Sunday, October 02, 2005, 06:19
A Difficult Day
One of my neighbors is terminally ill, and her husband has asked me if I would come and take care of her once in a while so he can get out of the house for a bit or at least do something else for a while at home. I was over there for a few hours Friday afternoon and most of the day on Saturday.
She is my best friend's mother, my best friend from childhood, and for a time when I was a kid, she was like a second mother to me. She makes a brief appearance in my new book "Cream of the Crop" in the story "Gertrude and Heathcliff." I have not told her that yet. And she is so ill now that maybe I will not.
It is hard to know what to do for her. She can only speak one word at a time, and sometimes it is hard to know what she is saying. She needs to be lifted from her wheelchair to her chair. She cannot eat, and she can only swallow a few sips of water on occasion. She is on morphine and several other pain medications.
If I do not make blog entries as often over the next few weeks, this is why.
I am glad I can help in some small way.
LeAnn R. Ralph
Thursday, September 29, 2005, 17:42
"What did you say?"
"You go to the lean-to and get some tarps and I'll look for some blankets," I said to my husband, Randy.
It was 8:30 p.m. Wednesday, and I had just gotten home from choir practice. The 6 p.m. weather forecast said it might freeze, and I wanted to cover the tomatoes. So far I've been able to make six quarts of spaghetti sauce, but there are more green tomatoes on the vine. I didn't have time to cover them before I left for choir, and now it was already dark.
"Already done," Randy said.
"WHAT?" I said.
Randy drew a deep breath. "ALREADY DONE!"
My left ear has been plugged for the last several days. Can't hear a thing out of it. Allergies, I think.
I don't know why I bothered going to choir practice, to tell you the truth. I can't hear well enough to hear the accompaniment or the other choir members or even myself. Plus, I can't really sing very well. It's just that, somehow, the rest of the choir got the idea about 8 years ago that I'm supposed to be singing with the church choir.
"What about the mums," I said to Randy.
Instead of trying to say anything, Randy shook his head.
"Okay, you go to the lean-to and get that old ladder, and I'll look for some blankets," I said.
We have an old stepladder that I use to cover the mums. I set it over the mum bush by the basement door, then I drape a blanket over it. While Randy went to get the ladder, I put the apple trees on the porch and put a blanket over them and the other plants sitting outside by the door.
Ten minutes later, the mum by the basement door was covered, and I had also moved the mum in the flower pot and put it under the blanket.
"Everything should be okay now," Randy said.
"WHAT?" I said. "YOU'RE MUMBLING AGAIN."
"EVERYTHING SHOULD BE OKAY NOW," Randy said.
When I went outside before going to bed to give the horses hay and to take Pixie out, the thermometer by the bird feeder said it was 34 degrees. This morning when I looked outside, the hayfield had patches of frost, and when I took Pixie outside, I could see that one corner of the tarp over the tomatoes in the little garden by the basement was covered with frost, too.
I'm glad my tomatoes and flowers were covered, although, unfortunately, it didn't freeze hard enough to kill off the ragweed. We need 20 degrees for that. I don't know if killing off the ragweed will help my plugged ear. I would hope so. It's driving me crazy.
And before too long, I would imagine that my plugged ear will probably drive Randy crazy, too.
LeAnn R. Ralph