BFFs for Life

As we get older, our world gradually shrinks.  First it is the grandparents that you may not have known so well.  Then, eventually your parents and your significant other's parents.  Your siblings and friends from school start to die.  And with each death, your circle gets smaller.  Maybe you realize that people who took for granted are no longer here.  You can't just pick up the phone for an hour long chat after not talking for months.

I grew up on the grounds of a state mental hospital in NC.  It happened that there were a lot of kids also growing up there, many in my age group.  The first house we lived in was in a row of five houses that were bounded by Highway581 on one side and the Little River on the other.  As little kids, we had to stay more or less in those boundaries.  Kathy Hooks lived with her family in the house closest to the river.  I lived in the second house from 581.  Predictably, Kathy and I became friends.  She is pictured above with me and five of my siblings. 

The joys of having a BFF

My best friend from childhood died today. I am beyond sad. We had known each other since we were little kids, growing up at Cherry Hospital.  She and her family lived three houses down from us, in the house closest to the river.  Because we were limited to playing in the small area between the river and Highway 581, we inevitably became friends.  There were three kids in the Hooks family and , eventually, nine Abbott kids.  Kathy liked to tell the story of how she saved my brother, Billy, from drowning when he fell into the river above the dam and she pulled him out while my sister, Betty, went running home.  I was not in on this adventure as I was too young.  I was frequently at the Hooks' house.  Kathy was a bit of a bully to me in those years.  I can remember being up of the roof of her garage when it came time for me to go home.  Kathy climbed down the ladder and then took it away.  She didn't want me to go home but I didn't dare piss off my mother.  So I did the only thing I could - I jumped off the roof.  If we were in her room and I tried to go home, she wouldn't let me leave until I sang "O Holy Night", a difficult song for even those with a talent for singing.  I had no such talent and she would stand there laughing until I sang the whole song.  When my family moved to a bigger house on the other side of 581, she was bummed.  She and I broke into the old house and painted graffiti everywhere - things like Devil's Angels were here and such.  I was 10 and she was 11.  We got in trouble for that one. One Halloween, we were throwing raw eggs at passing cars.  One car slammed to a stop and started backing up.  We took off running to her house.  The car pulled into the driveway of her house as we hid in her room with all the lights off.  That was a close one!
Kathy got me a passing grade in senior English with Mrs. Osbourne.  I was in over my head and she would stay up with me before a test and spoon feed the info into my hollow head.  We promised to be in each other's wedding.
Over the years we were not often in contact.  I would see her every several years or so.  I was at her house once when she was married to her first husband.  This was probably 1974.  She came to DC in the late 70's to do some shopping for an event in Goldsboro.  She was staying in Georgetown so I met her there and we went out for a good time.  When it was late and she was hungry, she went to one of the few restaurants open at 3 AM.  She ordered steak tartare.  When the waiter brought her food, she looked at it in horror and said, "I can't eat that!  That steak is raw." The waiter looked at her and said, "What did you think steak tartare was?"
She and her second husband visited us in VA in July of 1983 or 4.  We did the DC tourist thing in 98 degree heat.  Her plans for her third (and last) wedding were scuttled by Hurricane Fran in 1996 but she was able to put together another wedding and reception in just 3 weeks time.
I could go on and on about the adventures we shared over the years, alone or with our husbands.  We planned as old ladies to get a place at the beach together and take care of each other.  We could talk for hours, usually laughing just as much as talking.  I don't know who I'll talk to now.

The fun of modern day flying

We just got back from a flight to Michigan to see the grandkids.  Flying today is very reminiscent of taking the Greyhound bus in the 60's.  And just about as pleasant.  We are always TSA pre-checked so we can go to the short line through security.  But Richard always has to wear his high top shoes with 48" laces that are almost impossible to get off and on.  Then he sets off the metal detector.  So he empties his pockets (and they throw away his pocket knife) and then he has to take his belt off and eventually take his clodhoppers off.  He is 77 and all this activity wears him out.  Meanwhile, I have breezed through and collected his bag and his coat and his shoes and wait 10 minutes or so for him to get through security.  Thank goodness we always show up early.  We flew from Myrtle Beach to NYC and gathered up our stuff to find our next gate.  Luckily, I asked before we actually got off the plane because that same plane was continuing to Detroit.  Why this was never mentioned is a mystery to me.
From NYC to Detroit, I sat next to a very talkative man who was flying to Michigan to help his 85 year old mother get moved to Naples, Fl.  I found out that he has one 16 year old son who was conceived through IVF.  He makes a lot of money, lives in Rye, NY, his wife was 42 when their son was born.  The boy goes to Fordham Prep instead of the nearby high school in Rye because his wife thinks he needs to be taught by Jesuits.  His mother currently lives on a lake with  gorgeous view so he convinced her to move to a retirement home with a good view even if the entrance fee is $1,000,000.  She can afford it.  There was no stopping his mouth.  when we go off the plane, I told him to say "hello" to his mother for me.  I felt like part of the family.

Crusing and learning

I just got back from my first - and perhaps my last - cruise.  I know many people who cruise frequently and love it.  I got the opportunity to cruise with some friends from western PA, people I used to work with in labor and delivery.  There was a group of L&D nurses going on this cruise to attend an educational workshop and earn CEUs.  Since I am retired, I opted out of the educational portion.  We went on the Harmony of the Seas, the largest cruise ship in the world.  That means it holds a lot of people, 6500 passengers and 2500 staff.  Does the term "herding cattle" mean anything? We left Port everglades in Florida on Saturday afternoon and docked at Nassau the next morning.  Since it was early Sunday, all the stores were closed when we got off the ship, although some would open at 10:30.  We were not staying long so we rushed to take a tour that included some beach time.  I understood nothing of what our guide said and I couldn't really see any of the things he was pointing out.  At the beach, which was beautiful, we slathered up with sunscreen and set out to enjoy the water.  But the water was a little rough for swimming at this particular place and it had a steep drop off, so we didn't actually get in the water much.  We had to be back on the ship by 2:00 pm so there was not much we could do.  The next stop was Charlotte Amalie at St. Thomas.  We booked an excursion for a tour and a stop at the beach of Magen's Bay.  Again, the tour was not so informative but Magen's Bay was nice.  We actually went to the beach first which meant we were in wet bathing suits when we headed to Blackbeard's Castle.  After that, we were on our own to find our way back to the ship as return transportation was not provided.  Day 5 was a stop at St. Kitts.  Another unintelligible tour ensued.  It was hot and humid and I felt sick most of the day.  The best part of St. Kitts was the shopping. Days 6 & 7 were the best days as we were at sea and I could just relax by the pool, do some Zumba, finish reading my Margaret Maron book.  There were lots of activities on board, many at the same time.  There were also many that were not well publicized, like the Zumba class.  I only did half of it because the deck was too crowded.  The pools were also very crowded after 10:00 AM. It was on day seven that we tried the enclosed water slide (did NOT like) and I attempted to climb the rock wall (didn't get very far).  We donated to the WWF and got turtle tee shirts.  As far the entertainment on board, the less said, the better.  Columbus the Musical, about a distant cousin of Christopher named Marvin Columbus was the stupidest thing I have ever seen.  Grease was vulgar and not at all like the original and the stand up comics were OK.  The ventriloquist got raves from those who caught the show but, by the time I heard about him, he had left the ship in St. Kitts.  One acrobatic show had to be cancelled because of rough seas.    The highlights were the fitness center, the fact that I didn't have to fix any meals and the mostly beautiful weather.  Not to mention the outstanding waitstaff in the dining room.  For me, a better vacation would be to fly to a tropical paradise and stay put in one place for a week.  Remind me of this if I ever think about going on another cruise.

What happened to the Christmas Letter?

I was looking through some old papers that I have saved for many years.  A lot of what I saved are Christmas letters from friends and relatives.  I also have some handwritten letters from older relatives, like Uncle Al and Aunt Connie.  I re-read them all as I tried to decide what to keep and what to throw away.  And I realized that I haven't gotten a Christmas letter in years - nor have I sent one out.  There were several from Jessica's godparents and, then, just her godfather after Peg Sante died.  Now Pete has also died so.  A friend from nursing school apparently had the smartest kids in the world and didn't mind letting everyone know.  They were valedictorians in high school and then went on the multiple degrees in Ivy League schools while she worked with at-risk populations of pregnant women and girls.  Hard to live up to that.  My sister-in-law used to send out missives updating the family on the exploits of her two daughters and kept us abreast of what our brother was doing.  I was not crazy about the Christmas letters but I sent them anyway as a means of keeping in touch with family and friends.  Now with Facebook and emails, it just doesn't seem as important.  But I miss them.  Be on the lookout for a letter this Christmas - that is if I send out cards.

Mood Swings

It has been a wonderful day so far for me.  I managed to get out of the parking lot and to the gym to try the cardio dance class.  As soon as I saw the skinny young women with no boobs, I started to suspect I was out of my league.  I lasted 50 minutes though, but left early enough that no one would have to call 911.  Then I had to fight the Seafood Festival crowd to get home.  My street has been blocked off due to the festival, but I made a point of telling the guard when I left that I would be back at 11:30 or so.
  After a quick shower, Richard and I went to the festival.

The sun was shining brightly, no clouds and only a little standing water here and there.  There was a nice breeze to keep things comfortable.  I had not eaten yet so I checked out the various food booths and opted for fried clams and fries.  Big mistake because I am never going to find clams as good as the ones I used to get at Nantasket Beach.  After checking out most everything, we settled into a couple of bar stools at Tight Lines Pub and enjoyed some adult beverages.  Then I made one more pass through the festival crowd and back home.  I checked out the Weather Channel briefly and all they had was the gloom and doom stuff that would make anyone not here think we might be in mortal danger.   It was only later that my thighs started to scream at me, protesting all the squats we did in class.  But still, it has been a very good day.  I love the fact that I can wear a tank top, shorts and sandals in October.  I love the water views.  I love the simplicity of renting.
The problem will be tomorrow when my mood swings back the other way and I start questioning my judgement in moving and despairing of what my next step will be.  And tomorrow it will probably rain again or, at the least, be cloudy and gray.  These mood swings have been plaguing me ever since I stopped my hormone replacement therapy last year.  I don't think I should go back on hormones but I sure wish my mood would stabilize somewhere in middle.  I would sacrifice the highs to get rid of the lows.

Saying Goodbye

I have been thinking of my brother, Stephen, a lot lately.  He died this past summer from cancer.  He was diagnosed early in 2013 of esophageal cancer.  He sent me a text message back in February of 2013 saying that he had started chemo andwas hoping for the best.  I went to SC in May of that year when he had his surgery.  He was living in SC alone and I figured I could look out for his best interests while he was in the hospital and help him once he got home.  His surgery was a major one and, with my help, he survived the whole hospital process.  He didn't really need a lot of help from me at home and I left once I saw that he was capable of handling his meds and his feeding tube.  He was able to go to the beach in NC that July.  His surgery was followed by another round of chemo.  I was so sure he would survive the cancer even though the statistics for his kind of cancer were not good.  It was, after all, found early.  A year after his original diagnosis, it was found that his cancer had returned.  He started chemo again but it didn't go well.  At some point, he opted to try a clinical trial for an experimental drug.  By July, he was on a fast downward spiral.  In early July, he was having trouble walking and talking.  A brain tumor ( or more accurately, three brain tumors ) was discovered.  He had surgery to remove the one operable tumor.  After that, it was a series of one sibling or another going to SC to stay a few days or a week.  He didn't want too many people with him at one time.  I contacted hospice for him but he didn't feel ready for that.  He was hoping to try gamma knife radiation for the other 2 tumors.  Three weeks before he died, he was talking about selling his house and getting a house on one level.  But he was talking about having one built.  He refused to make out a will.  He refused to sign a DNR.  In the meantime, one sister flew down from MA, one came from Vancouver, one came from AZ, a brother came from GA.  We tried to take turns.  He had a wonderful friend from work who came to his house every day after work to sit with him and help him in any way she could.  He didn't mind having Sandra there.  His friend Leo came from MA to stay with him for the duration.  A couple of days before my last trip to SC, he went to the hospital again.  I was able to get him home and under hospice care just two days before he died.  The last night he was alive, Sandra and Leo and I and some other friends sat around his bed, drinking bourbon and ginger, talking to him and about him.  Every now and then he would throw in a comment.  He died the next afternoon.  He had no wake, no funeral, per his request.  His family and friends did not get to gather one last time and remember him.  He was cremated and his ashes are now in MA awaiting a final disposal. It has always felt like we never got to say goodbye.  It was better than a sudden death because we almost all got to see  him one last time.  And, as much as I don't like the tradition of a 2 day wake and a funeral, I felt like we missed something.  We tried to have a makeshift memorial service at Thanksgiving but it didn't feel right.

This is the last photo of him taken a couple of months before his death.  He looks happy and not so sick.  Rest in peace, Stephen.  We all miss you.

Over the river and through the woods.....

For many years, Thanksgiving was our holiday to travel.  After my in-laws moved in 1973, we started driving from Maryland and then Virginia to western Pennsylvania to spend Thanksgiving with my husband's family.  After Thanksgiving, he would often stay for deer season and I would go home with the kid(s).  We had many exciting adventures on these trips.  One year, there was a big snowstorm and power was out for days.  We were staying at the old brick house owned by Richard's grandparents.  The house was built in 1810 and has walls three bricks thick.  Grandma had a gas stove and she would turn it on, open the door and hang a heavy blanket in the doorway to keep the heat in the living area.  We would play cards until it got too dark - usually around 4:30 - and then go to bed and huddle under the blankets.  This was in the 70's and up to this point, I had no idea that electricity was needed to get gasoline.  Except at Andy Morgan's on Water Street in Smithfield where you could get gas at his hand operated pump if he liked you well enough.  Fortunately, the power was back on in three days and we had warmth and lights again.  One year, my sister-in-law and I drove to snowy, hilly Preston County, WV to bail two fellows (who shall go unnamed) out of jail.  More than once, the family drove up the east coast to Massachusetts.   The traffic was always horrible and one year, in New York, construction workers were tying up traffic on the busiest travel day of the year.  What were they thinking?
Now we live in western Pennsylvania.  My husband's parents are both dead, we see his siblings every week and that leaves just the two of us for Thanksgiving dinner.  Our two children have legitimate reasons for not traveling to see us at Thanksgiving.  Sometimes we travel to Michigan since two of the grandchildren have a birthday near Thanksgiving.  The tradition has changed or maybe just wiped out completely.  No more over the river and through the woods to grandmother's house.  I miss those trips in the 70's and 80's even though the trip was sometimes quite frightful.

My new JetPack

I have had some questionable ideas this year.  One of them was to get rid of Verizon for my home phone and DSL Internet service.  I couldn't get my husband to stop promising sums of money to unheard of "charitable" organizations.  I got home from a three week trip to the west coast and found a pile of pledges waiting for me to write a check and I decided enough was enough.  Apparently paying extra for having an unpublished and unlisted number is an exercise in futility.  So I went to Verizon Wireless and got two new devices - one to connect my computer, iPad, printer and phone to the internet.  The other device gives me wireless phone service for the new cordless phones I bought. And now I sit in the lobby of the hospital at which I used to work, using their free wifi to write this blog.  Why you ask?  Because even though I have upped my GB allowance twice in less than 3 weeks, I am perilously close to going over my limit and I have a week left in the billing cycle.  I never thought I was on the computer THAT much but I guess I have been wasting more time than I thought.  Maybe I should do more cooking and cleaning and reading.  I am hoping, though, that the first month of the new service was just a fluke.  I love the new phone system.  I think I have gotten maybe 2 phone calls.  I love that I can take my internet with me in the car or on vacation.  What I don't love is that there is no unlimited internet when you go wireless.  Just gigabytes that cost money the more you use.  So look for me at Panera Bread or the lobby of Uniontown Hospital playing Bejeweled Blitz or blogging.

The Scenic Route AKA the shortcut

Almost everyone I know hates driving on interstate highways, particularly I-95.  There is always someone who has a shorter way or a better way to get you where you want to go.  Now, I seem to have inherited the "make sure you have a good map" gene from my father but not the "let's take the scenic route" or  the "I know a good shortcut route" gene that is possessed by so many people to whom I am related.  Sometimes the scenic route is indeed scenic and sometimes it is even shorter, although this does not always translate into faster.  I will admit that not everyone wants to get to their destination in the fastest possible time.  Recently, while contemplating traveling from point A in SC to point B in NC, my brother suggested a route that would be much shorter than the Map Quest suggested route of taking I-26 to I-95.  I would take 17A north to 701 and after that, things were a little murky.  But I would eventually reach my destination.  For all of you folks who scorn interstates, let me just list some of the things you will not see on the interstate.  You will not find yourself behind a school bus that is stopping every hundred yards to let off another kid.  You will not get stuck behind some large piece of farm equipment that is being moved from one field to another, taking up 1 1/2 lanes of the 2 lane road in the process.  You will not see a dog meandering down the center of the road - at least not for long.  You will not be making a sudden right turn into the Dairy Queen you spotted while sitting at the red light.  You will not find yourself forced into turning left when suddenly your lane won't take you straight.  You will not have to slow down to 25 MPH in a podunk little town where the local cop would just as soon give you a ticket for "speeding" through his burgh at 35 as look at you.  The "shortcut" I took shaved 15 miles off my trip but added an hour to the travel time.  Sometimes you just want to get there.

Good-bye, Miss Farr

I recently learned of the death of one of my nursing instructors from Johns Hopkins Hospital School of Nursing.  Her name was Mary Farr,  "Miss Farr" to students.

 Mary Farr was the prime example of what a Hopkins nurse should be.  She herself graduated from Hopkins in 1941 and went to war with the Hopkins nursing contingent.  She taught nursing at Hopkins from 1951-1969. She was proper, professional, intelligent and always perfectly groomed.  She expected the best of her students - no, demanded the best from us.   She left no stoned unturned in the care of patients; her value system embraced excellence, integrity, compassion, thoroughness and dogged determination to "get it right" on behalf of patients and colleagues.  She knew everything there was to know about medical nursing.  She knew all the diseases, all the medications and their side effects.  She would grill her students endlessly about the care of the patients that had been assigned to the students.  She reduced me to tears on more than one occasion.  The first time was after she had subjected me to a great many questions about my patient, his diagnoses, his medications, nursing care indicated.  After she was done with me (and she kept up the questions until you got one wrong) and I had walked off, she followed me and said something to the effect that "I should remember that you are only 18 years old".  At which point I burst into tears.  I don't remember what triggered the other cry, but it came during a one- on -one session with her, maybe an evaluation.   We learned from her, the doctors learned from her.  She made an impact on everyone who knew her.   She could be formidable (something she didn't remember in her later years ), but I certainly learned a great deal from her.

Aging in Place

I worked for many years in long-term care.  I know that a big reason that many seniors have to leave their homes after a fall or an illness is the stairs.  After all, Grandma or Dad is already old and how much longer are they going to be around.  Why go to the expense of putting in a first floor bathroom and turning the dining room into a bedroom?  Let's look at nursing homes.  So slightly more than 10 years ago, my husband and I bought our current house.  Everything I could possibly need is on one level, and that includes the washer and dryer.  We actually bought the house for the view but the one-level living has been a big plus.  The only things in the basement are the hot water heater, the furnace, some old paint cans and the electrical panel.  I could go for a very long time and never need to go down or up those stairs.  What I didn't take into consideration, though, is the property on which this house sits.  When this house was originally built, it sat on 25 acres.  A previous owner sold off 20+ acres, leaving us with a little more than 4.  Four acres of grass and trees and bushes.  We now own a riding mower, a push mower, a garden cart that attaches to the riding mower, a cart that is pushed by a person, a leaf blower, a chain saw, two hedge trimmers, an edger, various pruning instruments and a newly acquired snow blower.  And let's not forget the rakes and the shovels.  Still, I am not sure it is enough.  There are bushes to be pruned, leaves to be raked and dead trees to be cut down.  There are limbs and branches all over the yard after every winter.  Right now there is a pile of brush, downed limbs and such, from Superstorm Sandy, just waiting to be burned.

And this is just the stuff that has been piled up.  There is plenty more still waiting to be picked up and carried or hauled to the pile.  There are millions of leaves still on the ground.  My advice?  Once you get to that age of retirement, you might want to look at condos- without stairs, of course.

Old age is not for sissies

For years, I have suffered some general GI disturbances.  I don't want to go into too much detail here about all of that.  But I did decide I must have a gluten sensitivity.  From time to time, and not for long, I try to avoid gluten.  Sometimes it seems to help but I never stay off the gluten long enough to be sure.  So recently, when I was having a routine colonoscopy, I mentioned to the doctor that I thought I had a gluten sensitivity and I gave her my reasons for thinking that.  So I got a couple of biopsies, lots of new blood work and I had to drop off a stool sample.  Yuck!  She told me that I had a moderately inflamed small intestine and it looked like I might be deficient in B12 and folate.  How could this be?  I take vitamins every day.  She suggested a form of colitis, perhaps Crohn's disease.  Do I look like someone who is losing weight?  Well, it turns out that the specimen revealed an infection - C. Diff to be exact.  This is a disease of old people who live in nursing homes or have been in the hospital on antibiotics.  I may be old but I haven't been in a nursing home in more than a decade, I haven't been on any antibiotics and I retired from working at the hospital 18 months ago.   Tomorrow I pick up my 10 day prescription of Flagyl.  We will see how or if that helps and take it from there.  There may be more going on than just C. Diff.

Wakes, viewings, visitations or whatever

A favorite indoor sport in this part of the country seems to be going to wakes or viewings or whatever one calls them.  It doesn't seem to matter much if you truly knew the deceased but, heck, you never know who you might see at the funeral home.  Everyone signs the guest book and then murmurs condolences to perfect strangers, goes up to the coffin and says, "Doesn't he/she look nice"?  There seems to be no way out of this.  But I want to go on record as finding all of this a bit barbaric.  I don't see how it is the least bit helpful to the bereaved.  There are better places to catch up with friends from high school or cousins you haven't seen since childhood.  I don't want anyone staring down on me in my coffin saying, "Didn't Phillip do a nice job"?  And the flowers - don't get me started on the flowers.  What a waste of money!  So when I die, I want to be quietly cremated.  Send out a little card in a few weeks letting people know if you want.  Then get my ashes, borrow a boat and and scatter my ashes into the Atlantic ocean.

A Good-bye to the Breastfeeding Nazi

Wendy was the breast feeding Nazi of Family Beginnings, although we did not call her this to her face.   When I first started working there she was the lactation consultant and the maker of the work schedule (good to be her friend).  As lactation consultant, she was always admonishing the rest of us not to succumb to the cries of hungry babies and pleas from exhausted moms for more sleep.  If we gave a breast baby even a little water during the night, it could be considered assault.  I never knew her in her younger, more agile days.  By the time I met her, she was already disabled to some extent by severe rheumatoid arthritis.  She had had numerous joint replacements.  Her hands were twisted and gnarled.   But she worked full time and kept her family together.  She had a mischievous sense of humor and a smile for everyone.
The beginning of the end, I think, was surgery on her right hand.  The wound got infected and she spent months with a drain and on antibiotics.  She worked mostly from home, writing with her left hand.  Then there was a fall and another fall.  Every time she seemed to be on the road to recovery, something would happen.  One day, several vertebrae collapsed and she could no longer stand, let alone walk.  Weeks in the hospital were followed by nursing home placement.  She developed a horrible bedsore while in the nursing home and was unable to sit.  Another drain, more antibiotics, weekly trips to the wound care center, lots of pain.  I would visit her from time to time, not often enough.  She never groused or complained.  she never lamented the state she was in.  She was ever hopeful that she would walk again or, at least, be able to stand and pivot so she could go home.  Yesterday she died.  She was 53 years old.

Betty (the cat)

Betty spent most of her first 3 years of life in an apartment in New York City.  She was the runt of a litter of kittens that my daughter fostered.  The other kittens found homes and Jessica kept Betty.  Her head was so much bigger than her body, she earned the name Betty Boop.   Betty apparently had an eating disorder and would eat anything in front of her.  She did not graze; she gobbled.  Soon her body outgrew her head.  Eventually, Jessica moved to NJ to a studio apartment she owned there.  She hoped to fix the place up and sell it.  Betty and all her paraphernalia overwhelmed the place.  So Jessica decided to bring Betty to the mountains of Pennsylvania to live with me.  I only agreed to do this because I was sure Betty wouldn't last long.  She would do what all the other cats do;  find her way to the highway and get hit by a car.  We already had a cat (Maybelle) that had survived such an accident and now stays away from the road.  Both of her sisters managed to get themselves killed.  
When Betty first arrived, Maybelle approached her as though she wanted to be friends but Betty was having none of it.  It was downhill after that as far as friendship goes.  Maybelle was terrified of Betty and would growl and hiss whenever Betty was near.  Betty made herself right at home and took over as alpha cat while Maybelle cowered under tables and chairs.  Betty was a smart cat.  She could open the cupboard doors when she was looking for food.  She could open the door to the linen closet and jump up on a shelf.  When I moved Maybelle's food to a shelf on a bookcase, Betty got up there and ate it.  One morning I got up and found the bag of dry cat food sitting on the kitchen floor, upright.  Betty had managed to open the door and get the bag out without spilling anything.  Betty would sleep on the bed with us and she preferred to be right in the middle of the bed.  Did I mention she was a big cat?  She was a high maintenance cat, always wanting attention.  She didn't sleep like other cats; if I moved an inch, she would be up and awake, looking and hoping for food.  By her second summer with us, she was more comfortable with the outdoors.  As the nights got warm, she started staying out at night.  She would come in to eat but at 9PM, she was ready to go out for the night.  Then in early September, she wasn't at the window at 6 AM meowing loudly for food.  I last saw her the evening before headed towards the woods on the other side of our driveway.  We haven't seen her since.  People have told me about cats that were missing that turned up months later.  But Betty wasn't the kind of cat to wander off for weeks or months at a time.  I doubt if she found a new home  There aren't that many right near us anyway.  Even though she was a PIA cat, I miss her.  I wish I had taken better care of her.

Hosting

I had been asked in the past to host a foreign exchange student and I said "No" because I was working and I have no kids living at home.  I couldn't imagine why I would want a foreign teenager living with me.  This year, since I am retired, I said "yes" to hosting the chaperone for the exchange students.  She is 32 and thus able to legally drink alcoholic beverages.  I had no idea how much fun it was going to be.  Having Sabine around is like having a daughter with no boyfriend, husband or kids - a daughter I can have to myself.  She has gone to the Y with me, we went biking at Ohiopyle together, she helped me with my 4th of July party and she joined the FBBC crowd when we went to dinner and a movie.  I hope she is having as much fun as I am.

Ginger

  The first pet that I really remember was a cat by the name of Ginger. My friend Kathy had found this kitten that had been abandoned by the road. It was too young to have even been weaned. Her mother wouldn’t let her keep it so she brought it to me. My mother only let me keep it because she was sure it would die. I got a medicine dropper from my father and I hand fed that kitten several times a day until she was old enough to eat on her own. I named her Ginger because of her brown and orange coloring. Ginger thrived and we were devoted to each other. When she was about a year old, she had a litter of 3 kittens of her own. One looked like her so we named her Gingerale. The other 2 were black and white and we thought one was a male. Unfortunately, we were wrong about that. In another year, Ginger and her 3 offspring all had kittens the same week. There were 15 new kittens and four adults making a total of 19 cats. That was more than enough for my mother. When they were old enough, we had to give away all of the kittens, plus the other 3 adults. I could keep Ginger but she had to be spayed.

Down by the river

More about the Little River at Cherry Hospital:
I didn't go swimming in the river that often. It was too murky for me. I do remember swimming in it once and some black people came to the river for a baptism. We all got out of the river while the baptism was going on. I never had the nerve to walk across the dam in the summer when the water was low, either. I certainly watched other people do it. I could just see myself falling off onto the rocks below the dam.
The area by the river was a great place to play, explore and build forts. The boys had a rope that they used to swing over the water and drop down into the river, up above the dam. I don't think any girls ever participated in that activity. But I loved to go down by the river and wander around and daydream.  There was also a swinging bridge across the river, for use when the road was flooded out.  It was a rope swing with wooden planks.  One more thing I didn't have the nerve to do was cross that bridge.

Why I am not a dog person

 As a child, we supposedly had a dog named Costello but I don't really remember that dog.  What I do remember is  being bitten by a dog when I was not yet 10.  I lived on the grounds of a state mental hospital.  Our first house was in a row of five houses with a highway at one end and a river at the other.  I could go between the highway and the river, even down to the river, without asking permission.  But I was not allowed to go past the highway without first checking with my mother.  One day my brother, Bobby, was riding his bike with a friend, headed past the boundary.  I hopped on my bike and followed.  A dog belonging to a couple that worked at the hospital came out yapping and nipping.  Bobby started weaving the front wheel of his bike back and forth and he hit the dog with his bike.  The dog bit me.  I couldn't tell my mother because she would kill me for going somewhere without her permission.  (My mother was a fearsome creature).  I knew that the chances of getting rabies were slim, but still I worried.  Some of my father's medical books were in my bedroom, so I got one of them and looked up the symptoms of rabies.  Once the symptoms appear, you are a goner but, still, I thought I would rather take my chances with the rabies than with my mother.  I wore socks until the bite healed.  As luck would have it, I didn't get rabies but I developed a fear of dogs.  This fear was not helped by the paper route I sometimes helped with.  The hospital was rife with dogs, some of them wild and vicious.  I was frequently chased by snarling dogs while delivering papers.  I once took a side trip from my route up to the house at the bottom of the hill before O'Berry.  There was always a dog on the porch but he never bothered me - until that day.  I started to walk over to the fence to get a look at the pony.  That dog came off the porch and 2 more came from around the back of the house, all three intent on my destruction.  I jumped on my bike and pedaled as fast as I could.  That man didn't get another paper for a week.  And then there was the dog, a German shepherd rumored to be trained to kill, owned by the hospital superintendent.  Whenever I went to collect money for the paper, Dr. Vitols would be there straining to hold his killer of a dog.  So, now I have cats.  They never snarl at me.