Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
I will do the first part Ms. Boop suggests and have a grateful heart. As for an open mind, that will require some serious work!!
We were up at 6:30 am since we are going to Whittier to see Amy’s eye doctor. I told Mary that will stay in the car with my baby and a pillow, and catch up on my beauty sleep.
55, 91, and 57 get ready to receive The Silver Fox, terror of the freeways! Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?
Last week, Mary drove to the Elks, and a police officer driving down the freeway looked over and spotted Mary knitting while balancing the steering wheel with her knees.
He pulls alongside Mary and angrily shouts, “Pull over!” Of course, being quick, Mary shouts back, “No, it’s a scarf.”
I was going to let Mary drive, but then I remembered last time!
But I digress; we made it to Whittier, a 30+ minute drive, with minutes to spare. When Mary got out of the car and headed to the appointment, she said to me, “If I’m not back in sixty minutes, just wait longer.”
Happy birthday, Joe. He is 385 in “dog years”.
Just before leaving for the Elks, I ran across an old picture from the 1970s of Colleen and Joe meeting two real astronauts (I am cut in half on the right side of the picture).
They met and talked to two of the Shuttle Astronauts who were visiting my lab in Downey!
Gordon Fullerton (October 11, 1936 – August 21, 2013) was a United States Air Force colonel, a USAF and NASA astronaut, and a research pilot at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Facility, Edwards, California. His assignments included a variety of flight research and support activities, piloting NASA’s B-52 launch aircraft, the Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA), and other multi-engine and high-performance aircraft.
Fullerton logged more than 380 hours in spaceflight and was a NASA astronaut from September 1969 until November 1986, when he joined the research pilot office at Dryden. In July 1988, he completed a 30-year career with the U.S. Air Force and retired as a colonel. He continued in his position of NASA research pilot as a civilian. Fullerton, his wife, and their two children lived in Lancaster, California.
Fred Haise, currently 92, is one of the 24 Apollo astronauts to reach the Moon, having served as Lunar Module pilot on Apollo 13. He was to have been the sixth person to walk on the Moon, but the Apollo 13 landing was aborted en route. Haise flew five Space Shuttle Approach and Landing Tests in 1977. He retired from NASA in 1979. He is the last surviving crew member of Apollo 13 and the last surviving Apollo astronaut who flew to the Moon without landing.
After several years, Joe and Colleen thanked me in their own way!
Oh, oh, more astronauts for you two characters!
OK, we went to Whittier thinking the traffic would be terrible and were surprised to make it there in about 25 minutes, arriving early. We needed more coffee, so we stopped at McDonald’s and enjoyed an Egg McMuffin and a cup of hot coffee.
A perfect breakfast BEFORE going to the doctor.
When we arrived and parked, we did not see Amy’s car, so we called Joe and found out the appointment was for 2:15 pm, NOT 9:15 am.
We apparently wrote down the wrong time, so it was back in the car, heading to Orange. The traffic was not too bad. We did three errands before arriving home, so the time was not wasted.
Now it was 11:00 am, and it was time to head to the Elks for our weekly “Girls Night Out” celebration.
We visited with George, Iris, and Will before heading back to Whittier.
Off we go again to Whittier, and this time we took the 55 to the 5 and got off at Beach. The traffic wasn’t bad! Mary and Amy went to see the doctor, and Mary was armed to the teeth. About an hour later, Mary returned to the car, and we followed Amy home to one more doctor’s office, where we picked up some test results.
We all talked for a while and Joe go the digital info ready to go to Newport tomorrow morning where we have a 7:30 am appointment with Dr. Dr. Madhu Agarwal who Mary taught years ago and is a prominent neuro-ophthalmologist in Newport Beach, CA, specializing in diseases of the eyelid, eye muscles, and optic nerve, located at 400 Newport Center Dr, Suite 605.
A neuro-ophthalmologist or neuro-optometrist is the appropriate eye doctor with specialized training for issues linking the brain and eyes, such as optic nerve disorders, unexplained vision loss, or double vision. They specialize in treating eye problems caused by neurological conditions like stroke, brain tumors, or Multiple Sclerosis.
Arriving back home, we had a quick dinner and hit the sack around 9:00 pm. It’s going to be a busy day tomorrow.
