Category: Family

This wasn’t something we expected. The Wife took our cat Lola to the vet for the cat’s monthly arthritis shot. I was busy teaching an Excel class for the day job. The Wife suspected something was wrong because Lola’s stomach was rock hard.

Just have them give her a look. I said that and forgot about it as I focused on my class. After all, outside of her arthritis, Lola wasn’t one of our cats that I worried about. Which was why The Wife’s next message shocked me.

They looked at her and it doesn’t look good. You may want to come down here.

Fluid in the abdomen and chest. Lots. Vet was pretty sure it was cancer, but the only way to find out was exploratory surgery – and even with that it was most likely untreatable. The Wife made a promise to herself that she would not make one of her cats suffer just to comfort herself – and it’s a sentiment I share. We talked and decided Lola suffered enough. Gods damn it, I hate when it’s time to make that decision. Especially when we weren’t expecting it. I snapped one last picture before we said goodbye.

The Wife told me that she got kitty Lola as a playmate for our dearly departed Titus – who was a kitty himself – so that Titus would leave her older cat Spike alone. Instead, baby Lola attached herself to Spike, which meant Titus was still free to cause havoc.

When I came in to the picture, Lola was less than pleased. I think it took me the better part of two years before she finally accepted me. It helped that I was one of the humans that fed her. Still, The Wife was very much her person. I was just there as a somewhat useful accessory.

Lola was a sassy cat with a croaky meow when one of the other cats got closer than she wanted. I’m going to miss hearing that. I’m going to miss seeing her get into it with Freya – who I think Lola never really forgave us for bringing into Ward Manor. I’m going to miss her dancing on the cat tree when she thought treats were incoming. In short, I’m going to miss Lola.

Road Trip Happenings – Last Friday, The Wife and I decided to trek up to Tampa for the opening of the new Ebisu store. Because Derek is a weeb and they were offering all those wonderful kinds of KitKats that I usually only get at EPCOT. Among other things. Plus, I needed to swing by the office to get showerhead that was delivered there (see last week’s post). So, after making sure to load the rollator for The Wife, we hoped in the Wardmobile and made our way north. No problem picking up the showerhead, we got lunch at one of our favorite places, we made plans to meet up with The Brother afterwards – everything was going smoothly.

Then we got to the store – and saw the line that to get in. The line that went past two large storefronts and to the end of the shopping plaza. The Wife took one look at that line, looked at her knees, and informed me that there was no physical way she could endure that line. Even with the rollator. Disappointing, but we’re not the young folks we would like to be. We agreed to try again at a later date, texted The Brother, and headed over his way. We chatted with him for a bit. It was the first time The Wife and he were able to meet up since her latest surgery. After that, The Wife and I decided to go down to the Tampa 5.11 store, since they were running clearance. I picked up one of their attache cases among the discounted clothes. Did I need the attache case? Nope. After looking at it, my Maxpedition was better suited for getting my stuff to work. I rationalized on it being better to carry my personal laptop for any future trips.

The trip home wasn’t so much eventful as long. Plus rainy. Plus a Friday rush hour. Not a bad day, even if we didn’t get to do the featured event.

Return To Work Happenings – The Wife started back to work this week after being out for recovery. So, it’s getting back into routines that have lain at least partially dormant for the past three weeks. We worked last week on starting to get back to normal, but there are some things that only happen when it’s all “real.” The Wife did start clearing out her emails last week so she wasn’t walking into a mailbox apocalypse.

Voting Happenings – I did my civic duty and voted in the primaries. It was difficult, because, well, let’s just say the slates of candidates were unappealing at best and repulsive at worst. I could opine on the state of the parties in Florida, the need for a jungle primary versus the closed primary system, and more, but let’s just say this cycle is not endearing me to the current climate.

Best Wife Happenings – I walked into my office and found the below note. I will admit to suffering a bit from dust after reading it. I’m really excited to try it out. If it works as well as I expect, that little device will be added to my daily carry. There’s too many times when inspiration strikes and I need to write on one of my stories.

Recovery Happenings – Well, the ice machine is put away. That’s a big thing around here. The Wife is still using cold packs, but it’s a step. Another big step is The Wife is driving. One of us is riding shotgun, but she’s driving for short jaunts to her PT and some small errands. She’s also able to go up the stairs normally, if slow and with the assistance of a cane. Yet, it’s still progress.

WTF Delivery Happenings – The Wife and I decided we needed a new shower head for the master bath. The current one is having a hard time flipping between the main head and the wand. Anywhoo, I found the one we wanted on Home Depot, ordered it, and paid through Apple Pay. The next morning, it was delivered before 0800. Sounds good, right? Well, for some reason, it was delivered to my office some fifty miles from Ward Manor. WTF? How in the hell did my work address get entered? It’s not in my shipping info on Apple Pay, nor have I had anything delivered there. Fortunately, I have a good team that secured the package, and I’ll just have to pick it up later. Thankfully, it’s not a critical repair.

Transformers Movie Happenings – Well, Fathom Events finally opened ticket purchases for the 40th anniversary “Apology Tour” event. And since I was early, I managed to score good seats. Not that I expect a packed house. At least it’s at the theater that The Wife and I like instead of the one we had to go to the last time they had a theatrical run.

I should’ve known when she didn’t acknowledge my happy birthday text. Still, I didn’t think much of it. Then The Brother called me the next day. I figured he was going to ask me something that wouldn’t be appropriately captured through text.

The Brother: [Sister In Law] passed away yesterday.

My mind whirled as I sputtered out the verbal nonsense of a mind grappling with sudden, unexpected, horrific news. Sister In Law, wife of Rocket Engineer Brother, mother of The Niece and The Nephew, was gone. This didn’t make any sense. I hadn’t heard that she was sick or anything. How was she gone? This was a woman who had been in my life to one degree or another for more than two of my five decades. How could she be gone without warning and so suddenly?

The Brother went across the state to help out. The Wife asked if I needed to go as well, but I didn’t want to be underfoot while they were dealing with all the necessary details of a death. Then it was getting stuff in line and waiting for information.

Last week, they had a viewing. The Wife, unfortunately, was still recuperating from her surgery. She couldn’t handle the long car ride to go across the state. With much regret, she was forced to stay home while I headed out. It was one of those odd moments when I realized I always put SIL’s name into my GPS to navigate to their house. Damn.

It was small, intimate group that went to the viewing. Just a handful of family and friends. We were just there to support each other through this time.

There was a surreal moment when The Brother, Rocket Engineer Brother, Close Family Friend, and I sat up and looked at each other in disbelief to the background music. The soft piano music had been playing the moment we entered the chapel. What one would expect and quickly relegate to background noise. Until you are just sitting there and realize you know this song, and they couldn’t be playing this song, especially a soft piano version. The four of us just looked at each other. Why in the world was Gangsta’s Paradise included in this playlist? Which then led to a quick exchange of “Do you hear the lyrics for Gangsta Paradise or Amish Paradise?”

There are plans for a larger memorial service later. Too many folks were unable to come this fast. I’ll probably do another post when that happens. Right now, I think I’m just going to leave it here.

Recovery Happenings – The Wife’s recovery goes apace, but this knee is not being as cooperative as the previous. It’s a going to be a long road, but probably worth it. My watch helpfully informed me that I had done far more stair climbing than my average. On the plus side, The Wife made her first outing since the surgery. She was running out of yarn for her project. Well, it was either pay more in delivery fees than the cost of the skein, wait a week, or we could do a pickup at the busiest mall in the area. So, of course, we decided on pickup. That was actually an easy, quick, in and out, with The Wife and MIL sitting in the car. The trip to Publix was a bit longer as The Wife navigated using the scooter as we picked up a few things.

Tech Happenings – Since The Wife is laid up on the couch as she recovers, I’ve been working downstairs with her. I noticed that I really enjoyed using my ASUS Double monitors with the work laptop, but I also found I liked hooking them up to my personal laptop. The extra monitors help with blogging, story writing, or even just playing Civ.

Surgery Happenings – Last week, The Wife went back under the knife to get her other knee replaced. This one is being a bit more stubborn than the first in terms of pain. It also didn’t help that the hospital experience was not nearly as good as last time. When we went in for her first knee, it felt very much like we were being pulled into a pit crew. Everyone came in quickly, did their job, and any waits were reasonable (such as waiting for drugs to take hold or processes to finish). This time? Either they were understaffed or it was all second-stringers. Long, unexplained waits followed by shall we say, not the most rigorous of processes. Yeah, not as pleased.

Still, The Wife is making progress. Even if she can’t see it. The home health nurse was pleased. The home PT was pleased. I am pleased with her progress, but I wish I could do something to make her hurt less. We will just have to work through it.

When It Rains It Pours Happenings – With The Wife recovering, we’re freezing a lot of things. Bottles of water, gel packs, etc. So, when I opened our outside deep freeze and saw the temp not in the freezing range, I was a more than a bit dismayed. We moved a bunch of stuff around and got ready to call the appliance repair on Monday. Fortunately, it seemed to be a momentary glitch and everything returned to normal. But my paranoia is spiking and I’m watching the freezer a bit more closely. Particularly since the medical bills have started rolling in.

Press Happenings – The sandwich press we got to replace the first one has been tested on not only my normal sandwiches, but on a Publix Cuban. Have to say, It’s nice being able to toast up that sandwich.

Familiar Places Happenings – So, I like watching this one channel where a retired LVPD officer reviews dash cam and badge cam videos. I was watching one and realized I recognized the environs. I know that building! I know that 7-11! Driven by it many times when The Wife and I were going to Toastmasters. I wondered what had happened.

Stock Up Happenings – With surgery looming, and the inevitable long recovery time, The Wife, MIL, and me ventured forth to stock up on yarn and crafting supplies. Well, they went to stock up. My goal was to assist and look for shelving or risers or such to help organize my growing collection of toys. Particularly since I have two more Alpha/Legioss coming in the fall/winter. I also had one other request, which we’ll get to later. We stopped in at Michaels, which resulted in a large quantity of yarn. The Wife’s being doing some of her projects in bigger yarn, and she seems to prefer the stuff at Michaels. She also tried one of the newer drive-through coffee places that have been popping up around Bradenton. Then we went down the road to Hobby Lobby, where more yarn was acquired – along with a bunch of other stuff. We have the same issue with Hobby Lobby that we do with 5.11. We go in for a specific thing and come out with a bunch more. After checkout was the real reason we needed to go to Hobby Lobby second – my favorite milk tea spot. We came out with good boba.

The secondary reason for my commenting on what is essentially a routine shopping trip – the acceleration of the shopping seasons. When we walked into Michaels, we ran smack into a large Halloween section with a variety of decorations and decor items. Okay. Kind of understandable. Even though it’s more than three months and a season change away. Then in Hobby Lobby and it was like fall colors were vomited on the first three rows. Are we already in Thanksgiving? Go a little further and the Christmas stuff was being lined up to be disgorged onto the shelves. Okay, even that hit my curmudgeon side.

Dinner Happenings – MIL wanted to take The Wife and me out for dinner to celebrate our birthdays, and she want the family along. After some back and forth, we finally settled on last weekend. Then, The Brother came down with something. And with surgery happening, we decided to meet with him at a later date. Then BIL came down with the flu, so he and his wife bowed out in an abundance of caution. So, we were left with MIL, The Wife, Wife’s Niece, Wife’s Nephew, and the Grandniece. We decided on trying a new Italian place across the main thoroughfare from Ward Manor’s subdivision.

The food was pretty good and we had a nice time enjoying everyone’s company. From there, we ended up taking Wife’s Niece and the Grandniece to our favorite ice cream spot. Nephew begged off because he’s not much into sweet stuff. Grandniece had one request – cookies and cream ice cream with lots of sprinkles. Which she got in a waffle cone. The ice cream shop recently moved into a new spot, and part of their decor is a church pew running down one side like a bench with some tables. I’m sure it sounded good and fit in with the “aesthetic image” of down home vintage. Except a pew really isn’t designed for table side. Which makes sitting in it while eating a sundae a bit challenging. Still, damn good ice cream.

Minor Tech Victories Happenings – Those who know me know that I’m a trackball person – and my favorite trackball is the Logitech MX Ergo. For the longest time, I used one at work and one at home. Then my home one was dying – because it was a first iteration, first run model. At the time, Logitech annoyed the Ward household, so I switched my home one to one of the newer Kensingtons. On the basis it was lower cost, and it was supposed to be competing with the MX Ergo. I was never really happy with it compared to the MX Ergo, and last week, it finally started acting up. Heck, I’ll go back to my Ergo. Well, the new one has some slight improvements. Such as not needing Logitech’s little dongle to connect. Which means I now have one trackball for both work and home computers! And one less thing needing a micro-USB.

Five Year Happenings – The Wife just celebrated five years at her current job. Which surprised both of us. Her work sent her a list of things she could claim as her five year reward. She went through the list and didn’t see anything that drew her immediate interest. So, she asked if I saw anything. We went back and forth and finally agreed on a new Pelican cooler.

Birthday Happenings – The Wife and I couldn’t celebrate our birthdays on our birthdays because of work and appointments. So, last weekend we planned to go out to this anime store up in St. Pete, then hit another one on the way back in Ellenton, and then maybe go out to dinner and ice cream. Yeah… plans kind of went sideways.

The first thing was The Wife and MIL had pedicure appointments that we forgot about. Okay, well, I can just go get my hair cut while they did that. I’ve been needing one for a while anyways. Then we get on the road to St. Pete. Travel time went from 40 minutes to 90 minutes. Um, what? Oh, there’s a really bad accident. If Pinellas traffic is going whompy, then I really don’t want to chance getting stuck in it up there. So, we’ll go to the shop in Ellenton. Yeah, we’re getting a little hungry. So, we stop in at the ramen shop first. It’s a good lunch place. The shop in Ellenton is more pop gothic (IYKYK) than anime shop, but it was interesting. By that time, we were getting a little tired. So, we ended up just getting ice cream at our favorite shop and headed home. Honestly, just being home is probably my favorite.

Lightsaber Happenings – During our last trip to Disney back in February, I picked up a Darth Vader lightsaber for my collection. My original idea for where to place it would have narrowed the entryway into part of the house where the home offices are at to just the other side of reasonable. So, The Wife suggested hanging it above the closet door where I mounted the two Luke Skywalker lightsabers. Finally got around to it. When we hung it, I didn’t consider the RGB color scheme, but it kind of turned out interesting.

Writing Happenings – Finally finished the fourth installment of the Irregulars Universe. It will be on an upcoming Monday Fiction. Now, I need to get back to the second volume of I Want To Serve. That one’s going to need a rewrite as my original plan kind of fell apart. Trying to figure out how much of the backstory and world building to put in without info dumping. And figure out how to write decent endings.

All of my series now have pages with illustrations. As well as categories to search. I’m still debating to do with my Avalon series. As well as the other half-dozen ideas in the hopper.

Fourth of July Happenings – Yeah, we celebrated by not celebrating. The Wife’s recovery is going well, but it does leave her tired. And I didn’t want to do much over the long weekend. Yeah, we’re homebodies who prefer our own company. I half-expected the locals to tamp down their private shows because of the local burn-bans due to drought. Apparently not. Though, they didn’t seem to go on into the night like they have in the past.

Keyboard Happenings – So, when we relax, it’s usually MIL and The Wife crocheting while I play/work on my laptop. I kept my laptop on a large lap desk, but there were some drawbacks. The biggest was having to lift and move my, admittedly, heavy laptop. After a day of “resting,” my lower back let me know it didn’t like how often I had to do that. So, when we got this rolling, adjustable table for The Wife to work while sitting on the couch, I figured I could use it on the weekends for my laptop. And it works – sort of. The problem is that I essentially have to either stretch out my arms to use the keyboard, or sort of balance my laptop on the edge of the table. I essentially traded a sore back for sore shoulders. Then I remembered I had an old Logitech Pebble Bluetooth keyboard I used for my work laptop until I swapped it out for something lighter. Problem solved!

Duckling Happenings – Now that the first batch of ducklings are looking more like full grown ducks, we find another mama mallard bringing around another eight small ducklings. Haven’t seen any from the whistling ducks or the other birds, but it’s been a treat to see them this season. I really need to do some more Birds of Ward Manor posts.

Masterpiece Happenings – I was successfully targeted by some ads for the Masterpiece streaming service add-on for Prime. TBH, I tend to like British dramas. A recent question at work was “If you had only one show to watch for the rest of your life, what would it be?” Much to my teammates’ surprise, my answer was Downton Abbey. Anywhoo, one of the reasons I wanted to get the add-on was a new-ish series of the Count of Monte Cristo. The Wife was completely unaware of this story, and she has enjoyed it quite a bit.

Doctor Firing Happenings – I’m now looking for a new primary care doc. It’s one thing when I’m waiting a half-hour or so for the doc to come into the room. It’s a small practice, I can understand getting backed up depending on the patients’ needs. The frequency was enough that it was already pegging my “maybe-I-should-take-my-business-elsewhere” feelings. Then they left me in the waiting room for an hour and called everyone else – including people who had appointments after me. When I hit the hour mark and they called another patient, I got up and walked out. I fired my doctor. Fortunately, I don’t have any major chronic conditions that need constant monitoring, so I can take a month or so and do my research.

That Lasted A While Happenings – I’ve used these Zojirushi water boilers for years. Originally to make hot tea, then as I moved in with The Wife, we’ve found a myarid of uses. When I first got them, they recommended these little packets to do monthly cleaning. Where I live has very hard water – and I use the boiler a lot. So, I was cleaning the boilers monthly like clockwork. Except those packets were approximately a buck a piece. Then I read that it was essentially citric acid. Really? I bought a huge bag when I first moved down around eight years ago. It was maybe $25. This week I finally had to buy another bag. Lesson learned.

Rehabilitation Happenings – The Wife started her PT last week. They are pleased with her progress considering she’s a month post surgery. More exercises to do at home – which she is pretty diligent about. And she’s using the elliptical bike in short intervals. The trick is getting her to slow down and not push herself so hard she does herself a mischief. Of course, all this new activity has brought on new and exciting pain. We’re doing the best we can to support her as she continues through her knee replacement journey.

Prime Day Happenings – Between the slew of medical bills and rehab equipment expenses, we didn’t really have the play in the budget to really participate in Prime Day. It also didn’t help that Amazon pushed it up, which meant The Wife and I didn’t have the normal birthday monies to supplement our spending. We did purchase two things. First, we bought a new Vornado tower fan for The Wife’s side of the room. It was highly recommended and half-off. However, whoever decided the format and layout of the “quick instructions” should be fired. Really, we’re going to show black pieces being assembled on a black, glossy piece of paper. At least it was intuitive. The other thing we bought was some Bath and Bodyworks gift cards because they were selling $50 cards for $40. At Ward Manor, that’s called prepaying of consumables.

Family Happenings – The Brother came down last weekend, which is the first time we’ve talked in person for about a month. Normally, we try to have dinner once a week, but with The Wife’s recovery, that just wasn’t happening. It was good to see him and visit for a couple of hours. We also got to have lunch with BIL and SIL and have a nice visit. BIL is also going through the process of having both knees done, so there’s a lot of comparisons between the sibilings’ journeys. And on top of it all, The Wife’s Niece and the Grandniece made a surprise visit because they had a party in the area. Which the Grandniece spent a good deal of time on her tablet. I may have to do some hiding of that except for special blocks.

Sleepless Happenings – Our two older male cats have decided that nighttime is the right time for fighting. It seems like every night last week we were woken up by their war cries. Which involves me getting up, grabbing the air can, and running one of them downstairs. Then they decide to fight over the cat flap to the back porch. If they were capable of learning, they would have learned a bunch of new words unfit for polite

Toy Happenings – My preorder for the Takara Tomy Legioss finally showed up. So, of course, I wanted to compare this one to the Toynami Alpha’s I picked up more than twenty years ago. Except when I pulled out my Shadow Alpha, it fell apart in my hands. The Blue Alpha had parts fall off. WTF? Turns out, it’s a known issue with those Toynami Alphas. What I found amusing is when I pulled out my Toyanmi Alphas, The Wife commented that she didn’t realize those were toys. Anywhoo, I did take some photos.