RECORDING THE WORST.

My brother, Bill, was mediflighted to Mark Twain St. Josephs hospital for open heart surgery. Millions of them are done every year, nothing to it, right?  Omigod. Not unless it is you or someone you know who has the surgery.

He looked wretched and probably will not be happy that I posted his picture strapped to his new buddy, the machine that keeps him heavily monitored. I won't see him again until March.


His daughter, Rena and granddaughter, Amber drove up from Southern California to be with him.


Practically the only thing not hooked to cords was his feet. Rena gave him a foot massage.

Time in the ICU is limited, so we went out for brunch after our visit. The women will return later in the day before heading back to Southern California.


And, my prankster son, Doug, brought him an All Meat Pizza, a bottle of booze, and an appointment with one of those women who hang out on Wilson St. wearing net stockings, commonly called a Ho. Bill was a bit out of it to think it was very funny, not to mention it hurts to laugh. The staff thought it was a gas. We wait until the worst moments and use humor to downplay our anxiety.  And, we are grateful to share what little time we can sneak in, even recording the worst.

GIRLS DAY OUT.

Sunday, the party is over, we decide to have a girls day out. before the hard work of moving begins. Virginia will leave Monday morning and we don't often find time for just we girls to have fun time together. We headed for the nail spa. Laurie, Kris and I chose to have a pedicure.

Virginia opted for a manicure.

Kris was in the habit of treating me to a pedicure when I visited her in Southern California, many years ago. I remember them as sitting on a fairly normal chair, soaking my feet in a pan of water and having my feet on the technicians knees as she sat at my feet with a towel over her clothes. This was an entirely different experience. The plush chairs, give you a massage while your feet are  softened.

The technician sands the rough skin off the bottom of Kris's feet.

After the scrubbing and softening, we each got a defoliating toes to knee massage. What a great feeling.

The nails and cuticles are given special attention. The techs laugh and talk while they work.

Kris had them really laughing as she counted from one to ten in Vietnamese. They corrected her pronunciation a couple of times.

Then the color and hardner are added.

A relaxing and fun hour later, we showed off our feet and hands, and headed out for Sushi.

There are several really good sushi restaurants in the area, but not many of them are open on Sunday. This one is Midori, on N. Green Valley Parkway, in nearby Henderson.

We had appetizers of salmon and tuna, fried tofu, and seaweed salad. All delicious. I forgot to take pictures of everything but the first plate.

We were having too much fun for me to remember the exotic names of these dishes. Just that they were all delicious as we tasted back and forth. Virginia's order with rice above.

My entre had three different types of tuna plus octopus, shrimp, caviar,  and salmon.  Extremely fresh and tasty, served on a combined bed of fine rice noodles and  sticky rice.

Kris and Laurie both tried a conventional sushi dish. All were good.
We headed for Laurie's and Virginia made the perfect statement. "We need to do this more often." I'll go for that!

ASHLAND, KENTUCKY

We moved yesterday and drove through Winchester; planned to stop there for the night.  We got a look at the town and stopped at the Blue Grass Heritage Museum but it didn’t open until noon and we would have had to wait an hour. Got a picture of this unusual dry wall. I’ve never seen one topped with rocks on edge.  You can double-click it to enlarge it.


A nice old clock in front of the museum had the wrong time; I like old clocks.  The day was pretty and we decided to push on for Ashland.
We parked at the Eagles Club Aerie 2329  and found a nice, friendly crowd. I got in a bit of “girl friend” time with two friendly gals, Jenny and Paula. We had a few laughs and they informed us that Ashland is the home of Naomi and Wynona Judd, and Billy Ray Cyrus.


This club gets serious about dart competitions.


They were serving barbecue sandwiches that evening; it was the women’s auxiliary election night.  Paula is the treasurer of the club and encouraged us to have a bite, but we avoid red meat and decided to stick with the salmon I had thawed and eat in the motor home instead.
Our trajectory is to be at Jim’s granddaughter’s graduation in June. But today, I get a massage.