12 Oakdale

My second day of not getting up until after 7:30 in the morning. Gracie does not approve, and lets me know by touching her wet nose to mine.  Thursday afternoon, Grant fell in the office. He had been playing his “stupid computer game”, and his butt went to sleep. Sitting there too long, much? Evidently, when he stood up, his right leg was okay, his left leg gave out, and down he went. Hard fall. I heard the commotion, ran in and found him lying on the floor in agony. At first, we thought the pain was from his hitting the wooden trunk we use as a coffee table, but since there’s no bruise, we’ve ruled that out.  After lying there for 15 minutes or so, with Gracie weaving over and around his body (Sizing him up to eat? Cats are so food forward.), Grant was able to pull himself up, using my old walker for support. Thank goodness Denny has been making him do counter push-always to keep his upper body strong. Perhaps my procrastination also gets a plug, since earlier in the week I’d...

What Is This Key For?   We wondered what the key hanging on our shower wall was for. Mystery solved when I noticed water still standing from Grant’s bath eight hours previously. It’s the key to taking up the linear drain to find whatever is clogging the pipe. The miracle was that Grant was able to do this easily, after his midnight obsessing and internet searching. In our long tenure as homeowners, we have found usually there is a vast chasm (are chasms anything other than vast?) between an explanation of how to do a repair job and the reality of doing it. Once, as far as we can remember, and only once, did a repair go as planned, without much cursing and at least one additional trip to the hardware store. Unfortunately, we can’t remember what the job was, but we are both sure it happened. In this case, Grant sopped up the water with a bunch of the dog towels (too holey for human use), unlocked the drain, and lifted out the nasty, completely full, hair catcher. Voila, the dra...