Wednesday, August 5, 2009

August 5, 2009

It is always about catching up it seems. My brothers cannot imagine why in the world I prefer to live in a town with one blinking light. Surely you get bored!!! I rarely get bored around here. There aren't enough hours in the day for me to do all that I want to do. They all live in the city where there is traffic. I would rather stick a pin in my eye than sit in traffic. Whomever said that like is a genius. I just love it, "stick a pin in my eye." LOL

Take Monday for instance. It was a day from Hell. Went to the city for a 9 AM appointment with my surgeon knowing he would be thrilled with my range of motion. He was happy with the bent knee, but said I could do better with the flattening of the knee. I asked him to look up what it was prior to surgery. He said zero degrees after they had put in the new knee. Sure!!! I was in never, never land and wouldn't have felt a tank running across me. He has given me something to try and get it straighter in two months when I will see him again.

He looked at my x-rays to see why this right shoulder is giving me so much pain and said it could be a tear in the rotor cuff, but it would take an MRI to find out. He suggested I put down the crutch and see if it doesn't feel better. Of course, I wanted to know how I would get from point A to point B without the crutch, since I mostly use it for my back problem that he said was inoperable.

He pulled up my x-rays (high tech stuff in that office - get the x-ray and almost immediately he can pull it up on a computer in the examining room) and said that he does see why my back hurts with so much arthritis in it. Maybe I would like to go for pain management. I wanted to know what that entailed and he said, "Shots." I don't think so. That sounds like pain to me and not pain management. I said I would try to not use the crutch.

As long as I don't have to walk too far and can get to a buggy to hold onto, I might just be able to get by without it. We will see how this does, but I know I won't be going for any "pain management." Some kind of comedian must have come up with that term for that procedure.

Off I go to do my errands and when I left Sam's, my truck went "tic-tic-tic" when I tried to start it. Tried several times and it is starting to get hot, like really hot as only it can do in a Louisiana August. I decide to call roadside assistance and the numbers looked so weird. It occurs to me that the brilliant person who put the clear sticker on the dash did it upside down and backwards. I doubt you could even read it with a mirror.

The third try I finally got the correct number and then have to play the punch the number game. I hate automated answering services. At last a real live person came on line. I need the last 8 digits of your VIN number. My response was that I didn't have a clue as to where to find that. Look in the glove compartment on your registration. There must be 20 some odd numbers on there. I have to dig my glasses out of my purse and twice count from the right to the left to make sure I get the last 8 digits.

Next, she asks what the problem is and I tell her about the tic-tic-tic noise. She tells me to try to roll up and down the windows. They worked and finally I got the slightest warm bit of a breeze blowing through the sweltering cab. She tells me it can't be the battery since I wouldn't be able to work the windows. I think she is wrong, but she is the roadside assistant lady and I am just a driver. She gets my cell number and says she will call a tow truck.

The phone rings a bit later and when I punch the button there is nothing, nada. Hang up the phone. It rings again and again nothing. By this time I have been in the cab for probably 30+ minutes and this cell phone business is starting to make my blood boil. I decide to call my husband at school, something I don't like doing. He eventually comes to the phone and says he thinks I am pressing the wrong button to answer the phone. I have always pushed the green button. He says he will call me back and try the one above the green one. It worked for that and two more calls from him. Never did work again for any of the other rings.

He calls the dealership and says for someone to please see what the holdup is on the tow truck. You would think in a city the size of Shreveport/Bossier City they would have more than one tow truck in town. Maybe he was off on another call. After another 30 minutes, Bill calls me back to see if the dealership has called me. NO they haven't. He tells me to call them. He promises the number is easy to remember and that I don't need glasses, pen, or pencil to call them. I call and they will send a courtesy car for me.

Thirty minutes later Bill calls back to see if they have come for me. No and this phone keeps ringing and when I try and answer it, I can't get anything. How is it when he calls it works, but not for any other calls. I tell him, using most of my most awful words, I am going to put the d*** cell phone under the tire and when the truck rolls backwards, I will have lots of little pieces of stuff that I can put in my artwork, like a tiny circuit board, maybe a diode or two, buttons, etc. He just laughs at me.

Once you get home and out of this funk, I will show you again how to work the phone. I swear, I know how to answer and dial it. I don't know anything else about it, but those two things. It is a hunk of junk from my least favorite store, Walmart. How is it my grandchildren and children all have I-Phones and I have to have a track phone from Walmart that you have to pre-purchase minutes - heaven forbid you run out of minutes when you desperately need the thing.

When I got home, I presented him the phone and said I would never touch it again. I really, really do mean that. If I break down, I will pray that a nice person will help me out. If it is a slasher, then I have always believed when it is my time to go, I will go. I have to travel through some really unpopulated land to go anyplace, but I will just take my chances, but I will NEVER EVER pick that stupid phone up again.

Yesterday I took my new prescription by the therapy place, but they are filled up until Friday and I will go for some therapy on my shoulders starting Friday. Ran out to this dress shop and found two dresses that would be appropriate for my daughter to wear to her daughter's wedding. She emailed me today and said one of them fit perfectly and all she needs now is shoes. She will have to do that chore because feet have to feel good. Now I have to return the other dress, but that is one less thing she has to worry about. She is so busy with her job that she doesn't have time to turn around.

Today I went to a luncheon for older folks in Natchitoches at the Methodist church. My friend attends there and asks me to a lot of their functions. I got to sit by the lady preacher who just left here and retired. That was really nice. I know so many people in Natchitoches since I have spent so much time there working and in school. Doris said, "How do you know so many people here and you don't go to church here. I go here now and don't know many people yet." I told her that since 1963, Natchitoches has been like a second home to me.

After that, my friend took me to her nephew's law office and I left a check and that ticket I told you about. He said he would get the ticket dropped to a seatbelt violation. God is good. That saved me $113.50 and I am so thankful. I have been driving with the cruise control and making a conscious effort not to go beyond the speed limit, unless it is outside the city and then just 4-5 miles over the limit. I am so used to zooming that I feel like I could walk and get there faster than drive whatever it is the limit is. I understand that you cannot speed around a city, but even having to go 25 mph is like feeling like I am crawling to my destination.

Guess I have to go as I have an appointment tomorrow to get Zoey's name embroidered on her "wedding" dress at noon and it is 45 minutes away. I have a terrible time getting up early and have to drive slower now. Ya'll have a great one!!!!

Later

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