Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
After all the ‘haircuts’ in the past four days, we’re finally starting to spot those elusive big tomatoes! Mr. Stripey is showing off now. It will be just two more weeks, and he’ll be strutting his stuff like a top tomato model.
“You found our hiding place!”
It was a weird sight today—the spaghetti squash was playing hard to get and ended up getting stuck in a support structure! After a bit of tugging and pulling, we freed the stubborn squash and let it return to its true calling as a vegetable instead of a contortionist.
Saved by the bell!
After the walk, we cleaned up and dressed and headed to my pulmonologist, who examined me and told Mary how sorry he was that she had to tow around an old buzzard like me. She told the doctor, “When I am asked, I say I do charity work for the ugly and elderly!” My self-esteem took a slight beating, but I’m still fabulous no matter what the doctors say!
He gave me some pills to try to break up the morning congestion, but otherwise, I got a clean bill of health.
I suggested Indian lunch, but while driving to the Indian tandoori place, we passed near the Orange Elks Lodge! We both remembered their advertisement for their famous turkey sandwich with a glass of vino; that sounded great!
We stopped and went to the third floor, where the bar was as busy as a beehive on a summer day. I joined the lodge as an associate so we could get their newspapers. I may have accidentally volunteered Dr. Mary for the Squirrel Enthusiasts’ Association.
Lunch at the Orange Elks.
The meal was excellent. We had sandwiches, each with a side of fries. Mary had a side salad, so I ate half of her club sandwich.
Yummy Yummy
During our visit, we received a text from Bob Z. in a state of urgency. His late brother left behind a collection of German beer steins, and Bob, in a stroke of genius, thought of Mary because of her fluency in German. He asked her to help translate the messages on the beer steins. Who knew beer steins could be so entertaining?
One Stein was in memory of the person’s third enlistment into the German army and had a list of officers, NCOs, and enlisted men in the unit, plus some descriptions of their activities. The unit was a military engineering unit, like the SeeBees.
Bob’s place was only three miles from the Lodge, so we popped over there, and Mary went to work!
Helping Bob translate
We searched the Internet for this coat of arms and found it on eBay—thanks to Google!
I’m looking for this image on the internet.
Mary is almost done translating.
Go it!
We headed home, walked the garden (without lifting a single shovel), and returned to the house for a few minutes. Then, we watched “The Good Doctor,” a super medical series.
We stayed away!
We called neighbor Jeff and visited him for a while before returning home and hitting the sack!
Tomorrow, we are attempting to work out at the gym, which is basically a warm-up for the intense babysitting marathon ahead. Bonnie decided to visit her mother, Becky, in Tennessee. We were the only viable escape plan. Somehow, we got selected for heroic guard duty. It will be a wild adventure filled with laughs, tears, and possibly a few emergency phone calls to Bonnie!
