KELLY LOVES HER BLACKBERRY SMARTPHONE...BUT

'OH NO WHEN IS MY DAD GOING TO TAKE ME FOR A JEEP RIDE'

It was an old iPad that woke me up at 3 a.m. this morning.  Good thing too, because it was time for me to take a Percocet pill.  Kelly had bought this refurbished iPad in Spencerport New York years ago and kinda forgot she had it.  Wednesday night she dug it out, dusted it off, and programmed it as an alarm clock to wake me up.  Yep, I sure do like those Apple products alright:)) 

 MY MEDICAL ALARM CLOCK

I had to scratch my head for a bit today trying to think of something to write about other than my medical situation at the moment.  I'm sure it gets to be a bit much after a while for blog readers to read all this stuff.  With today's temps well above freezing and most of our snow gone I had the first slight urge to venture outside.  And, had the Sun been shining I might have found it hard to resist that urge.  However, the day remained mostly cloudy and I remained inside.  My next challenge was to find a few photos for tonight's post.  No easy task under my present circumstances.

 NEARLY ALL OUR SNOW IS GONE

ALWAYS NICE TO SEE OUR COLLECTION OF SOUTHWEST ROCKS EMERGE FROM UNDER THE SNOW AND ONCE AGAIN, THE CLOSER YOU LOOK, THE MORE FACES YOU WILL SEE

I feel so sorry for Pheebs because she just doesn't understand why we are not out in the morning for our Jeep rides.  She stands and stares at me with doggy question marks in her eyes.  This morning she was lying on the sunroom floor and when I went clomping by in the hall she didn't even look at me or lift her head.  The saddest part was when she flopped her tail a couple times.  Usually, that tail would be wagging a hundred miles an hour.  I can tell she is depressed.  But, early this afternoon I was able to get my shoes on, and with my walker, I opened the sunroom door and walked out onto our front deck and porch to take a few photos.  Tomorrow, with Kelly's help to get my walker down the steps I'm sure Pheebs and I can take a little walk around in our driveway.  With a secure railing, going up and down stairs is not a problem.  And anyone who has done that, knows that.

 PHEEBS AND I ARE OUT ON A DECK SAFARI

Kelly loves her Blackberry smartphone and has patiently nursed it along ever since its inception back in the age of the cellular Dinosaur.  Hardly able to retain a charge anymore, Kelly is at the point where the writing is on the wall and she needs a new phone.  For a long time now she has been hesitant to change but the time is now upon her.  She researches everything diligently and spent time on the phone again today discussing her options with various smartphone people.  We'll see what happens but I think she might be leaning towards an iPhone this time.  

DOING HER NEW SMARTPHONE RESEARCH

I have gone through a few books since I last did a book report.  I found fighter pilot Peter Townsend's book entitled, Duel Of Eagles: The Classic Pilot's Account of the Battle Of Britain. (this was a long 27-hour read) It is the best historically detailed and accurate account of the air war between England and Germany I have ever read. Complete with many backstories. Townsend writes this book from both the English and German points of view beginning with the end of the first world war.  He also wrote a follow-up book entitled, Duel In The Dark: A Fighter Pilot's Story of the Blitz.  Again written with a view to both sides in the bombing of London England.  Another recently finished book I read was, Life After Death and Medical Mysteries.  Another fascinating read if one can willingly free their mind enough to expand their knowledge. 

Al's Music Box:)) Turn! Turn! Turn! is a song written by Pete Seeger in 1959. The lyrics – except for the title, which is repeated throughout the song, and the final two lines – consist of the first eight verses of the third chapter of the biblical Book of Ecclesiastes.  The song was adapted by the Byrds in a folk rock arrangement and released as a single by Columbia Records on October 1, 1965.  The song was also included on the band's second album, Turn! Turn! Turn!, which was released on December 6, 1965. "Turn! Turn! Turn!" had first been arranged by the Byrds' lead guitarist Jim McGuinn in a chamber-folk style during session for Judy Collins' 1963 album, Judy Collins 3.  The idea of reviving the song came to McGuinn during the Byrds' July 1965 tour of the American Midwest, when his future wife, Dolores, requested the tune on the Byrds' tour bus.  The rendering that McGuinn dutifully played came out sounding not like a folk song but more like a rock/folk hybrid, perfectly in keeping with the Byrds' status as pioneers of the folk-rock genre.  McGuinn explained, "It was a standard folk song by that time, but I played it and it came out rock 'n' roll because that's what I was programmed to do like a computer. I couldn't do it as it was traditionally. It came out with that samba beat, and we thought it would make a good single."  The master recording of the song reportedly took the Byrds 78 takes, spread over five days of recording, to complete.

 COME ON DAD, MORE TUMMY TICKLES

GROANER'S CORNER:((  A traveling salesman from New York was traveling through Georgia around Christmas time and stopped at a convenience store next to a church.  He told the lady cashier that the nativity scene next door was really beautiful but he couldn't understand why the three wise men had firemen's helmets on.  The lady said "that's the trouble with you yankees, you never read your Bibles or you would know."  He said "maam, I have read my Bible through three times and I have never seen anything to explain this."  She said, " I will show you" and opened up her bible. " It says right here that the three wise men came from a "far".

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A new patient was quite upset when the doctor’s nurse led him to a small, curtained cubicle and told him to undress. "But I only want the doctor to look at an ingrown toenail!" he protested. "Our rule is that everyone must undress," replied the nurse. "That’s a stupid rule," grumbled the patient, "making me undress just to look at my toe." "That’s nothing," growled a voice from the next cubicle. "I just came here to fix the phones!"

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KELLY PASSES ANOTHER STRESS TEST IN LONDON THIS AFTERNOON

 KELLY HEADS OUT OF THE DRIVEWAY ON HER WAY TO LONDON

How nice when I slid back our living room's patio door to let Pheebs out early this morning and heard the twittering of a songbird nearby.  I couldn't readily identify the sound but if I had to guess, I would say it was a Robin.  What a wonderful sound of possibly an early Spring I thought to myself.  Just think, Spring will officially begin in less than a month from now on March 19th:))))))

Under sunny skies and above-freezing temperatures, it was Kelly in the Subaru rolling out of our driveway at 11 a.m. heading for London's University Hospital.  Being her fiercely independent self (we are so much alike) she had insisted all along that she did not need someone to drive her there today.  She had two back-to-back appointments beginning at 1 p.m.  One of those appointments was a physical stress test.

For our twice-monthly country road coffee runs it was Richard's turn to drive this morning.  Good thing because I'm not allowed to drive a vehicle for the next five weeks.  Just after 11 a.m. he carefully backed his van into our driveway and I, with my walker......opened our sunroom's patio door for him.  And you thought I was going to say I headed out the door and hopped into his van.  Nope, not quite yet.  With two Tim Hortons coffees and two Bran muffins in hand, Richard came in and we spent the next couple of hours in our usual fast-paced flowing conversation.  Good stuff.    

PHEEBS WITH ONE HER TOYS TODAY

It was a week ago today that Kelly brought me home from the hospital.  Here are a few thoughts and recommendations about this past week.  First and foremost, if I had managed my pain medication better I could have saved myself a lot of unnecessary pain.  Relying on my mind to remind myself to take a pill every six hours let me down.  I should have set an alarm clock on the kitchen counter to go off at the correct times.  You folks with smartphones could easily program your phones to do this.  The biggest problem happens at night.  If you go to bed at 10 p.m. your next pill is due at no later than 4 a.m. and not at 6 a.m. when you wake up.  By then, the pill's effectiveness has worn off and you will wake up in pain.  And, take it from me, you do not want to do that!!!!  In fact, I would suggest you take that pain pill every 5 hours instead of 6.  If you have to wake yourself up in the middle of the night just to take the pill....do it!!  I've also found that pain induces negative thoughts and irritability.  I found this past week that whenever I was free of pain my mind was totally positive about my current situation.  The following week has seen a series of setbacks and improvements but it was this afternoon I felt the biggest improvement.  I found myself walking faster with the walker and being able to transfer more weight off the walker and onto my right leg.  I still need the walker to get around but I am now seeing a glimmer of light at the end of this week-long tunnel.......Kelly made it back from London this afternoon at 5:40 p.m.  She said everything went well and she passed her stress test with no problem.  She has another appointment a month from now.  She also said she had no problem driving there and back.  By the end of today, I was feeling very upbeat:))         

KELLY HELPS ME GET MY PRESSURE STOCKINGS OFF TO GIVE MY LEGS A BREAK

 I KNEW THE PRE-OP NURSE LAST TUESDAY WROTE SOMETHING ON MY RIGHT LEG BUT I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT IT WAS UNTIL WE GOT THE PRESSURE STOCKINGS OFF THIS MORNING

 THIS WAS NO DOUBT FOR THE SURGEON TO MAKE SURE HE WAS OPERATING ON THE CORRECT LEG

Al's Music Box:)) The Days Of Wine And Roses is a popular song, from the 1982 movie of the same name. The music was written by Henry Mancini with lyrics by Johnny Mercer. They received the Academy Award for best Original Song for their work, as well as the 1964 Grammy Awards for Record of the Year and Song of the Year.  In 2004 it finished at #39 in AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs survey of top tunes in American cinema.  The song's lyric is notable for consisting of just two complex sentences, each of which forms one of the song's two stanzas.  The best-known recordings of the song were by  Billy Eckstine in 1961 and Andy Williams in 1963.  This is Andy Williams version.

GROANER'S CORNER:(( A drunken Irishman gets on a train and asks the conductor how long the trip is between Limerick to Cork.  "About two hours," says the conductor.  "Okay," says the drunkard, "then how long is the trip between Cork to Limerick?"The irate conductor says to the   drunk, "It's still about two hours, laddie. Why'd ya think there'd be a difference?"  "Well," says the drunk, "it's only a week between Christmas and New Year's, but it's a helluva long time between New Year's and Christmas!"

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Knock Knock.
Who's there?
Dishes.
Dishes who?
Dishes Sean Connery.

Q: What's the difference between a cat and a complex sentence?
A: A cat has claws at the end of its paws and a complex sentence has a pause at the end of its clause.

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Oliver Hardy: 'Didn't you once tell me that you had an uncle?'

Stan Laurel: 'Sure, I've got an uncle. Why?'
Oliver: 'Now we're getting somewhere. Is he living?'

Stanley: 'No. He fell through a trap door and broke his neck.'

Oliver: 'Was he building a house?'

Stanley: 'No, they were hanging him.'
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EVEN YEARS LATER WHEN I WAS A 'BIGGER BOSKINS'

 LOOK CAREFULLY, THERE ARE FACES IN THIS PHOTO....FIND THE TIGER'S HEAD AND THE TROPICAL SMILING FISH ALL WITHIN THE MAN'S HEAD

Another beautiful sunny day with clear blue skies and temps pushing up over 40F by early afternoon.  Wished I could tell you I had a good night but I didn't.  And nobody to blame but myself again.  For the second night in a row, I forgot to take a Percocet painkiller before going to bed.  I'm not sure what's going on with my mind but it sure seems to work against me sometimes.  It was nearly 10 a.m. this morning after taking my my first Percocet of the day that the pain in my right leg began to subside and I started feeling half-human again.  With the pain temporarily stopped I was able to get my exercises going again and the day picked up from there.

 BLUE IS MY FAVORITE SKY COLOR

 OH HOW I LOVE TO SEE SNOW MELTING

 A PHEEBER PAW PRINT ON OUR FRONT DECK

 SUN AND SHADOW

With my overnight stay at the Sarnia Hospital a week ago tonight it got me thinking about whether I had ever spent a night in a hospital before.  Maybe as a kid once.  The only thing my memory would come up with was a night in the Kitchener Grand River Hospital in 1994 after a motorcycle accident.  But then I remembered an overnight stay in a southern Tucson Arizona Hospital as the result of a severe kidney stone attack.  Barring those two times, I have been very fortunate in my nearly 8 decades on the Planet not to have been confined to a hospital for any length of time.  I sure don't have anything to complain about.  

 A VERY LONG 600mm TELEPHOTO SHOT

And speaking of hospitals, here's an observation I made last week.  Years ago I remembered nurses and hospital staff in uniforms.  Not anymore.  I saw maybe a few uniformed people but it seems most hospital personnel coming in and out of my room were dressed in street clothes.  Blue Jeans, sweaters, frocks, and had it been summer I'm sure I would have seen tank tops and heard flip-flops.  For hats, all I saw were baseball caps and banana peels.

 DON QUIXOTE CHASING A GLASS BLUE ELEPHANT

A question from Joe in our 'Shoutbox' asked, 'When can u shower'?  The quick answer to that is 14 days after the surgery.  I have a week to go.  In the meantime, it's sponge baths daily.  Sponge baths are not new to me although it's probably been over 75 years since I had my last one.  Growing up as a small boy in the wee village of Tavistock Ontario in the late 40's we were not a rich family.  No shower in our house and not even a bathtub.  Maybe rich folks had those things but we sure didn't have anything like that.  In fact, with no running water in the house in my earliest days, we got our water from a pump and well outside of the house.  Sponge baths were the order of the day for everyone at our place.  My Mom, my Uncle Fred, and my Grandpa.  I was the only non-adult in the house and a friend of my Grandpa's who's name was 'Cowboy' always called me 'Little Boskins'.....even years later when I was a bigger Boskins.  

 NUTHATCH

A Blast From Our Past:: Looking back to late February of 2010 I see we were in Borrego Springs, California.  Facebook threw me this memory and I remember the day well. Don't forget to click the smaller photos to enlarge them when you get to the site.  Early Morning Photo Group And Wandering Willy Rides Into Town

 BOONDOCKED AT THE CLARK DRY LAKE BED NEAR BORREGO SPRINGS CALIFORNIA....FEBRUARY 2010

Al's Music Box:)) The Shadows Instrumental Show.  Some readers out here may remember Cliff Richards and his backup band, The Shadows.  For you folks who have a preference for instrumentals like I do, this is a performance by the Shadows themselves.  Three guitarists and a drummer.    The Shadows (originally known as the Drifters between 1958 and 1959) were an English instrumental rock group, that dominated the British popular music charts in the late 1950s and early 1960s, in the pre-Beatles era. They served as the backing band for Cliff Richards from 1958 to 1968, and have joined him for several reunion tours.   The group, who were at the forefront of the UK beat-group boom, were the first backing band to emerge as stars. As pioneers of the four-member instrumental format, the band consisted of lead guitar, rhythm guitar, bass guitar, and drums. Their range covers pop, rock, surf rock, and ballads with a jazz influence. The core members from 1958 on were guitarists Hank Marvin, Bruce Welch, and drummer Brian Bennett (who has been with the group since 1961) with various bassists and occasionally keyboardists through the years. Along with the Fender and the Burns guitars, another cornerstone of the Shadows sound was the Vox amplifier.  Around 1964, the Shadows replaced the Fender with the Burns, Bruce Welch citing tuning issues as the main reason.  Hank Marvin is considered a wonderful lead guitarist. He came from an era when there really were no lead and rhythm guitarists and it would be hard to find anyone even close.  Not only that, he's also the first British rock guitarist of any note who influenced an entire generation of players to pick up a guitar. His tone and use of tremolo in the Shadows are iconic.   I doubt you’ll find any clips featuring him where he makes a mistake. What he did was incredibly difficult.

 IF YOU WERE PUZZLED BY TODAY'S FIRST PHOTO.....HERE IT IS IN PERSPECTIVE....AN ORCHID FLOWER IN OUR SUNROOM

GROANER'S CORNER:((  A sweet little old lady on a bus offers the driver some peanuts. He eats a few and asks her why she isn't having any herself.  "Oh they're too hard on my poor teeth and I couldn't chew them."  "Why did you buy them all then" wonders the driver to which she replied, "I just love the chocolate they're covered in!"

"Darling, I just called to tell you how awesome you are. You really are the love of my life…""Sir, I’m sorry, this is a brewery!"
"Oh, I know…"

I asked my friend when his birthday was, and he said, "March 1st".  So I walked around the room like a soldier and asked him again.

A man sits down at a bar and orders a double martini. After he finishes, he peeks inside his shirt pocket and then orders another. After he finishes that, he again peeks inside his shirt pocket and orders another double martini. The barman says: "I'll bring you martinis all night but why do you look inside your shirt pocket before you order a refill." The customer replies: "I'm peeking at a photo of my wife. When she starts to look good, I know it's time to go home."

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BY THE END OF THE DAY I WAS DOING OKAY

How uplifting it was to see a morning sunrise through our pine trees.  It wasn't long before Old Sol's warming sunlight brightened up not only our living room but my spirits as well.  And, my spirits did need a brightening after another not so swell night.  But, it's to be expected and I have to keep reminding myself of that.  Unable to find comfort in my chair I had to ditch the big pillow supporting my back.  Getting up to go to the washroom twice didn't help.  Waking up feeling sore, my grumpiness was soon upon me and it took me a couple hours to retrieve my patience and get myself straightened out.  As per usual, my grumpiness is more often than not directed solely at myself.

GLORIOUS SUNSHINE IN OUR FRONT YARD TODAY

I think it was somewhere around 10:30 when I decided I had better get my exercises going, so without further ado, I clomped off into my bedroom and managed to get myself and my legs up onto the bed in a horizontal position.  A touch painful at first I soon had my legs following the Physio exercises I had been shown at the Sarnia Hospital.  Feeling creative, I soon came up with half a dozen of my own little exercises which felt good.  Kelly came in and stuck a frozen bottle of water in my shorts.  Wrapped in a paper towel she positioned the ice over the hip surgery area.  Continuing with my exercises I think this helped and half an hour later I was painlessly able to get myself off the bed and resume my clomping up and down the hall.  Grilled cheese and tomato soup for lunch today.

 EXERCISING WITH MY PALS THIS MORNING

  HOISTING MY LEGS UP ONTO THE BED

 LUCKILY I TOOK THE TWO WHEELS OFF MY WALKER AND REPLACED THEM WITH TWO SHOCK ABSORBER THINGYS

Soooooo nice all day to see that big beautiful Sun tumbling through our sunroom windows.  And of course, that big blue sky above.  Very encouraging for bigger, brighter, and better days ahead.  And them there bigger brighter days is just what I am a-looking fer too!!

Luckily, we have a long hallway here which we are using for walking exercise these days.  On Wednesday, Kelly has to be at London's University Hospital for another physio test check-up.  Rather than walking on the slippery roads outside she has been using our long hallway as a walking runway.  It is the same runway I am using now for my walker walking as well.  

 'CONTROL TOWER TO FLIGHT 886....THERE IS A DOG ON THE RUNWAY'

 '886 TO CONTROL TOWER....I'M COMING IN'

 HERE'S KELLY TAXING BY ON THE RUNWAY

 YUP, AND THAT'S ME GOING THE OTHER WAY

 IN THIS PHOTO I THINK KELLY HAS REACHED TAEE-OFF SPEED

By the end of the day I was doing okay and my healing process was well underway.  With my patience tested it was today that I rested.  Tomorrow I will awaken and although I'll be shakin, I'll saddle up my walker and act like a rocker as I clomp down the hall sometimes fearing a fall.  But, not to worry, I'm not in a hurry so thank you all:))       

 A GREAT DAY TO RELAX IN OUR SUNROOM

 I AM KEEPING A WATCHFUL EYE ON OUR FRONT YARD CRITTERS

Al's Music Box:)) Venus is a song written by Ed Marshall. The most successful and best-known recording of the track was by Frankie Avalon and was released in 1959.  "Venus" became Avalon's first No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and it spent five weeks atop the survey. The song also reached No. 10 on the R&B chart. The lyrics detail a man's plea to Venus, the Roman goddess of love and beauty, to send him a girl to love and one who will love him as well. Billboard ranked it as the No. 4 song for 1959.

GROANER'S CORNER:(( A man and his wife were making their first doctor visit, the wife being pregnant with their first child.  After everything checked out, the doctor took a small stamp and stamped the wife's stomach with indelible ink.  The couple was curious about what the stamp was for, so when they got home, the husband got out his magnifying glass to try to see what it was.  In very tiny letters, the stamp said, "When you can read this, come back and see me."

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Two Hindu Swamis were in conversation.  One said to the other, "How did you like my latest book, 'The Art of Levitation'?"  His companion replied, "It kept me up all night."

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Jon's working at the lumberyard, pushing a tree through the buzz saw, and accidentally shears off all ten of his fingers. He goes to the emergency room.  The doctor says, "Yuck! Well, give me the fingers, and I'll see what I can do."  Jon says, "I haven't got the fingers."  The doctor says, "What do you mean, you haven't got the fingers? It's 1998. We've got microsurgery and all kinds of incredible techniques. I could have put them back on and made you like new. Why didn't you bring the fingers?"  Jon says, "Well, heck, Doc, I didn't have anything left to pick 'em up with."

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