block and tackle in front of her. We greeted ( Read more... )