Toothache
For the past couple of days, I’ve been experiencing some mouth pain. Nothing I couldn’t handle, but we are heading to Vermont on Monday and I don’t want the flight attendants to have to do an emergency dental procedure. I called my dentist to see if she could fit me in. Wouldn’t you know that this is the week she chose to close her office and take vacation? And wouldn’t you know that my toothache kicked into second gear yesterday afternoon? So I called an emergency dentist and made an appointment for this afternoon. I see a root canal in my near future.

Jumpity, Aren’t You?
Despite some tooth pain, I took Kaiya, Mylee, and Cole out to lunch yesterday. We followed that with a trip to a trampoline park. Let me tell you, those three kids can put away some sushi. I always get hand rolls so I can stay ahead of them. At Sky Zone, they jumped and jumped and jumped, working off any energy provided by the sushi. I think Cole jumped into the foam blocks 3,287 times. We enjoyed our time at the trampoline park, and celebrated with Sonic afterwards.

It’s COMPANY
My sister Bec arrives this afternoon for her annual Colorado visit. She will spend a few days here (probably nursing me through a root canal) and then head to Fort Collins. She is renting a cottage near Old Town Fort Collins for a few weeks. I hope to see a lot of her after we return from Vermont. We might even work a trip to Estes Park into our time together.

VACA
Speaking of Vermont, I will not be posting a blog next week while we are vacationing. My plan is to repost some old posts. I will return again the next Monday, refreshed and ready to go.

Ciao!

My phone didn’t ring in the middle of the night. Simone Biles made her decision to withdraw from the Tokyo Olympics without consulting this fan. It’s probably good that she didn’t try because I make it a firm practice to not answer calls that aren’t in my contact list. She would just have gotten my voice mail and I wouldn’t have gotten the message until it was too late.

Not only that, but I would probably have given her bad advice.

As Bill was reading the news yesterday morning, he audibly gasped and his eyebrows shot up.

“What’s up?” I asked him. “Have they cured COVID?”

“I can’t tell you because you told me not to spill any beans in advance about the Olympics,” he answered. “You’ve never forgiven me for spilling the beans about Matthew’s death in Season 3 of Downton Abbey,” he added. “I don’t want to take the chance.”

But of course I would have had to live on Gilligan’s Island to not hear the news about Simone Biles during the day yesterday. In fact, I’m pretty sure the Professor on Gilligan’s Island would have rigged up a radio using a coconut and a bird’s beak and already heard the news.

The reason I would have given her bad advice is that my initial reaction to the news was negative. What are you? Some kind of poor sport who is so full of herself that she can’t bear to not look good? (See why I would make a good coxswain?)

But after I read a bit more about her announcement and listened to the news conference, and pretty much stopped getting my Simone Biles News from the gentleman with the eyebrows across the breakfast table, I understood. I guess, in her way, she actually WAS being a good sport. She was admitting she was stinking it up like Pepe Le Pew and was going to bring her entire team down with her.

Of course, she couched it a bit differently, saying her mind wasn’t in the right place to participate in the Olympics. I’m not going to touch on that not even a little bit. What I am going to say is that I think most athletes would overstay their welcome before they would admit that they are being a hindrance to their team instead of helping them win. I’m looking at you, Brett Favre (who also didn’t call me to get my thoughts on whether he should retire).

I have never been an athlete. In fact, the closest I’ve gotten to competitive sports was a few mean games of miniature golf with my family. Having said that, I can say with absolute certainty that had we been playing miniature golf in teams — and had I sent the golf ball flying into the street every time I hit it instead of into the alligator’s mouth — I would have resigned from our team.

So, good on Simone for knowing when to pull the plug. And most important, good on having the team spirit to not run and hide, but to stay and help and cheer your teammates on.

Don’t be afraid to call me next time.

I had lunch the other day with our eldest grandchild Adelaide. She, as you know (since I’ve been whining about this for six months), is leaving for college in a few weeks. After a long, well-thought-out process, she has elected to attend Colorado State University as part of its Honors Program. I’m happy with her decision, because it means she will be close enough to see often. She is going to ABSOLUTELY LOVE when her nana and papa show up every weekend to make sure she’s going to class and take her out for lunch. J/K Addie! It will also mean that she and I will be wearing different colors one Saturday early in football season when CSU loses to plays CU in the Rocky Mountain Showdown. Go Buffs.

Anyhoo, she and I went out for (shockingly) sushi the other day. I wanted to buy bratwursts from a place that sells real Sheboygan brats, you know, like from Wisconsin. The brats are worth a drive, but it really is quite a drive for some sausages. I checked its location and noticed that there was a sushi restaurant in the same shopping center. I’m not too proud to bribe. It worked. Addie agreed to drive me there if I bought her sushi.

“What am I going to do without my Addie?” I asked her grandfather as I waited for her to pick me up.

“I’m pretty sure she’ll come home every weekend to have sushi with her nana,” Bill said unconvincingly.

Addie — who, as you have often heard me say — will run the world some day. For the time being, she runs our family. She is the go-to girl for nearly everything. Here’s an example. My readers know that I unfortunately go into the hospital every so often because of stomach issues. What readers may not know is that I often deal with the bowel obstructions without going into the hospital. I can do nearly everything they have me do while in the hospital at home. So I stop eating and drinking, I take something for the pain, and I wait. More often than not, it resolves. The other evening, my stomach started hurting. I texted Addie and told her my situation. I asked if she could be available later that night to take me to the hospital if necessary.

I didn’t hear back for awhile, but then she phoned to let me know she would be available. My stomach had literally stopped hurting mere minutes before she called. “I’m glad you’re better Nana,” she said. “But it would be lots better if you could go into the hospital during the day than in the middle of the night.”

Yes, it would indeed. I’ll talk to my stomach and see if it could be a bit more cooperative. I learned later that she was just a tad cranky because she had just gotten back from picking up her other grandmother who had spent a couple of days in the hospital, taken there by You-Know-Who.

Addie’s Ambulance Service: Payment one sushi lunch per trip

As I anticipated, I am enjoying the Olympics. I have even enjoyed watching the badminton — a word I have apparently never pronounced correctly in my life since I was unaware of the “n”. Spellcheck and I were in quite a battle for a bit as I tried to figure out how to spell the word. Spellcheck won. As for the game of badminton, my brother told me he played a lot of badminton in high school P.E., and their sole goal was to hit the birdie hard enough against the back of a person’s neck to leave a mark. I’m not sure that isn’t the goal of the badminton Olympians from all appearances. And, by the way, those high schoolers would have really been amused if they knew the correct term for the birdie was a shuttlecock. Tee-hees all around from the 15-year-olds.

I tried to watch bicycle racing, but decided it was simply too dull. Watching paint dry. I would rather have watched ribbon twirling, but I haven’t seen it in any of the Olympic events on television. Perhaps it’s a winter Olympics event. Do they do it on ice skates? And, by the way, it’s not called ribbon twirling. It’s called rhythmic gymnastics. That appears to be a bit of a stretch, but it probably makes the participants feel better. It’s hard to feel talented in a sport that contains the word “ribbon.”

I’m having trouble figuring out if I’m watching live or pre-recorded. I guess my rule of thumb should be if I look outside and it’s dark, it’s probably live. And I should probably get to bed. Yesterday morning I was looking at my news feed, and it told me the results of the women’s gymnastics. I FREAKED OUT. How on earth did I miss the women’s gymnastics, I said. And then I calmed down and realized that the women gymnasts had been performing while I was deep in REM sleep and that I would watch it last night. I vowed to no longer look at news feeds about the Olympics so that I don’t know the outcomes. By the time you read this post, you will know that the women’s gymnastics team looked like they were from one of those little islands off of Africa instead of the world’s Gymnastic Powerhouse. You let Russia beat you. I feel like I’m back in the Cold War. I’m pretty sure Simone Biles had a sore pinky toe. Better luck next time Ladies.

Synchronized swimming is fascinating to me. The Chinese women synchronized swimmers are creepily precise. I don’t know how they do it. I think they might all have been conjoined twins separated at birth. Bill and I have trouble walking together at the same pace.

Saturday morning, I stumbled on to women’s crewing. This is the sport where women who have shoulders larger than most men make rowing down a body of water look easy. In my next life, I’m going to be part of the U.S.A. Crew Team. My shoulders will be a normal size, because I’m going to be the coxswain. That is the person who sits in the back of the boat facing the rest of the team who yells at them. Work harder you big babies. What are you, a bunch of wimps? Pull, dammit. Pull, dammit. You look like weinies. Don’t let those Canadians bully you!

I wonder if you have to try out to be the coxswain on a crewing team. I’m sure I could do a great job. Bill could be my reference for how bossy I can be.

Sure, they bicker and fight like all young siblings do. Still, when Cole gave Mylee her birthday gift, she was very pleased. So pleased, in fact, that she gave him a big hug. Her sign of gratitude made my day, and made me smile.

Have a great weekend.

At this point in my life, it sometimes seems as though if I didn’t have doctor appointments, I would have no social life whatsoever. My sister Bec and I commiserate during our frequent FaceTime conversations.

“What are you doing today?” I ask her. What I should be asking her is, “What doctor appointments do you have today?”

“Well, today I have to get some blood drawn and then see the dermatologist,” she might answer. “What about you?”

“Well, today I have a mammogram and I’m accompanying Bill to his cardiologist appointment.”

Fun times.

I recently had a podiatrist appointment to discuss my bunions. I didn’t even know what a bunion was up until about five years ago. This, despite the fact that I had actually had bunions for about two years prior to that. It was, in fact, my pedicurist who diagnosed me, though I had been to my primary care doctor annually since, well, a long time ago. He, like me, apparently disregards my feet. My sister Bec and I were getting a pedicure together, and I was complaining about the fact that I always had terrible calluses on my feet, and wondering why. My manicurist looked surprised, and said, “It’s because of your bunions.”

My what?

That’s how little I pay attention to myself. For at least two years, my left foot had looked like this…..

…..and I didn’t even notice that something was wrong. Or wonder why my shoes didn’t fit any more. Please let me know if my right eye starts bulging or my nose starts having big red veins, because I won’t notice it myself.

Anyhoo, Bec looked down at her perfect little twinkle toes and said, “Well, you know, Mom had bunions.” I’m pretty sure she wiggled her toes at me at that point.

I didn’t know that Mom had bunions. I didn’t know what a bunion was until that very moment. I always thought a bunion was like corns and calluses. And, while I like that I look like mom, and that I inherited her mouth and her chin and her blue eyes, I could have done without inheriting her feet.

So, for two years or more, I have endured my ugly feet. While I went years without noticing I had bunions, now I couldn’t keep my eyes from looking at my feet. Finally, I decided to visit a podiatrist and talk about bunion surgery. I opened my insurance company’s website, looked up podiatrists, closed my eyes, and picked one. No big physician research for this patient.

I went to the doctor’s office. He walked in, looked at my feet (I have a small bunion on my right foot as well), walked out, and announced his retirement to his staff.

I’m just kidding. But he did agree with me; I have bunions. Should be a simple fix, he told me. He sent my off for an X-ray. When I returned a week later, he came in and announced that my X-ray indicated it would, in fact, NOT be simple surgery. It would be rather complicated surgery and I would be non-weight-bearing for two months. And THEN he told me he was going to retire. And that’s a true story.

Yoiks. You can’t say that I do things half-assed. If you’re going to have foot sugery, you might as well make it difficult.

After much consideration, including envisioning going up and down the staircase in our Denver home on crutches (and undoubtedly falling down and breaking my crown), I have concluded I will have the surgery in AZ, where the sun shines bright in January and doctors are plentiful. Best of all, there is nary a step in our little ranch home.

But back to doctor’s appointments. As it turns out, Jen requires knee replacement on the knee they didn’t do a year-and-a-half ago, and plans to have it in the fall. I will then come along and have bunion surgery in January. As for Bec, she will be our nurse.

I hope she doesn’t retire like my podiatrist did.

When I began talking about perhaps getting rid of my yellow bug and buying an SUV, Bill concurred completely with the idea. Well, at least the part of the idea that included getting rid of the Volkswagen.

“Hon,” he said. “Why don’t we consider buying a truck?”

A truck? Nope, nein, nee, non, nie, nyeht, nao. Not going to happen. I am simply not willing to buy a giant vehicle that prevents people from being able to back up if they park next to it. When Bill moved to Colorado from Chicago, one of the first things he did was buy a pickup truck. He also bought cowboy boots, a cowboy hat, a horse, a horse trailer, spurs and chaps. Leroy Brown became Roy Rogers.

“You had your pickup truck,” I reminded him. “This car will primarily be driven by me, and I’m not truck material.”

He backed off pretty quickly, but couldn’t help but remind me how helpful a truck would be when hauling things. I couldn’t help but remind him that his Big Project days were over and there wouldn’t be a need to haul things.

Guess who was wrong?…..

Yes, my friends. I’d forgotten that he’s building a gate. That’s what it looks like when you squeeze a 10-foot post into a car with a ten-foot clearance. If we put the seat down and rested the front of the posts at an angle on the dashboard, it would fit. It wouldn’t have been so bad except for the fact that I went along with him to Lowe’s.

I hate Lowe’s. I hate Home Depot. I hate big box hardware stores. Well, except for spring when they have garden plants. Other than that, I hate big box hardware stores. I’m not anti-hardware. I’m not anti-big box stores. I just am bored silly when he talks me into accompanying him to the hardware store. Just like he is when he accompanies me to a kitchen store.

“Do you want to go with me to Lowe’s?” he asked brightly yesterday, thinking that if he seemed cheerful enough, he could fool me into thinking we would have fun. It would count as his commitment to spend more time with me. Sigh.

“Nope, I sure don’t,” I quickly answered, not fooled in the least. I had been thinking going to a movie and holding hands.

But then the ghost of Rex McLain haunted me. I kid you not. The words were barely out of my mouth when my phone dinged, indicating a text message. Hi! This is Lowe’s. The online item you ordered has arrived. Your husband is going to be so happy, isn’t he? Well, the last part wasn’t added, but it felt like it.

So, I was stuck going to Lowe’s after all. And then he put the 10-foot post onto the cart. I was pretty darn sure that wasn’t going to fit in our brand new Honda CR-V. And I was almost right. We managed to get it in, but the rear door wouldn’t close all the way.

“Not to worry,” he said. “Just drive slowly.”

I drove slowly, and made it about two blocks before the rear door popped completely open. I quickly pulled over, and Bill “McGyver”, using his brilliant engineering mind, managed to figure out a way to get the 10-foot pole into a 10-foot CR-V interior. Put the seat down and let Kris straddle, all the while praying that we weren’t rear-ended which would result in me being impaled.

I wasn’t impaled. We were neither rear-ended, or stopped by the police. Nevertheless, I’m still glad we didn’t buy a pickup truck.

Remember a short time ago when I blogged how much I disliked the crows that woke me up every morning with their awful CAW CAW CAW. Well, they still wake me up every morning, but my heart has grown three sizes as of late, at least as it relates to crows. They can caw all they want, because my nature-anger has taken a new direction.

JAPANESE BEETLES.

My first encounter with Japanese beetles took place four or five years ago when I discovered them on my raspberry bush. I had listened to my neighbor complain about the beetle — part of the scarab beetle family. Scarab beetles are considered to be sacred in places like Egypt. They aren’t sacred — at least not the arm of the scarab beetle family that includes Japanese beetles — at my house. I would rather worship a squirrel. And you know how I feel about squirrels.

Japanese beetles originate in Japan. Imagine that. But here’s the thing: apparently they don’t do much damage in Japan, at last not according to Wikipedia. And you know Wikipedia is always right. The reason they are fairly harmless in Japan is that there are lots of natural predators that handle things. Not so here. We just got the beetle, not the beetle’s enemies. That doesn’t seem fair.

The first time a Japanese beetle was discovered in the U.S. was way back in 1916, in New Jersey. I wish the Garden State would have just kept them to themselves. Now the little buggers are present in all but nine states. Perhaps just eight, because there was a sighting fairly recently in Wyoming.

Honestly, the little devils are more ubiquitous than Californians. In fact, why don’t they just all move to California?

After I discovered the insects on my raspberry plants a few years ago, I complained about them to my next door neighbor. She told me that they were nonexistent in Colorado until 10 or 15 years ago, when a batch of fancy-dancy trees were delivered to the fancy-dancy Cherry Hills Country Club so the fancy-dancy members wouldn’t get hot playing golf. So I’m blaming my Japanese beetles on John Elway and all of his rich friends. I have to blame someone, right?

Every summer about this time — when I discover my first Japanese beetles dining heartily on one of my favorite plants — I go online to see how I can kill them. Every year, I get the same answer. The best and most effective way to rid your plants of Japanese beetles is to put on a pair of gloves and pick them off the plant, tossing them into a bowl of sudsy water. Ugh.

I was angry yesterday when I checked out my Black-Eyed Susan plant that I planted last fall and saw it was infested with the beetle. I began beating the plant with my purse. #Truth. I haven’t seen that particular advice on any nursery website. And there’s a good reason for this, because not only did it not kill the beetles, but they began flying at me. I felt like the screen door in our house in Columbus on summer nights when the door was open and the lights were on. That wasn’t part of my plan. I ran to the house, and haven’t left since. I’m pretty sure we can get by for a few days on what’s in my pantry. Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom Soup and pretzels.

I may borrow my granddaughter Dagny’s beekeeping suit and try again today. If only crows ate Japanese beetles. Sigh.