trip to NC
I went to NC again this past weekend to visit my Mom and help a bit with household things. She seems fine puttering around the house, but she still tires easily, and she hasn't been doing any yard work. The nebulizer treatments are done, and she's been better about drinking more water, along with tea and other beverages. She's avoiding driving, although she did take herself to a doctor's appointment. (Her doctors pretty reliably leave their patients waiting, and Mom doesn't want to make her friends who would drive her have to sit around and wait too.)
My Mom watches a lot of TV. She turns it on almost first thing when she gets up, and it's on 'till she goes to bed. She turns it down when she's on the phone, but when people visit it just plays through - and that seems to be expected. (I turned it down once, and the guest asked my Mom what was wrong with the TV!) She watches a lot of sports. These 2 trips down I've seen football, tennis, golf, and women's 2-on-2 arena "beach" volleyball. (I guess she's not much for baseball and NASCAR.) She was a college phys-ed/modern-dance teacher when I was a kid. And she watches game shows, and the news. Normally, I don't watch any of that. (I do listen to a lot of NPR (radio) news.) Some of the game shows have some educational content, but at a fairly low density considering the time they take. Others require knowing things I'd consider a waste of synapses. And I've seen a lot of commercials. I can skip them at home because I watch recorded shows.
Oh, as for sports there was the big news of Appalachian State Univ (Boone, NC) beating Michigan in football (34-32). That's really big news in NC. I do have a connection - I spent a weekend there in 9th grade when I was in the NC All-State Orchestra. (I also had one of my worst nosebleeds ever that weekend, and I spent hours in their infirmary.)
It hasn't rained in NC for weeks, so the lawn hasn't needed mowing. The lakes are down, and they're restricting water use.
I took Mom shopping Sunday. There were a heck of a lot of sale flyers in the Sunday paper. I grabbed some coupons that she didn't want but anniemal might, and some ads for things that might be useful for Pennsic next year - not to buy any time soon, but to keep in mind for later.
We went to A.C. Moore (crafts store) because Mom had a coupon. She got a mat for framing a picture. (She's been selling photos at craft shows and flea markets for the last few years.) Then we went to K-mart, mostly for groceries. We saw Keebler Danish Wedding Cookies, an old favorite I haven't seen in a store for years. We got a couple of boxes. Walking around these stores is probably the most excercise Mom has had in weeks.
I tried to put a college-alumni license-plate frame on my Mom's car for her. Unfortunately, the frame covers up the state name on NC license plates. It works fine for license plates which have the state name at the top of the plate, like Virginia (where she went to college), but that doesn't help.
My brother wired a socket onto a broken extension cord on his last trip down there, but he wasn't sure he'd gotten the polarity right. I guess he never noticed the (DMM) test meter in the bedroom, or he could have checked it himself. As it turned out, the wires were crossed (50/50 chance), so I took it apart and re-did it.
I took our second home-grown cantaloupe to NC. It wasn't quite as ripe as we thought, so I'm glad we didn't pick any others yet.
Several years ago anniemal and I bought an insulated plastic dog house for our outdoor cat, Roo. (He became an outdoor cat because he wasn't consistent with the indoor litter box.) After Roo (got old and) died we decided the doghouse might be more useful at my Mom's house. She usually has a dog (although she doesn't at the moment, but she's likely to get one again), and the old doghouse is something my father built. It was once pretty nice, but it's probably 40 years old now, and it's very shabby. The new one is sturdy, dry, and easy to clean (the top lifts off).
One other sale we got to was Sears, for small Craftsman pliers on sale for half price. These are the pliers my chainmail-class instructor is fond of. Decent quality, and Sears has unlimited guaranteed replacement. They have more comfortable handles than the cheaper pliers, box joints, and a light spring action. I've been working on anniemal's Pennsic badge necklace while I "watch" TV. It's slower going than the one I made myself in July because the rings are smaller - they're harder to form, and there will need to be more of them to cover the length.