Paul & Sue's Daily Diary

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Have a great day!!!

I beautiful morning it is, the birds are even flying backwards to see where they have been. Up at 7:00 AM and almost zero coughing fits other than the regular morning adjustments. A day without coughing is a miracle! Perhaps I can again enjoy my cereal!

I ran across an old picture from 1966 while cleaning out some old mail folders.  Mom and Dad came to my college graduation in 1966 at USC.  Little did I know I had only four more years with my father before he passed near Thanksgiving 1970.  He was a great man and a proud father.  Love you, Dad!

They looked pretty serious standing outside Von Kliman Center for International Affairs

An adventure is planned this morning as Home Depot, and I have a scheduled meeting where I plan to procure a small white PVC porch railing to assist Sue getting in/out of the front door.  Somewhere in that cavernous building, I have spotted such an animal, and today, the hunt will begin!

The adventure began, but I ran out of gas!  I saw what I needed but didn’t have the energy to take it to the car.  A job for the weekend, perhaps!

I tried to get the supplies needed but could not muster the energy to fight the ten-foot railing that they had

We did lunch and then watched three episodes of “Royal Pains” before Juan (the car wah king) showed up!

Ah, getting old makes one look forward to the beautiful things in life.  Today, Juan is coming by to wash our cars!  Life is good!  By 2:00 PM, the vehicles will be clean, and we still have no place to go.

Rubba-Dub-Dub!!

We decided to stay home Friday and Saturday to make sure this bug stays dead, but Sunday, we will spring forth and celebrate at Old Ranch at the monthly dinner dance.

We had a small dinner and then on to the nightly Christmas movie watch.  Tonight it was “Christmas Crush,” a 2010 movie about a who woman learns of her high school reunion a week before Christmas, and she’s ecstatic to finally have her chance to win back the one “that got away.”

OK, but not one I would care to watch again, somewhat dull!

Then we turned our sights on “A Christmas Prince: The Royal Wedding.”  A year after helping Richard get to the throne, Amber is about to become his wife. But is she made to be queen?

Familiar storyline but well done with some intrigue wrapped in for interest.

We watched some Boston Legal (The Boston law firm Crane, Poole, and Schmidt deals in the often high-priced world of civil litigation, where smarmy Alan Shore feels at home. Loose cannon Denny Crane has the run of the place, while other members of the firm try — with often dismal results — to keep him in check.).  It’s funny and probably close to being spot-on!

We did our substitute tookies, which were yucky.  If Toolhouse doesn’t have their supplies to the market yet, we are heading to the Great Danish BAkery for the real stuff.

I ran across another oldie on Facebook today.  They sometimes go back in time and show something you have posted.  This one was good.  From nine years ago!

Just little old’ us!

Time to crash as it is midnight. See you tomorrow!

Don’t let your worries get the best of you; remember, Moses started as a basket case.

Just too funny to pass up!

Wow!  I finally made it out of bed at 7:17 AM, six and one-half hours of mostly uninterrupted sleep and no coughing, yet!  It’s a miracle!  I now know what happy feels like, and it better stay this way most of the day.  Now, it is time for the tummy to clear up and all those nasty meds to go away!

Glancing out the window, the frog has gone, and it appears to be a beautiful Fall day with a high of 76 degrees.  Now the only thing to worry about is Jon and how his surgery went.  He is a strong boy and will be just fine, but we love him so much, just like Zachary!

Random Memories” We took Jon and Zachary to Alaska with us many years ago and had two weeks of the most fun.  Poor Grandma learned more about natural sounds (and parts) that she would ever learn in med school.  She introduced us to fellow travelers as”my three sons” because I joined right into the teenage behavior patterns.  It was terrific and remain fantastic to this very day!

The year was 2002; Jon is now happily married and planning a family next year, and Zack (on the right) is the proud papa of two of our Great Grandchildren!  Love you guys!

And Jon and Zachary have such incredible partners in life.  Go, Sarah!  Go, Becca!  We were blessed to have them around us as they grew up, and they are special to us.

No much for selecting a new hat, but it is functional! (This is Jon… Te kid on the left from the picture above)

Jon is out, and in recovery about 11:30 AM our time, so that is a significant relief.  We decided to have lunch and watch some TV as I decided I was going to rest and do a thing! We did two of our regular episodes awaiting the PT to arrive.

Buy and expensive stove, and you get costly maintenance.  It’s worth it.  We have had a fully functional stive again, thanks to the replacement of two burner modules ($ 770).  It’s now safe, and Grandma can have her tookies tonight!  But, the old’ stove is 20 years old, and by Viking standards, that’s young.  So $40/year maintenance is not too bad!

Now it is time for the movies, and the first Christmas movie was “Christmas In The Heartland.”  Kara and Jessie are two teenager girls from very different worlds, but with a little Christmas magic, they find they have much more in common than they ever imagined.

Little out of the ordinary but heartwarming

We then followed that movie with several of our standard episodes before crashing at 11:00 PM.  Finally, a day mostly without coughing.  I had to get a new type of tookie today as the Tollhouse cookies were still not available.

Before going to be tonight, I saw on FoxNews that the Pillsbury Tollhouse tookies were withdrawn from sale across the US due to contamination!  Nestlé has announced a voluntary recall of a number of their raw cookie dough products over fears they may be contaminated with traces of rubber. The company announced that the recall includes individual ready-to-bake refrigerated Nestlé Toll House Cookie Dough bars, tubs, and tube-shaped “chubs,” which were distributed across the U.S. and Puerto Rico.

“I tried to look up impotence on the Internet, but nothing came up.”

First things first, we put out our annual invite to our New Years Eve party we host at Old Ranch Country Club.  Last year we had 106 family and friends and this year the invite went out at 7:00 AM and we had 60 confirmed bt 8:00 AM plus our family.  Wonderful way to start the year surrounded by family.  Pete & Lisa, Mitch, Robin & Bob, Michele & Franklyn, The Liles’ Clan, and this year the Lind Clan and their family.  Wonderful wonferful!!  This year we hired a nice piece orchestra to play Big Bands and a small duet the plays must of the 60’s-80’s!  A little bit of everything!

A great day, the leftovers are gone! Never thought we would see the day the frig was “empty” and no plastic containers.  But alas, we know how to fill it back up.  Taco Surf, here we come  We got a mess of food of which most was taken home only to land back on the frig!  The frig is happy; we are happy!  Life is good!

Everything tastes better after a night in the frig

We did an emergency stop at ColdStone Creamery before meeting Sue’s new PT person at home at 1:30 PM.  Since we were running late, I passed on the ice cream, good thing, as this sickness has not made me lose any weight!

The PT sessions was pretty good and she is coming back  Thursday with a complete set of visual instructions so I can help my bride through this period of time.   After she departed, Sue took a bit of a nap as the sessions was tiring.  I headed to the computer room and did the same thing!  The new office chair is so comfortable.  Yesterday I got a Shiatsu feet massager and wow, it is super.  I sit and type and it sits and rubs my feet, there is magic there somewhere!

We both woke up around 6:00 PM, adjusted outserves and headed to the TV room for a quiet evening of unlaxing! (Yes, I know “un-laxing” is NOT a word but if George Kingfish  Stevens of Amos’ N’ Andy used it all the time, it is a good enough word for me!)

I loved Tim Moore and to this day, I just love to watch his reruns on TV and YouTube!

The TV provided us with plenty of entertainment and I did the tookies about 10:00 PM.  The last of tonight’s meds are gone and the bed awaits my carcasses.

On the way to bed, I checked thephone and answered messages from Robin, Lisa, Michele, and Colleen.  Our daughters are pesky that way!  Gotta tell you this, I was at the market and say a Thanksgiving Card that asked the question “Why was the turkey asked to be in the band?”…  Answer:  “He had the “DRUMSTICKS”.  We immediately bought and sent it to Bob!

Good night all, may tomorrow we a better day!

When I told the doctor about my loss of memory, he made me pay in advance.

I have not idea why I was thinking about old TV’s. May because I update our Thanksgiving website last night and was remembering the days before television!  Anyway, do you remember this picture?

One had to figure in “warm-up time” when getting ready for a show!

Mom or Dad would say “Warm up the TV, the news will be coming on”.  Racing as fast as my little feets would carry me, I’d dash to the TV, turn on the set, and wait for the telltale signal that the main tube was receiving heat, enough to force the electrons of the cathode and onto the phosphorus screen and eventually with enough energy to light up the screen.

Today it takes five seconds maybe and most of that is signals racing from our living room all over the US to the streaming service we have selected.  What would Mom and Dad say now if they saw a 90″ color TV with 300 channels (most garbage, however) and the ability to call for any movie ever made!

Enough memories!  I feel soo much better today, good enough to go out to eat somewhere!  We decided as we pulled out of the driveway. Our Italian place was closed, the Chinee place was overloaded, so it was Old Ranch!  We had an excellent visit and met an old friend from work at the same time!

Juan gave us the flyer for the annual Winter Wonderland brunch at Old Ranch which means we will be taking Joe, his family, and his inlaws to on the 8th of December.  It’s been a tradition now for eight wonderful years.  Loads of fun and a family tradition.

Six short years ago! We began in 2011 and it’s been a super time! We love Amy’s folks, real people!

We are now ready to go!  More fun this year because we get older and more things to do.  This year I want my face painted.  The boys said they would do it for free but they have to get the paint!  This could present a problem!

We picked up the annual invite

Returning home, we watched a couple of Hallmark movies and crashed around 10:30 PM as my illness gets worse at night and I am so tired of coughing.  Tomorrow will be better.

I have several chores to complete in the morning and Ms. Frye (our medicate PA) is coming to visit at 10:00 AM plus Melanie’s maybe on the docket if the illness gets better.

Those were the days!

Doc says, “Paul, I got some bad news for you. You’ve got six months to live.”
I say, “Six months? Doc, I can’t pay your bill in six months. I can’t do it!”
Doc says, “OK, I give you a year…”

It turned out OK, although the early part midnight to 8:45 AM was a bust!

All night I sat in the chair, could not sleep, and worked on this website. Thanksgiving website is now ready to receive this year’s updates! By  8:00 AM, I was so pissed that I called the doctors office and yelled at the poor operator (I called back and apologized later).  I told him that if a doctor didn’t call me back in 30 minutes, he would need a doctor himself.

A new doctor from Seal Beach called, a doctor which Sue and I knew and liked.  I left Sue sleeping at 8:40 Am and toddled down there.  The office received me IMMEDIATELY and from 9:00 AM until 11:00 AM is was theirs!  Bad infection probably COPD related, so I got a severe dose of steroids, a potent anti-biotics, are more codeine!

I took a breathing treatment, and the machine is called a nebulizer. I was the male assistant if I was not transparent after the procedure, I guess I cracked him up!

To the pharmacy, the old Silver Ghost fled, making a quick stop at CVS and then on to In-And-Out for a double burger!  My belly was hurting so much, I figured, why not?

Returning home, I made brunch for Sue and crashed, getting almost two hours of mandatory sleep; it was so welcomed!

After getting up, the Topper’s Newsletter and I did the “dance of the mailings,” a monthly event for the past eleven years!  By 4:00 PM, they were ready to go, and off we went again.  I was feeling much better than yesterday but not out of the woods yet!

We watched three movies, all Hallmark-like, so they were just our type.  The first was about a male nanny and the other our first Christmas movie of the year.

Ally is a smart young career woman who needs a new job. Samantha is a busy Beverly Hills advertising executive/mom whose too-well-mannered kids need some fun in their lives.

The second was using a detective to solve some robberies from inside, and the detective became a nanny,

A series of burglaries plague an upscale, gated community, handsome detective Mike Logan (Cameron Mathison) goes undercover as a nanny, infiltrating the neighborhood and investigating the crimes. When the Bannermans, a high maintenance family in need of domestic assistance, hire Mike as their nanny, he forms an unlikely bond with the Bannerman children (Valin Shinyei and Jena Skodje). He develops a crush on Jessie (Sarah Lancaster), a beautiful nanny who works nearby.

The third was a play on Cinderella and an excellent recreation in modern times.

Routinely exploited by her wicked stepmother, the downtrodden Sam Montgomery is excited about the prospect of meeting her Internet beau at the school’s Halloween dance.

We waited, with bated breath, for 8:00 PM to arrive so I can get another “medication hit” from those delightful little plastic bottles of chemistry.

We had the tookies, and it is 11:00 PM, and we headed for bed.  I stopped in the office for a few minutes to cool down and then a night’s sleep, hopefully, after four days of staying up all night!