Tues. March 14

From a now sunny, but brisk afternoon in MO,

I am going to write this in two parts - and you will soon see why.

The girls did a reasonably good job last night and didn't hear Jim until about 5:30 this a.m. - needless to say, I was willing to send them his way.

Jim and the girls rousted me about 7:45 - I'd actually been awake for about an hour, but just didn't see the need to get out of bed. The four of us headed to McDonald's for a sandwich (the interior has been remodeled and really looks nice) and then we did a series of errands ending in a short shopping spree for groceries at HyVee.

I had a marvelous call from Susie (goes back to August of 1965 in Belton). I cut off the call just before 11:00 as I was filling in for Mary Willis delivering meals today - her partner is Walt Bonderer's wife. We got along fine delivering meals until the last stop. I knocked on the door, could barely hear a voice inside, finally got through to him that I had food, still could not hear movement, asked him if he wanted me to come inside, he did, and I found him on the floor unable to get up. I have no idea how long he had been down, but noticed that yesterday's meal (metal container and sack) was still on the counter and appeared to be unopened. I told him I would get the manager to get help for him. I located the manager and when I was leaving, she was heading upstairs with a male resident to check on the situation. I guess this is a side benefit of Meals on Wheels. When we returned to the hospital I told the lady who works with Mobile Meals about finding the man down as well as what appeared to be unopened food from yesterday on the counter - sounds like a good possibility for food poisoning from my viewpoint.

I have a meeting at 2:00 relative to Mobile Meals - am not sure what it is all about.

Jim has dozed the middle part of the day. The girls began barking when I returned home so he didn't get as long down as usual. He did not go by the doctor's office again this a.m.

If you get an opportunity to get on Doug and Dara's site, there are some good photos of Dante and Allegra as well as what could be a "scout" purple martin. I can't remember if I mentioned the other item relative to their volunteering at the Zachary Scott theater, but that is also worth a quick read.

Will be back with you later.

From a now dark, but not really late MO,

The afternoon progressed well. The meeting that I had with some of the other office volunteers for Mobile Meals went well. The man who does the annual audit had one suggestion - and it was an easy request.

I arrived back home a little after 3:00 and proceeded to do some puttering around here. The next thing I knew it was 3:45 and I needed to get the girls back in their pen (access to limited area in house and all of the backyard) so I could head to Washington St. to have dessert with the ladies. The ladies today turned out to be Peggy Bacon, Helen, and yours truly. We had a delightful conversation and it was soon almost 5:00.

Jim arrived home soon after I did. My plans were to fix a roast in the pressure cooker so I had pulled out my old cooker and other than having the stove on high, couldn't keep the "rocker" moving. I switched to the newer cooker (but waited too long) and it was soon rocking away, but all in all supper was much later than usual. I will try to take the lid of the old cooker to Westlake's tomorrow to see if the correct ring is still available. The old cooker is smaller and I more to the size that we need.

Pole vault practice went quite well today and other than Jim coming home with very tender feet, he found several things to be very positive about.

I am not sure what will transpire on Wednesday. Jim will join at least the first group of "old fogies" for breakfast. He sees Dr. Kozminski (urologist) at 9:30 - and I plan on being there as usual. I think I've missed probably less than four visits in the past 9 and one/half years - once was with mom when she was having surgery in Liberty, one visit that I thought would be routine, might have been substituting on another visit that I thought would be routine, but with all of his aches and pains, I want to be right in the examination room tomorrow.

I think Jim has also reached the point that we will probably go by Dr. Metry's office at 9:00 to see when he can get in to see Dr. Metry.

I have a short list of errands that I would like to accomplish sometime tomorrow and most of these can be done while Jim is napping.

Be safe.
B.