Some Quiet Time

It has been a lazy day in Naruna. The sun came out after a rather chilly gray start to the day, and critters have been seeking spots to nap and generally conserve energy and body heat. Rosie grabbed a little patch of sunshine, while Sam & Tizzie cuddled up on the sofa. The LB and I have also been slugs after church, just sitting eating popcorn and watching a movie, "My Dog Skip". It is a real tearjerker at the end and we thoroughly enjoyed it. Tangentially, the movie let me give the LB a little history lesson, which I love doing. Anyone want to sit and discuss the cultural impact of the Spanish Civil War on American society in the second half of the 20th century?

Oliver, the whiny cat, has had a trying week, with the ugly scab on his nose finally falling off. Very pink and still a little raw. Maybe he has learned his lesson. Yeah...right.

Yesterday afternoon, the LB and I visited the Middle Child and her husband. He has been home from Iraq for about a month, and has been getting out and catching up by doing all the things unavailable over there. While doing one of his favorite activities - riding his new motorsickle - he dropped the front wheel in a hole on the edge of the pavement at about 10 mph, flipping the bike(and himself). He landed squarely on his shoulder, fragmenting, comminuting and dislocating the medial portion of his right clavicle. That just means he smashed hell outta the end of his collar bone where it should be attached to his breast bone. Lots of sharp pieces that are not where they are supposed to be. He has had to wait while being referred to the most appropriate orthopedic surgeons specializing in trauma, and then wait some more until a thoracic surgeon would be available to help if needed. Should get fixed this week. Everybody keep praying...for patience as well as healing.

Don't you just love pulling up your blog and finding that various and sundry individuals have taken the time to leave comments about what you have written!?! It makes you feel like somebody is actually reading what you have laid down, so it must be for a purpose and not just vanity! Or am I just trying to justify my occasional scratching down of self-centered personal tales?

Oliver's questions answered

Sunday morning brought an answer to what happened to our whiny cat, Oliver. After imagining all sorts of encounters with local critters, the truth came out during my Sunday School class.

Two weeks ago the 132 year old church had a scare when smoke began billowing out of the ducts immediately after the heating system was switched on. Turned out a raccoon was using the attic of the church for a refuge from the cold weather and had succeeded in gnawing through a couple of wires which caused the smoke.

Stanley, a WWII Marine Corps veteran and a member of my class, decided the coon needed to be caught before some real damage occurred. He brought his live trap and set it out behind the church house and baited it with something smelly. Apparently, Oliver couldn't resist the lure of the decaying tidbits, and sprung the trap on himself. Now the goal of a live trap is to capture a critter without inflicting any terminal injuries...all that is required of the animal is to sit down and wait to be released. Oliver is not a patient pussycat and kept trying to butt his way out of the cage, hence the damage to his nose by the time Stanley checked his trap. No wonder he acted so embarrassed...a self-inflicted injury!

Tending the Wounded

As we get older, there are milestones we come to in our journey through life. This week I came to another one when I had to accompany my Lovely Bride to the dermalogist's office for something called a "Mohs" micrographic procedure to remove a cancer from her face. One of the inherent problems with being blonde, fair of complexion and living in a sun-drenched environment such as Texas, is that skin cancers become a matter of when...not if. She has always had a multitude of adorable and highly interesting freckles, but this was just a spot at the corner of her eye next to her nose which her glasses kept irritating. The process entailed cutting away the visible tumor and examining the edges, or margins, of the mass to see if there was any cancer there. If there was, the knife came back out, more tissue was cut away, and the microscopic examination conducted again. This ensures all the cancer is removed along with the minimum amount of healthy tissue. Once the margins are found to be free of cancer cells, it is just a matter of stitching the patients face back together. One problem with this procedure is the time involved...for the LB it was a little under five hours, and I aged a lot more than that as I waited and held her hand. Two days later, other than some bruising and an itchy incision, there aren't many obvious signs she had anything done.

She decided to stay home from work Friday to rest and recuperate a little. While home, she passed the time by taking some photos of some of her house critters, including one chronically whiny cat named Oliver. Oliver has been with us since birth, and has had an interesting existence which once included a trip to a feline orthopedist for hip surgery after an ill-timed encounter with an over-enthusiastic Labrador puppy.

Saturday, Oliver didn't appear until late in the afternoon. He acted pretty embarrassed, and was sporting a very swollen and bruised nose. Didn't seem to be in much pain, but the question on our minds was what did he get tangled up with? All I can think of is maybe he got himself kicked or stepped on by a cow while roaming through one of the neighboring pastures. What else could give a cat a bloody nose while doing little other damage? Anyone have any ideas, please send them along.

These pictures of Oliver were taken Friday and Saturday afternoons.

The Same Old Thing

I need to give up on trying to post regularly. I just have fallen back into my routine of getting up before the sun, going to work, and coming home to Naruna sometime around sundown. No trips to exotic locales, no meals at fancy restaurants, and few encounters with out-of-the-ordinary folks whose stories are not protected by federal law. Nothing new. Nothing different. I go to the same job every day and then come home to the same wife every night.

Since I am in this terrible rut, I have to be bored out of my mind, right!?! Wrong! Yesterday there was a high school student, doing a rotation through the Operating Room, who asked me why I was still working in the OR after more than 37 years. The answer which slipped out before I had time to think was, “I can’t imagine doing anything else.” Nothing else gives the same feeling as taking a patient who has a problem, helping fix whatever is wrong, and then sending them home better for having visited us. If you don’t feel like you have made a difference and accomplished something after a day of that, there is no hope for you.

And the wife I come home to every night is the same girl I fell head over heels in love with so many years ago. I still don’t know why she decided to say yes more than a third of a century ago when I clumsily brought up the subject. She stood beside me no matter what came along, traveling around the world, having babies and raising them far from home and family. She took care of them by herself when I ran away on those unaccompanied tours to exotic parts of the globe, and she learned there was nothing she couldn’t do if needed. She balanced family with volunteering and serving others, so that when we retired from the Army, she knew more General officers than I ever met.

No matter what foolish things I tried over the years, she nursed me back to health and some degree of mobility. She continues to experiment on me with exotic recipes, even when worn out from cooking for her kids at school…all 400 of them. Since we first met, we have been able to sit beside each other, read a book or newspaper, never feel the need to say a word, and still feel we have communed and had “quality time” together.

So when I say I am doing the “same old thing” every day, that means a lot.

Cowboy Up!

I really need to start posting on some sort of regular basis. It has been a month since I last laid down any thoughts for you to pick through. Of course, in a place like Naruna, excitement doesn't come along just every day.

There are the little minor adventures, such as Larry's blue heeler who got caught in a hog snare, and to add insult to the injury got sprayed by a passing skunk. This would not normally have affected the general population of Naruna, except the dog insists on following Larry to church. With the week long Revival Meeting kicking off this past Sunday, every one quickly got their fill of this gimpy, smelly dog. The sad part was that the dog only wanted to be everybody's friend and kept trying to quietly slip up next to the ladies sipping on glasses of cold ice tea and wearing their Sunday-go-to-meeting finery. The poor dog couldn't understand why none of those good church folk wanted to associate with him, a poor sinner. Positively un-Christian!

I guess the big Naruna news is the Revival meeting, or Revival Crusade as it is being advertised. Last year the little Baptist church in Naruna had a four day revival, and everybody had such a great time, it was decided to extend it to a full week this time around. All the ladies of the church keep cooking and feeding sinners and saints alike. There is a gospel singing group, complete with a young lady playing the fiddle, and a high-powered Evangelist imported all the way from Dallas. They keep filling the little 130 year old church, and people are making decisions and being saved! Makes all the getting ready feel worthwhile. I'll try to put up more info as the week progresses.

Saturday night, the LB and I headed for the south end of Burnet county and a fund-raising event for a local organization, the Hill Country Children's Advocacy Center (or HCCAC). This is a group which serves seven counties in the Texas Hill Country as a centralized agency performing forensic exams of abused children. One of the biggest traumas for abused children is having to repeat their story over and over as they pass through the system. HCCAC works to minimize that trauma. Just at a time when economic downturns are causing a surge in child abuse, the center lost a significant grant this year. The Cowboy Up for Kids event is one way the community is trying to make up that deficit. www.hccac.org/howhelp/events_dinner.html

We headed out into the countryside, turned down a dusty road, and arrived at a huge tent amongst the mesquite and scrub oak just as the sun was setting over the hills. A group of musicians, replete with well-worn boots, hats and more than one handlebar moustache, were onstage tuning and warming up. Tables filled with items for a silent auction lined the sides of the tent, and a number of big ticket items were arrayed around the dance floor in readiness for the live auction. A bar, with the obligatory longnecks and margarita machine plus bottles of wine for the more refined in the crowd, was fitted into one corner. An oldtime chuckwagon was parked at the back of the tent, and several wood fires were being tended outside. Closer scrutiny showed numerous large dutch ovens either nestled in the coals or suspended over the flames.

Quickly I secured cold beverages for us, and we began to circulate through the crowd, stopping to exchange greetings with acquaintances, while checking out the auction items. The LB located several interesting things and jotted down her opening bids. I was starting to relax and think I might get out without spending too much money, when she discovered that one of the live auction items was for a miniature donkey party for a dozen of the children at the center. Her only question was, "Can I come to the party, too?" I knew I was doomed. She would not rest (nor let me rest!) until I had secured this prize.

Dinner was the next agenda item, with steaks grilled over the open fire, with sides of potatoes and green beans ladled out of steaming pots. Home made rolls baked in the coals in heavy dutch ovens rounded out the meal (and my belly). Just when we couldn't eat another bite, the cooks brought in dutch ovens full of home made peach cobbler. Wonderfully miserable!

As the live auction got underway, and the first few items sold for less than their stated value, I became hopeful...maybe it wouldn't really cost that much. At last, "our" lot went on the block, and a determined looking fellow from Hamilton, Texas quickly tossed out the first bid. As I looked him over, I couldn't help but wonder if he too had a wife who was a donkey junkie? I waved my program in the air, upping the stakes, wondering how determined he would prove to be. Back and forth we went, trading the lead, until finally...he caved! Ha...ha...ha. I had bested him, and all it cost was...my God, what did it cost!?! I kept repeating my mantra of, "It's for the kids, it's for the kids," as I tried to catch my breath and write out the check.

The Chocolate Mint Explosion

The LB and our Middle Child decided to repaint what had been the Youngest Child's bedroom. Since she left home over six years ago and hasn't tried to move back yet, they felt it was safe to do some updating, and maybe add a few modern touches to make it over into a serviceable guest room.

In principal this sounded good, but when I was asked to help pick out paint, I knew something was amiss since my choices are always "white" or maybe "off-white". When asked why she needed me, the LB confessed that the salesman told her if she wanted the color she had selected, she had to bring her husband in with her before he would mix it. This aroused my interest to the point where I agreed to tag along.

At the paint display, we found ourselves at opposite ends of the samples. I was in front of the beiges and eggshells, and they went over to the dark side. Quickly, I was over-ruled (like I really thought I would have a vote!) and the decision came down to which flavor of paint they wanted...milk or dark chocolate?

Back in Naruna, furniture was quickly pushed into the center of the room, switchplates and outlet covers removed, and painting clothes put on. The first splashes of dark brown were applied to the mint green the Youngest Child had smeared on the walls while in high school, and after the first feelings of queasiness passed, it looked like nothing so much as a splattering of mint chocolate chip ice cream. Thankfully, the brown went on quickly and before long it was drying and revealing its true milk chocolatey nature.

After the first couple of coats dry sufficiently, it will be time to do some taping and trim work. I may even be allowed to help out with that since I won't have to make any strategic decisions...just put the paint on the wood!