At a Loss for Words

 Yeah, I know -- I' m never at a loss for words. But ... real life is heavy, man, heavy. So I'll just go with my little narcissistic bubble.

On Saturday, February 8th, I went to help out at a quilting notions sale in Palm Desert. My typical back pain escalated so much that I left after only an hour instead of the two hours I had planned on. By 7:30 p.m. our good friend and angel, Eric, was depositing me at the ER. From there I spent 12 hours on a gurney in the hallway. Finally in a room, I had an elderly roommate (I can hear my mother's voice saying, 'You are elderly you know,') with dementia. I felt badly for her, but her loud arguments with the staff and her son were very upsetting, especially coupled with the other dementia patient screaming down the hall. The noise in the hallway was incredible. I was jangled.

I don't know on what day, maybe day 3, they moved me to a single room which was heaven. By then, however, I was with it enough to realize that I had someone waking me about every 15 minutes at night. I hadn't eaten since some toast at Noon on Saturday and they weren't letting me have even ice chips. I was thirsty! An I V of fluid isn't the same as a drink of water. It turns out they were trying to knock down an infection in the gall bladder so they didn't know when they could do the surgery. Thus nothing by mouth. Every time an I V bag emptied, they put on another one. On Feb. 12th, they took out my gall bladder. I was discharged on February 14. 

View at sunset from the good room.

I have made a new friend with Kevin, who was my home health aide for three days. He's an all around good helper if anyone local in the desert needs his services. He even carried my purse for me, noting that it was not in keeping with his color scheme. 

I want to thank everyone for your get well wishes and prayers. Thank you!!

Yesterday Cricket helped me ALL DAY bundling and labeling fabric pieces for a sale on March 7th. I couldn't have done it without her. Each piece of fabric had to be measured and each size was tied with a certain color of toule. The color indicated the price. This is how many we did.

We had a bit of a windy time on February 18 and 19. On the photo below you can see one of the many piles of palm tree "trash" that fell down.

Lots of fruit came down in the high winds.

On February 25th, Cricket and I went to El Paseo Drive in Palm Desert. This is equivalent to Rodeo Drive in Los Angeles. In other words, the baskets in one gallery were $1500. and one restaurant featured caviar and chips for $120. But we were on a mission to go to the Winston Pie shop for their opening day and then onto Mole, an upscale Mexican restaurant. We brought 3 mini pies home to taste and share. We had apple, cowboy (it was like a brownie with a fudgy center), and dark cherry. I really liked the cherry because it wasn't very sweet. But we were surprised when Cricket found a cherry pit. Luckily, she did not break a tooth. Later, after supper, Mom found another cherry pit! Again, thank God, she did not break a tooth. That was two pits in a mini pie about 4.5" across.

I wrote an email and they offered me and my friend a free latte. And the spokesperson said in her email, 'That's why we label the boxes, you may find a pit.' I took a picture of the box and it wasn't until I enlarged it that I saw their warning. 

On Friday, Feb. 27th, we celebrated three birthdays at lunch at Billy Reed's which is a restaurant with a huge menu. Everyone gave us cards with lottery scratch tickets. I may have won $10 but these things are complicated! Below is a picture of the cards that Cricket made for us using her incredible quilling skills. Mom's is on the left and mine is on the right. I didn't get to see Dottie's card, but one year Cricket put a parrot on it. It looked like Dottie's pet parrot. Thank you for all of the birthday good wishes!

Today, March 1, it was 95 F. and that is a record breaker. It's never this hot at this time in the winter. Consequently, many desert flowers are blooming their hearts out.

This bush was outside Manhattan Deli of the Desert yesterday.

I don't know if I showed you this bouquet before, it's from a church service. Today's arrangement was all in white daisies but I forgot to get a picture of it.

Enjoy every day!