#GrammyC
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My friend who is recovering from a hysterectomy is really doing so much better compared to my healing. We visited her Monday night and I was in awe that she was able to sit for as long as she did. Sitting was not comfortable for me during the first 3 weeks. I had to build up to it. We hung out for about 3 hours.
I talked to her last night she told me she finally had the exhaustion catch up with her this week. Wednesday marked a week since the surgery. She was surprised that she got brain fog and was so tired she slept for most of Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. She felt guilty about it and didn't understand why she was so tired with this vs her knee surgeries.
So I explained again that she went through a major surgery. She had organs removed and her bladder put in place. She can't see what's going on outside of the tiny incisions from the laparoscopic procedure, but her body is healing and it's ok to listen to it and sleep whenever she needs it.
She told me, "I'm sure you're right." I told her I knew I was right because I've been through it and she laughed. She thanked me for the permission to sleep!
It's so nuts how we feel the need to be productive even when we're healing from big things. I remember that affected me after the ovary/Fallopian tube removal and I paid for attempting to do some housework that could've waited. I know it was part of convincing myself I was ok and could handle things. My body put me in my place, though.
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Blessed are those that visit their children’s homes and feel honored to be there, but equally happy to return to their own... #blessedbeyondmeasure #home #grammycation
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This is Larry, one of the 3 kitties whose human staff are Grammy C and her husband. Larry is very shy and skittish. He also adores Grammy C's husband.
Larry actually let me pet him when Unfriendly and I stopped by to visit on Saturday. He did get scared at some too sudden movement from me and he ran off. But he did finally approach my hand and headbutt it and let me give him some pets.
The assisted living facility has helped Grammy C's husband. He's a lot more social and seems to be enjoying some people, which is a huge change. There's an event on Wednesday for the independent living folks called Wine Down Wednesday. Grammy C had gone to lunch last Wed with me and another friend she met at the pottery studio she used to own. Well, he told his wife that if she was late, he was going to go without her! That's huge because he would normally just drink beer by himself.
#the cats have adjusted fine to their new space#they have their catio set up and seem to be thriving#grammy c#grammyc#her husband has dementia
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My neighbor friend, GrammyC, will be moving out of our subdivision on June 1st. She signed up / put down a deposit for an assisted living center and got word a couple of weeks ago that they had finally gotten to the top of the waiting list. This place is broken down into three sections:
One is specifically for folks that need more advanced care in terms of their memory (the program is actually called Memory Care)
Traditional assisted living for folks that are mostly independent but need help with medications or have other medical needs
Independent living, which is what she and her hubby will be doing.
They're going to be moving into a brand new condo and can bring their kitties. There's even a way to set up her existing catio.
Her husband is in the early stages of dementia, so down the road, they may move to either assisted living or memory care. She made the decision late last year because she recognized she'll eventually need more help with him and she also needs community / interaction that she's currently not getting. They get one meal a day at the center, too, so maybe she won't even have to worry with dinner most of the time.
I'll miss her but I'm happy she'll be able to get the interaction she needs plus any additional help with her husband. She needed to get a guard rail for him for their bed because one night he fell off and smacked his arm so hard, they ended up going to the ER because the bruise that was forming was raising up / noticeably filling with blood. All was well, but it was terrifying for both of them.
I went over to help her today with trying to get some things packed up. I have no idea how many times I ran up and down her stairs today. I'm sure I'll be feeling it tomorrow.
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Unfriendly had yesterday off. We both went over to GrammyC's at noon-ish and helped her with some packing. She's got two flights of stairs in her house. One to an upstairs room they use for a TV room and downstairs to the basement. We helped take things off the walls, dust and pack them up / sort them into size for future packing. She needs to get some additional boxes. We helped for about 4 hours.
I don't know how many flights of stairs I did yesterday. I keep forgetting to wear / charge my FitBit. I'm more tired than sore though but I am a little sore.
Her wedding photos were in a drawer with some craft things! I had been wondering about if she had any handy but did not expect to stumble upon them. I think they were both 19. It was 1963.
They met when they were at summer camp when they were 15. The only reason why her husband was at camp was because his mom was the camp nurse.
She thought he had forgotten about her because he hadn't gotten in touch months later. He had his sister call her and explain that he had gotten sick and I think had also gotten into some kind of accident. I think they were together since then with the exception of a week or two in high school where they had gotten into some spat / took a break.
I know she's having a hard time seeing him change due to the dementia. And that's likely an understatement.
I think she feels like we're another set of kids she's adopted since we're both in the age range of her 4 sons.
Unfriendly and I didn't feel like we accomplished a lot, but she felt we really helped out. She is 79 and while she is very mobile, she does get tired out pretty easily and having to deal with the side effects of her husband's dementia adds to that.
Seeing them go through this stage has really got me thinking about my and Unfriendly's hopefully eventual aging. For example, GrammyC's house is on much higher, steeper hill than ours. Neither of them can handle wheeling the garbage bins down to the end of the driveway anymore, so they just take the garbage down to the local trash / recycling for the county. It's maybe a 5 minute drive, but since her husband's changes, that's not as regular as it was. I offered for us to take her recycling. It wasn't crazily overflowing but was a good month's worth.
I've never thought of my current house in terms of being able to be mobile in it when I hit my 70s. I know we both want to get the hell out of GA but the pandemic and my not working has affected that. I'll very likely be considering these types of things when we actually get to the phase of moving out of GA.
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I talked way too much earlier and my sore throat is keeping me up. Since sleep is non existent at the moment, let me tell you about GrammyC's next door neighbors, the sorta drama therein, and how I'm tangentially involved. (!)
I think these neighbors moved in either early 2021 or at the end of 2020. They're a married couple in their 60s. At the time, they also had their 5 year old granddaughter with them. I'll call the couple Becky and Bryan. The granddaughter was what pulled GrammyC in. She adores kids, saw that Becky had some mobility issues and would help her out with the kid.
Becky is super entitled. GrammyC loves feeling like she's being helpful and did not pick up that Becky was entitled. In addition to asking for help with the kid, she started asking GrammyC for rides to doctor's appointments, etc. No idea why her husband could not do these things. Becky also started asking GrammyC's husband for help around her house.
Well, apparently Becky also has a boyfriend, John. He is the reason she moved to Georgia. I am not clear on if Bryan knows John is his wife's boyfriend. I asked if they might be in a thruple but GrammyC does not think so.
John also does Becky and Bryan's accounting but I don't think he's an accountant. (???) I don't know what exactly that entails because Becky will ask businesses to not deposit her checks right away and gets bent out of shape if they can't accommodate her. (How did she meet this guy? Are you confused? I'm confused. Why he is not over there helping his girlfriend if hubby Bryan can't? What?)
After the granddaughter went back to her mom in FL, which is a totally different long and sad story, Becky asked GrammyC if her husband could come by and take down her bird feeder because it reminded her of her granddaughter and made her sad. This was in September after GrammyC found out that the reason why her husband was having balance issues was due to a small stroke. She had already told Becky about this, reminded her, and let Becky know that Bryan would have to do it. She also couldn't take Becky places because she had her own set of doctor's appointments to go to for herself and her husband's stroke rehab and she other health issues he's been having. Mind you, they're in their late 70s and are older than Becky and Bryan.
Becky did not like this at all.
One of the times I was over at GrammyC's in either late September or early October, I guess Becky noticed. The fact that I was over more than once and Becky did not get introduced to me pissed her off. Becky either texted or Facebook messaged GrammyC about how she didn't want her to take her anywhere anymore and basically ended the "friendship". She did mention not getting introduced to me as some type of affront I guess.
I'm still not 100% sure how I got dragged into this as a reason. I'm not even sure I have the whole story yet!
GrammyC had told me about Becky and Bryan in passing. I didn't get to meet the kid before she went back to FL and I had not met Becky or Bryan either. I just knew they were neighbors but I didn't realize the extent of GrammyC's involvement in Becky's life. I think the whole thing had been weighing on GrammyC and I got an earful. I've never been listed as a reason in a friend breakup 😂
My gut says Becky did not like having a boundary set, got weirdly friend jealous and then overcorrected. IDK. I'll try to iron out these details soon. I was letting her vent so I did not get too many questions in
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Went to Mercier Apple Orchards with my neighbor friend today.
We didn't pick apples. They sell different bag sizes of various apples. The ones she wanted are not ready to be harvested yet (Gold Rush) so she got Mutsu apples. I got a variety 6 pack of their hard cider cans, peach wine, and some apple cider donuts, mainly for Unfriendly
The store had other interesting items...
This is a fabric cat either pillow or stuffed animal
Flavored and specific honey
Wine lip gloss
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GranmyC has it right now. I've been sniffle-y and run down but I told myself that it's because I'm averaging about 4 hours of sleep a night that isn't consistent or constant. And I also can't blow my nose because of the dental implant and sinuses procedure I had. Then I realized that that also sounds really, really dumb and is really ignorant.
Unless you have the trademark loss of sense of smell and taste, you have no way of knowing if you have covid or not without a test. GrammyC says it just feels like a bad cold for her. The virus mutates, so just because you had it once and it was a certain way doesn't guarantee it's going to present in the same way every time. You can have it and have no symptoms.
The dodgeball will eventually hit me. Just not today.
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Hi!
I don't know exactly why I've not been active on tumblr. Part of it is that I've been in my head a lot without really wanting / needing to write out what's in my head onto any type of medium and feeling kinda withdrawn in general. Part of it is that I know I will do other things to avoid doing the thing I need to do.
I also have been reading via audiobook a lot. I picked up Stephen King's Fairy Tale via Audible credit and decided to go through his books starting from the beginning. I'm not sure I'll touch Cujo though. That's one of his books I've actively avoided because when I got into him in middle school, I was very scared of dogs and didn't want that to get worse. I can't remember the title of another one of his I started but put down because I could tell there was a rape scene coming up at the beginning of the book and nope, no thank you.
But going through his books reminds me of my sister. Especially the early stuff because it was her copies of his books that I would borrow. I remember when IT came out she got it right away and it was sheer torture waiting for her to finish it so that I could read it.
And it also reminds me about how when I was younger I also wanted to write but never really worked on that other than getting an English lit degree. Is there a part of me that wants that still? Unemployed Marilyn is unsure.
I don't know. But those are the things rattling around in my brain I need to explore in some fashion.
Other things!
I am sick. Unfriendly's boss has been sick for a couple of weeks and hiding in his office mainly. Unfriendly started feeling down on Friday and I started feeling it on Saturday. It could have been his boss or GrammyC. She was feeling ill but I didn't find out about it until after the fact. We had hung out earlier in the week a couple of times last week.
Our rapid tests have expired and the one I tried only gave me the faintest control line, so I dragged my ass to an urgent care today and got tested. Rapid test is negative. Flu test is also negative. I'll find out about the PCR test in a couple of days. But it feels like a normal cold for me. I know it could still be a variant though.
And folks - re-reading The Stand while feeling like you're coming down with something in these Covid times was maybe not the best idea. That's such a bleak book overall. And it's really interesting re-reading it in 2022 vs 1987 (which I think is when I first read the 1978 version) vs 1990 (when the uncut version came out and was another book I had to wait for my sister to finish)
Gigabyte is good. I've incorporated some treadmill sessions with her. I'll have to share video of that. She's currently passed out on a heating pad.
So hello. Gonna check my @ s and reply and drink some Thera-Flu and maybe pass out while watching the new season of The Crown.
#rambling#it's so evident mr king does not have any black friends#really we have a flu apocalypse and most everyone that survives is white?#I had completely forgotten about Kojak the dog and really love that dog character in the stand#hello
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@downtostars tagged me for a SD&S. Hi!
I'm alive. My accomplishments for today are taking a shower and doing some dishes. I'm so tired. The coughing has gotten less. I'm on day 13. 😐
Unfriendly is also sick but not as bad as me. His boss is the culprit I think. Whatever he has he's had for over 2 weeks now. GrammyC who was sick got better pretty quickly.
Most of my energy has gone towards making sure Gig gets her meds, food, fresh water and a scooped litter box and that I take a shower every day. I'm going to attempt grits now.
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Went back to Mercier Orchards with GrammyC today for her Gold Rush apples. Saw the above and thought I'd share
She got a small mug sized spice pad with the same design for her husband
I thought these spoons were cool
A horror I shared for Unfriendly but it might not be bad on a ham sandwich?
And another one! He loves both raspberries and wasabi but I'm not sure about the combo
Neat bag for apples. They were everywhere.
The name cracked me up. Kickles!
Ummm...apple pie pickles? Confusion. So much confusion
I am directionally challenged so I smirked but the random capitalization ... exists
This one made GrammyC laugh.
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I think I'm finally on an upswing (crossing my fingers!). This cold bug is VILE.
My normal body temp is not 98.6 Fahrenheit. It's 97.9. So when I take my temperature and it's in the 98s and I haven't been running around or am bundled up, I know I'm fighting something.
It's finally been consistently back at 97.9. Less stuffy. No waking up to sealed shut or crusty eyelids. Still have a bit of a cough and I still feel tired but I can do a bit more every day.
I'm masking up forever now. I hadn't been around my neighbor, GrammyC. She is boosted up to bivalent but she takes care of her toddler grandson, who goes to daycare. He is just a petri dish of infection from the sound of it so, yeah. Definitely just masking up while around her too. I'm still one of the lone masking people at the grocery store, etc. I've rarely cared about the opinion of strangers and the day I get approached about mask wearing by one of them will be fun.
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Unfriendly before his Halloween transformation and after. I dyed his hair both times. He was the guy from Re-Animator.
I was at GrammyC's checking out her new patio. That's her laughing as well!
The head pumped blood because of course.
#Unfriendly#unfriendlypedestrian#that's my handsome man who shakes his head no every time I call him that
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More of the wild side of Gibbs today. Unfriendly and I went with our neighbor friend, GrammyC. Her husband wasn't feeling up to it, sadly.
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Off to visit with GrammyC, our neighbor friend and her family. Let's see how many of their cats flock around Unfriendly again
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Went to Gibbs Gardens today with GrammyC and her husband. We had a good time but man I'm beat. I was not expecting that. The times before I was not this exhausted. But, I did not have a hole in my mouth those times. Healing is exhausting.
Her hubby was a little out of sorts yesterday and apparently she had to drag him out of the house today, but he had a really good time. He kept closely inspecting different plants. You can see he was enjoying his chat with Unfriendly, too
Gigabyte hid from us in the morning because of course we were likely taking her to the vet in her brain. She was happy when we returned. When we got home, I took a shower then an Epsom salts bubble bath.
Boy was sleeping in our covered deck most of the day. He let me cuddle him a bit but he's not super cuddly like Ivy, but I got him purring.
We saw the first two episodes of Ms Marvel. Really nostalgic for me. My childhood best friend was half Muslim and her dad would say, "chalo let's go" daily. I was the non Muslim in a borrowed salwar kameez at Eid and other celebrations.
I'm hopefully passing out soon. Currently listening to Tig Notaro and Cheryl Hines review Three Identical Strangers.
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