Sunday, October 31, 2021

Sunday, October 31, 2021

Tonight's picture was taken on Halloween of 2007. Mattie was five years old. That year he wanted to be an Air Force pilot. However, when we went to look for costumes the only one I could find was that of a Navy pilot. So my friend who is a retired lieutenant in the Air Force sent us Air Force patches to attach to the costume. Mattie absolutely LOVED that! Then our neighbors gave Mattie the hat. So it was quite the ensemble, which seemed fitting since this was his first store bought costume. Previous years, I either made the costume or Mattie wore some sort of sweatsuit material. 

Quote of the day: Today's coronavirus update from Johns Hopkins. 

• Number of people diagnosed with the virus: 45,967,708
• Number of people who died from the virus: 745,805

It was a very busy day for us. Notice in the photo above the big blow up pumpkin, that we are missing a shutter. It fell off in a wind storm! Wonderful. So today, Peter got up on a ladder and reattached the shutter. I wish I could say that was the end of our day. Unfortunately no! We worked the entire day doing all sorts of chores. In addition to everything else, I am trying to get the house ready for my parents to live in. So the beds we have in our lower level bedroom, which is the guest room, we had to disassemble and bring to the master bedroom for my parents. After all for a good week they won't have access to their things, while the truck is in transit. I am working on trying to get their bathrooms, closets, and things ready for them. That's on top of other issues here that we are still managing. 

Being that it is Halloween, I tried to estimate how much candy we would need. Frankly I have no idea given that we are new to the neighborhood. The HOA of the neighborhood sent out an email saying there would be a Halloween parade at 5pm and that neighbors should line the street and give out candy to kids in the parade. So sure enough Peter, Sunny, and I were outside with candy. But there was NO parade. I am not flexible about this kind of stuff. If you tell me to be somewhere and to participate, I expect there to be something to participate in! At 5:15pm, we then walked to a cul de sac in the neighborhood where a pizza party was going to take place before trick or treating. Again, we went because we wanted to be social. What a mistake that was, and I won't be going again. 

The number one question asked of us is.... do you have children. In fact, if one more person asked me that, I thought I was going to explode. Then we got stuck talking to quite a couple. This couple recently sold their house and they are relocating south to be near their daughter who just had a baby. Their other daughter is training to be a pediatrician. The couple was giving me a lecture on how tired they are (as they are moving, one daughter got married, and the other is having a baby) and also how special their daughter (studying to be a physician) is because she is COMPETENT. He said that is the best quality a doctor can have. Now perhaps if you are talking to someone inexperienced with the medical field, I would have just smiled and said.... OH YES or absolutely! But you are talking to ME! I couldn't take it and therefore let him have it. I said most physicians are competent. It is the physician who can listen, include the patient and family as part of the treatment team, and also have the compassion to understand that illness is much more than just about solutions... that's what makes a physician stand out from others. 

They then asked about us. Mind you, we don't go looking to talk about our situation. Peter told them about Mattie, the Foundation, and the fact that we bought a house with a lot of problems and now I am headed to Los Angeles to pack my parents up and move them in. So I have TWO moves in one and my dad is not an easy patient. As he has physical issues but they are nothing in comparison to his late stage dementia. After I finished with this couple, they said... WOW! That they have nothing to be tired about. CORRECT. Really had it with them. 

Peter and I came back home dejected and deflated from this pizza party and neither one of us wanted to hand out candy. So like many of our neighbors, we put an outdoor table at the end of the driveway and put a big box filled with candy for kids to take!

I snapped this photo while walking Sunny today. There were two tombstones in someone's front yard. On them read..

Chris P. Bacon

RIP M.T. Grave

Someone has a sense of humor!