Well talk about a few rough days! We have had a few days where the weather has not been nice, actually downright hot would be more like it. The weather has been responsible for us not getting to the park this week since Monday. It has kept us awake at night for it’s too hot to sleep, even with a/c.
Today really kind of capped it all off. This morning we were up bright and early getting ready for rehab, Elizabeth had gone out to load the truck, that’s when the phone rang and all hell broke loose, so to speak.
We have a guy who lived in an upstairs apartment who is normally a creature of habit, the kind that you can set your clock by.
A week last Monday he missed doing his laundry, he missed again this week. When I came to think of it, I really hadn’t seen him around in a while now, not that he is my favorite person. I digress, this morning the phone rang and bedlam seemed to break loose outside. Very quickly the super’s truck arrived followed by quite an entourage. There were police cars everywhere along with ambulances and a fire truck, and finally an office rep.
John was on the phone to ask me if I knew this guy upstairs had died? I flipped back, of course not or else I would have phoned you!
Well the bottom line was this guy upstairs that you can set your watch by, wouldn’t be setting anything anymore, it seems that he passed away at some point in the last two weeks. Judging by the decomposition and the smell that permeated throughout the whole neighborhood, it had to be 10 or11 days since he died. The weather of course because of the circumstances made things around here downright awful, to say the least. Talk about gag!
The wife wrote this account for a forum she visits, I think it's worth reading here too. :)
A Weird day……
I went outside to start loading the truck with rehab gear…..noticed an unusual quite sickening smell in the air….went around the building and there were police cars, ambulances, fire trucks etc.
We live in a 2 story 12 plex…..apparently one of the tenants upstairs had phoned the super about a garbage smell this morning…..it turned out to be his neighbor...who had died.....about 10 days ago….the man lived alone, and like many, had no relatives or friends.
The apartment had been shut up and when they opened the windows….well, you can imagine…..I had to make several trips back and forth outside with stops for gagging….I am so thankful that we are on the bottom floor at the far end of the building where there is no odor. Got Eric out for rehab….said he couldn’t smell a thing….I think this has something to do with his 02.….When we returned 3 hours later the coroner had just arrived….the tired super followed us in and had 3 cups coffee (we always keep a can of Tim’s for him), gave a grisly description of the body (Eric wasn’t amused), and I gave the super some vicks for his nose (a nurse told me about this trick to mask smell) and cold spring waters to take out for the workers. They had spray cans that they used on their clothes after being in the apt…..it took out(or masked) the odor. One young fireman said it was the worst body he’s ever seen.
Today I learned what a decomposed body smells like…..I hope I never smell that again…..I hope none of us die alone…..
Elizabeth
The poor wife insists that she has this ‘decomposing dead guy in her nose,’ ~ this odor, that she cannot get rid of.
I told her that the mind is a powerful thing and if she thinks real hard about steak & onions cooking, pretty soon she won’t be able to get the smell of onions out of her nose! My poor honey. She of the weird dreams and now the probing proboscis.
C’ya
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Sunday, August 26, 2007
In Your Dreams
Most mornings when the wife and I get up, we sit and enjoy a nice warm cup of tea/chocolate together. Invariably the wife while drinking her hot chocolate will say, ‘I had a funny dream last night.'
I have never known anybody have such wild dream experiences as Elizabeth sometimes gets, this morning was no exception.
As most of my regular readers know, I have COPD and am on oxygen 24/7.
Generally I never pay much attention to dreams as a rule for they are just that, a dream. They would appear to have no rhyme or reason to them, let alone any real time consequences. So after the initial announcement, I usually just dismiss them with a grunt or some comical remark like, “Well it had to be the lobster you ate before going to bed!” Or some such thing.
Elizabeth started to relate her dream to me, with me just being half attentive. I believe that the first thing that got my attention was she said that in the dream both she and I were on oxygen.
Apparently in this dream, we were sitting out in the grounds of a hospital or some such rehabilitation facility, the both of us with our length of hose firmly attached to the nose. (That alone is a scary thought!)
We were just keeping each other company and shooting the breeze, when this other lady came walking by. Somehow it seems by some kind of a kind of a mix up, this woman got herself all tangled up with the oxygen hose that Elizabeth had on. Obviously the more she struggled the more entangled she became.
The wife meanwhile was having a great big hairy over this performance and promptly started to let the world know all about this clumsy clod! (Another person funnily enough was also in Elizabeth’s dream and that was my PT from rehab! )
Meanwhile back in la, la land. The tangle woman was by now getting quite upset with her predicament. In her frustration she reached into her purse and pulling out a pair of scissors promptly performed an "Edward Scissorhands" routine, deftly snipping the wife’s oxygen hose!
So there sat the wife, holding the cut ends of the hose up in the air for all to see, crying out! Look what she did to my oxygen Waaaaaaaaaa!!
That’s my honey. ~ Thank goodness we wake up from these things is all I can say!
C’ya
I have never known anybody have such wild dream experiences as Elizabeth sometimes gets, this morning was no exception.
As most of my regular readers know, I have COPD and am on oxygen 24/7.
Generally I never pay much attention to dreams as a rule for they are just that, a dream. They would appear to have no rhyme or reason to them, let alone any real time consequences. So after the initial announcement, I usually just dismiss them with a grunt or some comical remark like, “Well it had to be the lobster you ate before going to bed!” Or some such thing.
Elizabeth started to relate her dream to me, with me just being half attentive. I believe that the first thing that got my attention was she said that in the dream both she and I were on oxygen.
Apparently in this dream, we were sitting out in the grounds of a hospital or some such rehabilitation facility, the both of us with our length of hose firmly attached to the nose. (That alone is a scary thought!)
We were just keeping each other company and shooting the breeze, when this other lady came walking by. Somehow it seems by some kind of a kind of a mix up, this woman got herself all tangled up with the oxygen hose that Elizabeth had on. Obviously the more she struggled the more entangled she became.
The wife meanwhile was having a great big hairy over this performance and promptly started to let the world know all about this clumsy clod! (Another person funnily enough was also in Elizabeth’s dream and that was my PT from rehab! )
Meanwhile back in la, la land. The tangle woman was by now getting quite upset with her predicament. In her frustration she reached into her purse and pulling out a pair of scissors promptly performed an "Edward Scissorhands" routine, deftly snipping the wife’s oxygen hose!
So there sat the wife, holding the cut ends of the hose up in the air for all to see, crying out! Look what she did to my oxygen Waaaaaaaaaa!!
That’s my honey. ~ Thank goodness we wake up from these things is all I can say!
C’ya
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Hmmm Techies?
Thank goodness it’s Friday! For this week has been more than hectic. Things however are finally coming together and I can try and get back to whatever normal is around here.
As you all know from previous blogs I have a new computer with Vista and that is where most of the trouble started. Having no email working was just a beginning of the problems. Today I decided that once and for all I was getting my email working. Boy! Was that almost a disaster.
I was in touch with the ‘techies’ and I use the term loosely, for after much fiddling and changing of a number of things, settings etc they then blamed the problem onto something else and put me in touch with Microsoft. They in turn shunted me down another alley to someplace I didn‘t even know existed. Even now after it‘s all over I still don‘t know where I was with that one.
In the course of three hours, they succeeded in messing up both computers, so eventually we had no emails at all on either computer.
Heck! That went over like a lead balloon with the wife I can tell you, she got a little frantic.
( At this point insert much Gnashing of Teeth!)
The bottom line is that after talking with 3 different technicians, making a few observations of my own which I had salvaged from talking with all the 'know how people,' I got things sorted out and the wife is a happy camper once more.
Pretty soon, even I am going to know what I am doing on a computer, all this first hand knowledge I’m being exposed to!
C’ya
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
The March of Time
Memories are but pages of the book of life, to be turned occasionally, through the passage of time.
This week has been somewhat of a memory week for me and strangely enough, a very noticeable trend, as I wandered throughout the internet. I think it may have first started when I read a blog written by an online friend of mine. In his story he wrote about his running in 3 marathons and how he trained for those events. That put me in mind of when I was a lot younger and I did similar things. ~
My distance in athletics was the mile 1500 metres & the 5,000m although I did run the occasional 10,000. I remember when I started competitive running, it was in the days of Roger Bannister before he broke the 4 minute mile. The world record for the mile at that time was 4 mins 04 secs.
When I was in the army and running my first mile on the track, I couldn’t understand why the officer in charge was getting so excited, I found out later that I finished in a respectable 4 mins 21 secs. ~ Shortly afterwards, May 6 1954, Roger Bannister was the first man to break the 4 min barrier for the very first time. ~ A huge achievement in those days. ~
As we were out driving to a more distant mall recently, our journey took us through some areas that I had not seen in many years.
~ What used to be a vast expanse of green has been turned into an ever expanding concrete jungle, spreading like a disease across the face of what was once a beautiful landscape. ~ The memories start to turn just like the pages in a book.
I remembered friends I used to socialize with, dear people who had became very close to my heart and even a few that broke it. I thought of the good times and of course there had to be a few not so good. Out of that came some of my poetry writing. Gone now are the dancing days and party times, the invites to dinner and good conversation.
There were moments in my thoughts when I caught my breath, as coming back to reality, I remembered that most all of those beautiful people were no longer alive now.
~ Ah such sweet dreams of days of yore.~
Of course then that brought to mind just how many years had slipped on by, and hell I must be getting older!
C’ya
This week has been somewhat of a memory week for me and strangely enough, a very noticeable trend, as I wandered throughout the internet. I think it may have first started when I read a blog written by an online friend of mine. In his story he wrote about his running in 3 marathons and how he trained for those events. That put me in mind of when I was a lot younger and I did similar things. ~
My distance in athletics was the mile 1500 metres & the 5,000m although I did run the occasional 10,000. I remember when I started competitive running, it was in the days of Roger Bannister before he broke the 4 minute mile. The world record for the mile at that time was 4 mins 04 secs.
When I was in the army and running my first mile on the track, I couldn’t understand why the officer in charge was getting so excited, I found out later that I finished in a respectable 4 mins 21 secs. ~ Shortly afterwards, May 6 1954, Roger Bannister was the first man to break the 4 min barrier for the very first time. ~ A huge achievement in those days. ~
As we were out driving to a more distant mall recently, our journey took us through some areas that I had not seen in many years.
~ What used to be a vast expanse of green has been turned into an ever expanding concrete jungle, spreading like a disease across the face of what was once a beautiful landscape. ~ The memories start to turn just like the pages in a book.
I remembered friends I used to socialize with, dear people who had became very close to my heart and even a few that broke it. I thought of the good times and of course there had to be a few not so good. Out of that came some of my poetry writing. Gone now are the dancing days and party times, the invites to dinner and good conversation.
There were moments in my thoughts when I caught my breath, as coming back to reality, I remembered that most all of those beautiful people were no longer alive now.
~ Ah such sweet dreams of days of yore.~
Of course then that brought to mind just how many years had slipped on by, and hell I must be getting older!
C’ya
Friday, August 17, 2007
Drop In
Yesterday we had another day out, this time the wife and I drove to this huge shopping mall, almost an hours drive from here, where she had hoped she would find some sports sandals that she had been hunting for. For some reason it has been difficult to locate any, maybe it‘s the season end.
The weather was comfortable other than being a little humid and sticky, talk about busy and the crazy traffic. Now I can remember why we moved out into the more rural area to live.
On the way back to more civilized surroundings away from the rat race, we dropped in at a smaller mall closer to home where we had some lunch in the lunch-court. They have the usual vendors there, catering to whatever tweaks your fancy. A place that is very popular is ‘Frisco Fries‘, for the folks line up to get food, I am fast getting addicted. I have had some good fries in my time, but I tell you, these just have to be the best! We rounded out the trip then with a little shopping.
At least when we arrived home we were greeted by the happy bunch seen here that we have grown to love so much. Talk about a brunch drop in! It’s just so nice to see them all together so nice and friendly. Yes, we have a very nice bird community here & life is good.
C’ya
The weather was comfortable other than being a little humid and sticky, talk about busy and the crazy traffic. Now I can remember why we moved out into the more rural area to live.
On the way back to more civilized surroundings away from the rat race, we dropped in at a smaller mall closer to home where we had some lunch in the lunch-court. They have the usual vendors there, catering to whatever tweaks your fancy. A place that is very popular is ‘Frisco Fries‘, for the folks line up to get food, I am fast getting addicted. I have had some good fries in my time, but I tell you, these just have to be the best! We rounded out the trip then with a little shopping.
At least when we arrived home we were greeted by the happy bunch seen here that we have grown to love so much. Talk about a brunch drop in! It’s just so nice to see them all together so nice and friendly. Yes, we have a very nice bird community here & life is good.
C’ya
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
A Small Escape
Yesterday we finally had a little break from all the oppressive heat and humidity. ~ There was little humidity, but temps were a respectable 29c/86f though still quite hot in the sun. I had been housebound long enough because of COPD, so off we went to the park. (clickable thumbnails)
A few wild flowers
Can't have flowers without a butterfly.
A different shot of the river
And of course Freddy Frog has to have a show.
Yours truly, for after all the trip out is for our benefit.
C'ya
A few wild flowers
Can't have flowers without a butterfly.
A different shot of the river
And of course Freddy Frog has to have a show.
Yours truly, for after all the trip out is for our benefit.
C'ya
Thursday, August 9, 2007
A Day Lost
It is late at night here in our neck of the woods. The day has been a long and tiring one, for today we had business to take care of. The wife had to have one of those nuclear stress tests done, so that was a five hour job plus all the traveling time.
Never did get any work done on the computer changeover, all that will resume tomorrow and over the weekend. In my movement of files though I did come across a little poem I wrote a short while ago so I thought I would share that with you.
Solitary man
As restless as a tempestuous storm -
Filled to overflowing, with a torment
That was born of dreams unfilled.
Fighting against the ravages of time -
As now life’s juices slowly ebb,
Ever receding, to the desert floor.
And with the passing of the night -
The beast that was in him,
Died within his breast.
Eric Valentine Dec 17/06 ©
C’ya
Never did get any work done on the computer changeover, all that will resume tomorrow and over the weekend. In my movement of files though I did come across a little poem I wrote a short while ago so I thought I would share that with you.
Solitary man
As restless as a tempestuous storm -
Filled to overflowing, with a torment
That was born of dreams unfilled.
Fighting against the ravages of time -
As now life’s juices slowly ebb,
Ever receding, to the desert floor.
And with the passing of the night -
The beast that was in him,
Died within his breast.
Eric Valentine Dec 17/06 ©
C’ya
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