Hi, gentle reader (s)....
Thanksgiving is over. We went to Tucson to Brother in Law and Sister no. 3's lovely condo in Ventana Canyon. Everything was beautiful and perfect there as usual.
Brother in Law and Sister no. 5 were also present, and it was nice to have a good-sized group of family present.
Ben drove us over and it was nice to have him too!!! We took Foxy Angus and put him into the Sabino Canyon Pet Resort while we were there.
When we left Tucson, everyone went over to get a look at Foxy Angus, and to say goodbye to him too, for Ben was scheduled to take him home with him to his forever home in Northern California. Concord, to be exact. Theo and I were sorry to see Foxy go, but it had to be....we were not up to the demands of a young sprightly puppy and his training needs. Foxy is too good a dog to be let go like that---he needed a more youthful master who could keep up with his energy. I'm awfully glad that Ben loved Foxy from first glance, and vice versa. So Foxy will miss his old ma for a bit, but will come back to visit us with Ben in December a more mature and changed man. So will Ben, for that matter, LOL. Tout change. YAZZYBEL
I always thought that was the most beautiful chapter heading in Dickens.
Restored to Life....and here I am.
I had a heart attack. I took it casually and spent my time on the way to the ER composing apologies in my head to the hospital people for taking up their time over a false alarm. I thought I was having some unusual asthma attacks, over the previous couple of weeks. Turned out, not.
In no time, protests on my part adroitly turned aside and my consent obtained by a clever doctor, I was on a table having a large tube shoved up my groin, and into my heart, where a skilled team worked together to find my clogged artery and place three stents.
It's all behind me now except for the recuperation which is not as automatic and easy as I'd of. Ben our son came right down here to take care of us for a week, thank God. It gave Theo a chance to adjust to a different role for me. And we had good food and I had plenty of rest. The only bad thing is that he did not take away dearest Foxy Angus, though he wants him and therefore FA cannot be tossed to the Humane Society. I have to keep him till Ben can take him.
I have decided to eat differently, but am appalled by the recommendations of Kaiser for post-coronary foods. Cereals, sweet fruits and juices, anything to divert one's mind from the lost oils and fats that are taken away. Somehow I know this is not the answer.
We decided to take the MOW again and the meals they have sent this week are just appalling. AWFUL. They need to re-conceptualize the idea of what trapped old folks need and want to eat. Here's a hint, bales of frozen little corn seeds and green peas are not it. Nor is "gourmet" cuisine with strange herbs therein. No, they need to think FOOD. As in meat and vegetables. With the occasional piece of cooky or cake. So I am saying bye to the MOW forever as of Monday, our last day before going over to Tucson for Thanksgiving with the relatives.
Anyway, I feel okay but not too good. I have had a lot of help so far but am going to have to figure out how to wing it on our own in a better and more satisfying way. So far I have decided to concentrate on sugar and triglycerides, as one can assume that the statins are taking care of the fats to the satisfaction of Kaiser the Great. So, no more sugar. Or, at least, to the 80% possibility. But I am going for none. None. No fruit at first, no milk, no concocted foods with hidden corn syrup in the vegetable soup...Just meat, fish, chicken, green vegetables, olive oil, lemons...I have done it before when I was on the Dr Atkins. I can do it now. Pray with me. I need to get well. YAZZYBEL
Today I wrote a long blog, a huge long paean to Foxy Angus and all his attributes.
And somehow I blew it away in one second.
Too bad. YAZZYBEL
No, I didn't get Foxy Angus at a thrift store, but I can't write about him every day!!
Foxy Angus, and here let us be done with the little critter for this post, is, I believe, mostly a wire-haired or broken-haired Jack Russell terrier. A neighbor came over last night and pointed out the jumping (which he'd just started; he really liked her) and of course there are the beauty parts of him that are Jack Russell...BUT he is not white; he is a uniform russet beige with white face and blaze. Oh he is so cute. Don't let get me started....
Back to thrift shops. The pleasure of shopping at a thrift shop is the thrill of the chase. Sometimes you go with a quite specific item in mind (like Foxy...oh, quit it) and there it is as if you'd ordered it up from the angels. Sometimes you just go in blank and there is a real treasure like the six Rosenthal plates I recently turned down even though they were only six bucks...why did I do it?
I was thinking about San Francisco this morning because I just found out that a worldly and chic friend of mine also likes to thrift-shop. (It's not a prediliction that you should confess broadly about). That made me think if SF as I first knew it in 1957. Just think what I could have found there, then. Makes me want to cry.
And we did buy a lot of things from Goodwill and the Salvation Army in Berkeley: our huge antique mahogany bed, our sofa and chair which were still the most comfy pieces of furniture I've ever owned, the hand painted rustic black dresser with wild flowers on it, the chair made of cow horns...most of these in fact all of them have gone by the wayside over the years. I'm sorry I let any of them go. They'd nowadays be found only in an antique shop if at all...And the many little wooden tables with fabulous California tile tops...five dollars here and there and there were plenty of them.
When we moved to Seattle in 1961, we discovered the St Vincent de Paul which was housed in several rough building along Lake Union, I believe. Running from one building to another was a paradise of "finding", from furniture to old glass coffee jars, which was a never failing source of pleasure and acquisition to us.
I still find thrift shopping to be a source of simple stress relief. You never know what you'll find. Everything is different. One beautiful goblet only, to be succeeded by a different beautiful goblet on the next set of shelves. I have a whole collection of them. To heck with sets, say I. I like my motley collection!
And books! Don't get me started on books! They are there. And different books too. Like the novel, Eucalyptus, by that Australian writer whose name I do not remember. A good, interesting novel that I 'd certainly never have read if I hadnt stumbled on it in a thrift shop.
Why just a couple of days ago I found just by passing by it and grabbing it off the hanger, the very jacket I'll be wearing on this chilly morning. Its silk, Chinese, padded, and it's pale green embroidered and appliqued with more pale green on outside, and it's lined with an iridescent blue lining. It's more tailored than it sounds and it will look good with my blue-gray-purple colored tee and brown-gray pants, at church. YAZZYBEL
Moral of life's story is:
Little dogs are exhausting.
Cups of hot tea are cheering.
Cup of hot tea with a Brownsville, Texas, chile pequin in it!!
Is there anything more to say?
YAZZYBEL
Welcome, Foxy Angus!!!
His name is Foxy because of his precursor, the Fox seen on these pages last week, who ran in front to announce his coming.
That has happened to us before. One year we had an absolute deluge of wild animals come upon us before we were given Freckles, our grumpy oldish cat, who arrived as the cutest kitten I've ever met in my life.
Yesterday, the yard man told us that while he was as Home Depot, he came out of the store to find that somebody had put a puppy into the back of his gardening truck. He brought him in and we took him in. The puppy, not the gardener.
He is the cutest little thing you ever saw. I added Angus to his name because he looks like a little Scottish terrier with wiry hairs and that little squared muzzle which you can't tell in the photo.
Took him to the vet this morning. Vet Dr. Herron says he's part chihuahua and part terrier without a doubt. Ten, maybe twelve weeks old. I went for ten because he is really a big baby and has fear of the grass. That makes his birthday the 15th of August, which it now officially is.
Dr Herron examined him from head to toe and pronounced him a " very good little dog." Foxy got four shots and did not wince. He is on the sofa now with Theodore and is snoozing away.
Foxy also got a new pill called "Confortis", which kills fleas from within. It took me about five special "bites" of food before Foxy took down the pill. He is a chewer not a bolter, and every time he got to the pill he daintily spat it out. He finally ate it. It lasts a month and Foxy and I will be happy to see him cleared of fleas, which I hate.
This is the first animal I've ever had forever,without having Gregory here to love it and help care for it. I'll miss him sorely because he was so great with the pets and did a lot to help with them when they were little. Theo surprised me this morning by mentioning that he'd been thinking of Gregory since we got Foxy, so maybe Gregory knows we needed Foxy and helped him get to us. Or maybe it is just what Theo thinks: the yard man had the litter of puppies at his house, and just put out a sad story to get rid of them. Either way, Greg could have been involved. Am I crazy? Dead people can't get involved. Can they? (yes)
Our big problem is this. We can barely care for ourselves, much less train and raise a puppy. We are like the infamous old Brownsville couple who got to the place where they couldn't button each other's buttons... I want to give him to lively younger people who can do justice to him. But here he is for now, at least, and he sure is a darling. A Good Dog for sure. YAZZYBEL
Oh, how vexing.
Get up in the dark o'morn....it's raining! How exciting! And cold enough for a jacket.
So I don my rain cap (dark green with tiny blue and green sequins that look like rain!) my new non-faux fur jacket, my mid brownish gray pants, my mid navy-purple-gray tee, and my warm shoes and sox...and off I go to St Paul's....but even before I get there, the teeming hordes of people who are going to participate in one of the huge Walks in Balboa Park. These walks are all to the good; but they take every available parking space for blocks around. I finally stopped and yelled into the door to my friends Mary and Rick: "I'm going down to All Saints!" And I was...but when I got close to All Saints, there was a group of police herding people off to the west from Sixth Avenue....and after a couple more discouraged go-rounds I just gave up and drove home.
Now I am in my weekaday clothes (which look just like the others but are from Kmart). I have kept on my shoes, as I am training my feet a la cave-man back to real shoes from slides. Slides are a step up from flip flops, because they are beautiful, but they are still the same element on your feet: they do something strange to the muscles and maybe that's why I've been having so many foot problems the last few years. Anyway I am back into my everyday clothes, and Theo is still snoozing. I will make him wake up at nine o'clock just on the principle that people should get up in the morning if they can.
Especially diabetics.
I have a suggestion for St Paul's: If these interruptions are going to continue in the form of activities in the Park on a massive scale, why not offer a drive through Communion on these days? I got a program, but it would have been even better if they could have administered the Elements or at least a Holy Blessing. Something for the priests or the Chapter to think about!! YAZZYBEL
