12 Oakdale

I guess we are officially old: we went to Grant’s new doctor, and he walked out with 3 more appointments. Are doctors’ visits our new social time? (Yes, I know we are old; this was just an awaking.) The original reason for the visit was to get refills for the 6 medicines he takes. In the course of the interview, Dr. Mehta decided Grant’s shortness of breath was likely cardio not pulmonary, so he wants that looked into. Grant is to return to him in a month with all the information needed. First up was to make an appointment with his cardiologist who, it turns out is on medical leave, return unknown. Yes, her APRN was an acceptable sub. 7:00 AM appointment next Wednesday, on the other side of Orlando. The bone density test easily scheduled and fairly nearby. Blood work at Quest, check. Then the cardio person added an X-ray which might be done at the same time as the bone scan.  On the other hand, we have been healthy enough to keep busy. Two weeks ago, a family and friend filled trip...

A quick trip to Fort Lauderdale to lunch with B. She is half way through 6 courses of chemo for ovarian cancer. She claims she fells good, with the usual side effect of hair loss, which is an excuse to wear absolutely charming hats. The infusions are 3 weeks apart, so Sunday was the day our schedules meshed. Patten and Ryann were using their pasta roller/cutter for the first time. Fettuccine for the mussels with nduja sauce (Grant was disappointed we weren’t eating with them) and capellini for later. Patten has a seal-a-meal which he uses for all things, including bait. He was complaining how long it takes to clean out the fish parts. A Christmas or birthday present idea to be tucked away.  We spent the night with Kristine since they now have roommate Phil for the next few months. For breakfast, I’d hoped to indulge with cinnamon rolls at Sticky Buns in Deerfield, but I was saved because they are closed Mondays. Dunkin breakfast sandwiches instead. Healthier, but not as much fun. I...

Friday we planted the 6 plants I’d bought at Green Isle Nursery to create a hedge between us and our neighbors to the south. Two wax myrtles ( Morella cerifera ), 1 shiny leafed coffee ( Psychotria nervosa ), 1 yellow star anise ( Illicium parviflorum ), 1 Simpson's stopper ( Myrcianthes fragrans ), 1 Florida privet ( Froesteriam segregata ), and 1 mountain mint ( Pycnanthemum sp). Alan said they would all do well under the oak tree, except the mint, which needs more sun. Crossing my fingers. We finished and cleaned up so we could have lunch with our MEG group at the Wandel’s in Kissimmee, then lead the session, recycling the Joy worksheet we’d used with our Zoom group. If we hadn’t had a play at Orlando Shakes that evening, we would have packed for south Florida and saved ourselves the 45 minute trip back and forth. But we did have theater tickets to What the Constitution Means to Me  since our Thursday night performance had been canceled. I was slightly dreading the show, assumin...

The rain finally came: almost an inch last evening. Plus lots of wind. We lost a big screen panel, so time to call Terry from Integrity Screens. He’d just been out to replace 3 lowers panels that were getting rather loose, and I worried Gracie would figure out how to escape. Little by little, I’m having him replace all the screens. I probably should just have him do it all at once, but the piece by piece approach seems less painful. I know, crazy thinking. (We were lucky. On the east side of town, a tornado knocked over a tree onto a car, killing a 14-year-old.) Before this rain, the yard was dry and crispy, no matter how much I watered. When the wild coffee and hamalia, both natives, start wilting, it’s dry. I’m having Cooper run a line down the south side, using city water, so we will have total coverage when needed, which I hope won’t be until next dry season. Crossing my fingers that the rainy season has finally started. He’s already extended the canal intake out another foot, and ...

Definitely something I never wanted to see: the overhead sign on the turnpike which said, “Wrongway driver detected.”  It was already raining, so this seems like a good time to stop at the rest area just up the road and have lunch. If we didn’t meet that misdirected driver first. We were on our way to Fort Lauderdale for my Toastmasters club’s 60th anniversary party. The invitation was to dress like we would have in 1963. Most people thought hippies, but I knew better. My vintage wool skirt and white blouse, Grant’s madras shirt and khaki pants were what we would have worn. No jeans for us. I didn’t even own any. I dug through my jewelry and found my circle initial pin (PCS), and both my and Steve’s class rings, his worn on a chain around my neck. It still amuses me that Naples High School rings featured a swamp buggy on one side and the Naples pier on the other. No generics rings for us back then. I doubt that is true nowadays, if they even still have class rings. We’d both stuck ...

My July schedule is up at 5:30ish, pee, start coffee, feed cat, exercise, then turn on the Tour de France. Broadcast starts at 6:30. I watch for a couple of hours, eating breakfast while I sit, then out to work in yard until it rains, or I get too hot.  I am finishing the bed by the boathouse from the path over to the rose by Nancy’s fence. The area had already been cleared for a squash bed last year, abandoned until the guys were finished with the deck. I had to pull weeds and all the branches we’d tossed in when we removed the Brazilian pepper from the canal’s edge. I put down new cardboard which Grant covered with the oldest compost we had. Now I’ve planted 5 dwarf Fakahatchee grass (Tripsacum floridanum)  about 18” away from the boathouse fence. I hope their roots will grow deep enough to hold any dirt that would like to wash away. There was one more obvious hole at the deck edge, so Grant dug in some of the leftover tongue and groove boards to fill it.  In front, I l...