Paul & Mary's Daily Diary

Alexa went off as planned at 6:00 am!  My eyes opened, and I could not figure out why Alexa was going crazy. Then, it dawned on me. I have an 8:00 am surgery in Long Beach!  Yep, more cancer to be removed but on the bright side, I will be 1.1 oz lighter afterwards!

When I backed out of the garage, I realized the weatherman was correct. It was going to be a wet day. It was not raining hard, but just enough to slow the freeways and make the drivers crazy.

It was almost 8:45 am, and I had no coffee yet, which meant I needed my fix.  The Silver Fox knew what to do…he drove down Lakewood Blvd and whipped into a McDonalds.  My order was easy, a Breakfast Mac and a hot coffee.  The Mac disappeared in three bites, and the coffee went to the doctor’s office with me (it was too hot to drink at McDonalds.

When I entered the operating room, it was like an old home week; everybody knew exactly what to do! The doctor sliced and diced and sent his results to the lab. About 45 minutes later, he returned with the news—he had gotten it all!

He should have used a zipper.  I no longer need a mask at Halloween!  I just go to the surgeon a week ahead of time!

After sewing it up, I got my bandage; I wanted a Sponge Bob Square Pants bandage.

Note to self: Bring a supply to the doctor next time you come!

I settled for a regular bandage and some gauze.   The Doc said it might swell up a bit, so I reminded him that was OK because I can tell everybody that Mary hit me!  Dr. Glassberg is A#1; he is funny, always on time, and does a good job at attempting to make me beautiful.  OK, A#2 on making me pretty, that is an impossible task!

All patched up and ready to go!

When I returned home, Mary was preparing to go to the Elks.  At 11:15, we were off and running again, this time to the Elks for Girls Night Out!

We checked on his nibs, Scout the Wonder Dog, when we departed.  He was resting after a hard morning keeping the elephants out of the garden! He was sawing logs; I think they were redwoods because he didn’t even wake up!

The baby sleeps all day these days!

We held the Starlighter’s Board meeting at the Elks since all the board members are Elks!  We are now organized for the next several months! George joined us today and we are so happy to see that he is up and around on week after his aortic valve repair operation.  They have him a no money back guarantee for another ten years or 100,000 dance steps, whatever comes first!

Great fun at the Elks plus we held the Starlighters Board Meeting!

The scar should not show where Mary hit me with the broom after the swelling went down.  Mary will remove the stitches on the 13th, right before dinner!

Just us!

When we returned home, Mary worked in her closet, and I continued attempting to figure out what was happening with the door lock! We called a door specialist, and if I cannot figure it out by then, he will come on Friday!

Slightly out of whack!

We hit the hay around 10:00 pm after Mary binge-watched “The Vikings” all day.  I could not watch it for very long as it was gory and people were constantly using their swords to kill other people.  The events take place in English around 850 A.D. Since Mary has been watching this for so long, I a) hide the knives before I go to bed and b) put on my latest chain mail jammies, which cover me from head to toe!!

Good night, all!

Another week begins, and we hope Mary’s back is 90% recovered. Unless she gets better soon, I must get gloves because I am getting ” dishpan hands.”

We did NOT go to the gym today for obvious reasons—Mary’s bed staged a sit-in protest, claiming it needed her for “emotional support” while she binge-watched her favorite Viking history shows circa 846 AD! Priorities, right?

I managed to get cleaned up by 10:30 am and went to my oral surgeon, who removed some stitches he put on a couple of weeks ago for my implants!  Did they say hello to me when I arrived; was I greeted with smiles? No, they all asked, “Where is Dr. Mary?”.

On the way home, I stopped at Taco Mesa on Chapman and surprised Mary with a breakfast burrito, and I got two hard-shelled tacos.

We had a delightful lunch! Who knew that a chicken taco could make you feel like royalty? Between the chicken dancing with the avocado and the salsa doing a conga line, I half-expected a parade to break out. I think I even saw the pickle wink at me!

Delicious!!

After lunch, I headed to Trader Joe’s to get three cases of Three Buck Chuck!  While there, some other goodies jumped into my cart, and I hid them in the freezer.  I managed to sneak in a couple of MAry’s favorites that I will surprise her with later in the week!

It was dinner time, and the chef jumped into the kitchen and fixed a spinach salad, salmon, freshly baked bread, and some of Diann’s soup! I also provided a glass of wine. Mary was pleased with dinner.

You could tell she was ready for bed!  She had another hard day resting!

Mary crashed at 9″30 pm!

It is only 327 days until Christmas!  The year is moving along!

I got a note from my cousin Claudia, who said her husband Doug has been having some medical issues. He is back home now and doing well, but it is hard to think that only 74 years ago, Claudia and I had our pictures taken that day my Dad departed for Hawaii on the Hawaiian Pilot, a freighter owned by Matson Lines!

Dang Claudia, we don’t look the same these days! Little did we know what the future would bring!

8:30 am, and I heard noises emanating from the master bedroom; yes, it was Mary, alive and walking!  I jumped up instantly at her command and ran to the coffee machine, making her coffee with 1 1/4 teaspoons of honey, 6 1/8th oz of cold milk, and a straw, which had to be precisely 3/8th inch inside diameter!

When I delivered it, I hoped all the measurements were correct because I hate being beaten with her handy, dandy rubber hose (a diameter that does NOT leave marks)!

I spent the remainder of the day in the office or the kitchen, ensuring Mary stayed put and didn’t overdo it.  It was like wrestling a bear!

Around 6:00 pm, it was decided dinnertime had arrived, so I threw on two nice filet mignon steaks, prepared two artichokes, and baked some dinner rolls.  We had a feast!  Soon, I was back in the kitchen doing cleanup duty.  It looked like someone had been cooking for an army!

It was time for my new breathing treatment using the nebulizer.

Robon Visits The Falkland Islands

We arrived in Port Stanley, Falkland Islands/Islas Malvinas at 8AM. As I expected it was going to be cold, but not to a point where I knew I would be as cold as I was the morning we rounded Cape Horn! I brought winter clothing but I knew I wasn’t going to be warm enough, even with all my layers of clothing, I needed something thicker to stay out in the cold, so I bought a nautical sweatshirt from the ship store to add to my layers.

Once we arrived, Maggie and I were assigned to a mini-van that was going to us to Bluff Cove Lagoon/Rookery about 30 minutes out from the port. We could see from the van there were many different bird species and a lot of penguin’s! We had a very humbling encounter with King, Gentoo, and Magellanic penguins along with an assortment of other birds. Not sure what types, but one reminded me of the seagull in the Little Mermaid Movie, Scuttle. There was another flock of birds, that may have been ruddy-headed geese that moved together in a flock walking past a group of Gentoo penguins that suddenly started to communicate amongst themselves or were all belting out a yell at the geese walking by to stay away! The sound a penguin makes is a cross between a dolphin and a seagull (to my ears anyway). Being able to observe the penguins in their natural habitat, gathering in groups, swimming in and out of the lagoon, some poking each other, others burrowing into the sand or into their little homes they built into the sand, was amazing. There were small flag markers near the shoreline and at the bluff where we go up to/not cross which were very close to wear the penguins were gathered. They paid us no attention but from time to time one of them would look in our direction to acknowledge we were there and then would go on about the business at hand… grooming, swimming, and laying around on the sand. Maggie again, took incredible pictures and video… one of which she set to a piece of music from The Sound of Music, “Goodbye, Farewell” as they waddled their way to the lagoon and dove in for a swim. Really, did I just see that? kept playing in my head.

The Falkland Islands is a British ruled territory, therefore it came as a great surprise that tea service would be provided after our time observing the penguins. It was just what was needed after being outside in the cold. We walked in to a small and unquie tea room, that had art work on the walls, British flags along the edge of the ceiling and strangely enough a framed photo of Zelensky, which was the same day we found out later in the evening about the “encounter” with him at the White House. Back to the tea room, there was also a wood burning stove in the middle of room that provided heat to the little tea house. I call it a tea house but it really was more like a long storage unit, separated into individual 50×50 rooms, one being a tourist center, the next being the tea room, the last being a gift shop. Hattie, an elderly, British woman, owned the tea house and the gift shop and she had made all the delicious assorted tea cookies, breads, loafs, etc. I was sure to thank her after picking up a few items from the gift store.

Back on the ship, it was Orange Party night, celebrating the Netherlands. Our cabin stewards had left a dutch treat on our beds to kick off the evening – Stroopwafel!. Bob and I ate a lot of these when were in Holland/Amsterdam. After clipped in my orange feather/hair decor, we got a couple of seats at the bar, and enjoyed the festivities. We met a nice english couple that we joined in a game of trivia to kick off the Orange Party. We lost, but it was fun to test our memories and to see if knew a few brain teasers. To kick-off the dance portion of the party, our line dance teachers called up the dancers to start it off with the Electric Slide (to the original Electric Slide song). Maggie opted not to join but I DID! it was a lot of fun. We hung out for a couple of cocktails and people watching… after about an hour we headed to our cabin to crash after a long and cold day.

Love to All,
Robin