Feb 27, 2007

Gary has been invited to give a keynote address at the Conference "Advances in Set-Theoretic Topology" in Honour of Tsugunori Nogura on his 60th Birthday, to be held on June 9-19, 2008 in Erice, Sicily (Italy). They are asking Gary to reply at his earliest convenience, and we suppose that means Gary will have to decline. He thinks it sounds like a pretty tough trip, and he hasn’t even attempted an overnight U.S. trip, yet.

Speaking of trips, Gary got ahold of the minivan guy. The part we've been waiting on has supposedly been shipped, and we could have the van this Friday. Keep your fingers crossed!

Feb 26, 2007

Oh, I forgot to mention, Joe and Dolores brought a small box of keepsakes for me from mom. Among other things, it contained: A stopwatch (from my early swimming days); A caricature of my dad in a toga and wreath, drawn by a street artist in Athens in ’82; My eighth grade diploma from St. Raphael’s and my high school diploma from Benet Academy; My baby book; My first formal baby picture (what a hoot); Tons and tons of pictures from babyhood on; Academic achievement awards; Report cards.

I like the report cards best. On my kindergarten (!) one, the teacher remarks that I got a little too cocky in the past six weeks and thought I knew so much I didn’t try like I should. My mom replied that they would meet the teacher to discuss what further methods should be used on me. Evidently whatever she tried didn’t work since throughout grade school the teachers remarked I didn’t produce a quality of work measuring up to my ability. (I also evidently needed improvement in the area of good conduct while in first grade, my handwriting remained atrocious throughout grade school, I didn’t keep my desk and materials neat, and I only did average in math. I guess I made quite a turnaround in all these areas in high school – except for the part about keeping my environment neat.)

This afternoon another gift for Gary was delivered by a local flower shop – from Janet and John. It was a basket containing turtles, chocolate-covered pretzels, Guinevere chocolates. Hope he’s going to be able to push himself in his chair after he polishes all this stuff off!

Speaking of pushing, Gary told me yesterday he was setting himself a push goal of getting from the student activity building to the math building without stopping to rest. He said he’s been taking four to five rests. He thought by the end of the semester he should be able to do it without any. Today he told me he thinks he’s going to make that goal a lot sooner than he thought – he took only one rest, in the middle of the steep hill he has to wheel up. He says slow and steady is the key, and noted that last summer he wouldn’t have been anywhere near able to do what he can do in this regard. I said that after he accomplishes that goal, he can work on speed, and I joked that I now had a stopwatch that we could time him with. He said that, actually, his physical trainer said the same thing (that he should next work on speed, not that I should time him!).

Gary called the car people this morning to ask if the part they’d been waiting for had come in yet. The person who answered the phone took Gary’s message and phone number so that the guy Gary needed to talk to could call back. The guy never called. I am not impressed with their customer service!

Feb 23, 2007

My brother Joe and sister-in-law Dolores showed up a little before seven – with cupcakes and Ben and Jerry’s for Gary’s birthday! I knew they were bringing the goodies, but Gary didn’t, so he was happily surprised. They stayed for about an hour before going to a local campground where they had left their trailer and dogs, and during that hour we talked of this and that – they have spent most of the past month getting my mom moved from her house into an apartment. And they thought they were going to be having some vacation time – hah!

Feb 24, 2007

Happy Birthday to Gary!

Joe and Dolores came over around 10:30 (timing it so Gary would be done with his shower). We gave them a tour of the house. Dolores had only seen pictures, and Joe hadn’t seen the finished garage or things like the shades he picked out being in place. Of course we couldn’t let Joe get by without doing some work for us ;-). He noticed the stopper in my bathroom sink didn’t work and so fixed that, and when he asked why the garage door was up, I said because it doesn’t work. It kept slipping our minds to call somebody about it, and we just got used to having the garage open all the time. Joe figured out that the electric eyes weren’t lined up correctly, which was why the door usually wouldn’t close, and that the setting on some dial wasn’t quite right, which was why on the rare occasions the door did close, it would immediately bounce right back up.

Tigger was fairly friendly fairly immediately with Joe and Dolores – no doubt hoping someone would finally break out the Fancy Feast again, since he hasn’t gotten any since Joe left. Blackjack, however, would not come around. Joe thought him rather ungrateful, since Joe had gotten up around 5 every morning to feed the whining beast. (This is why we have the cat barrier, which keeps the cats in the kitchen, on the opposite side of the house from our bedrooms.)

For lunch we went out to Paneera’s, which Joe evidently had eaten at nearly every day while he was here this summer but hadn’t eaten at one since. Mostly the lunch was spent Bush-bashing ;-). After lunch, Joe and Dolores went back to their trailer so they could walk their dogs and “rest up.” I took the opportunity to rest up, too. Gary talked to his family and read email and snail mail birthday cards (thank you to those who sent them!). Dimitrina called him from Bulgaria (!) to wish him a happy birthday. Ronnie Levy sent him Belgian chocolates. Since I had given him a bag full of goodies (chocolates, peanut brittle, dates), his sweet tooth was well satisfied.

In the evening, we went in Joe and Dolores’s minivan to a Mexican restaurant for a 6pm meal. Earlier in the week we had called and emailed the people who had helped Joe out this summer, so that they could have a reunion with him and also meet Dolores. It was just good timing that they happened to be able to come when it was Gary’s birthday. At the dinner was Phil Zenor, Donna Bennett, Janet and Jack Rogers, Krystyna and Wlodek Kuperberg, Krystyna and Piotr Minc, Narendra Govil and his wife, Jo and Bob Heath, Andras Bezdek, and Michel Smith.

We had Joe and Dolores sit in the middle of the table so the maximum number of people could talk to them (at least, that was our intention), and Gary and I sat at one end, so we wouldn’t hog them. In a rare instance of foresight ;-), I had bought a little guest booklet for people to sign, which was supposed to be in appreciation of Joe and Dolores. They were quite surprised by it, and also to find that they were the guests of honor. Musical chairs were played a couple times that night, so I think everyone got to mix fairly well. Everyone seemed to be really enjoying themselves. People mentioned we should do this again – they probably said that because I paid the bill. JUST joking.

The party broke up a little after 8. Out in the parking lot, Narendra’s wife gave Gary a Bundt cake! Joe and Dolores came inside our house for a short time, where Belgian chocolates and cake were served. Then we said our goodbyes, because Joe and Dolores were leaving for Colorado early in the morning (and God knows, I wasn’t going to get up early to see them off ;-)).

Gary said he most definitely had a happy birthday!

Feb 22, 2007

Gary had called the urologist a couple days ago and found out that they don’t do the urodynamics (my spell checker keeps automatically changing that word to “aerodynamics,” so if that ever slips through, be assured we aren’t having Gary tested for how well he is built for flying) test with video, as the Shepherd doctor said should be done, but Gary decided to go through the test anyway. Turned out, though, that we wasted about an hour of our time (can you tell by now I hate to waste time?) – the technician had no idea how to perform the test on Gary, because according to his procedure, he would be filling Gary’s bladder with water and as he was doing so asking Gary to tell him when he first had the urge “to go” and when the urge was, well, urgent, etc. Gary never feels those urges any more. The doctor wasn’t there to ask about what should be done, so we decided to just leave without having anything done here – we’ll have Gary do it up at Shepherd sometime.

Since we now had time we didn’t expect to have, I asked Gary if he wanted to shop for shirts for his birthday (I am also getting him some “wheelchair” khakis and jeans, and some “goodies”). So we went to Penny’s and he picked out a handful of short-sleeved pullover knit shirts for when the weather gets warmer (though today was a beautiful day – 70 degrees). He said shopping was much more fun than a urodynamics test. We then stopped in at Brewsters to get him an ice cream cone before going home.

We finished the March of the Penguins movie and have been watching the Special Features. We have been enjoying that even more than the main feature, because it is more informative and personal.

Feb 19, 2007

Gary got in contact with the car dealership guy. He apologized for not being there on Saturday. Gary asked him if he could bring the van to our home instead of us traveling there again. First he said he would bring it tomorrow (Tuesday). Then he called back and said he would have all the modifications done to it first, and then bring it to our home later this week for us to buy! So, Gary may get his modified car by his birthday! Of course, he’ll only be able to look at it for a while (or have me drive him around in it).

In watching our current movie, Gary and I both agree we are glad we aren’t penguins.

Feb 16, 2007

I don’t think I mentioned that Gary has two different kinds of booty rashes. The one developed in the triangle of his flap surgery scar during Day Program, and we thought it might be latex allergy. The other one developed a few weeks after that. I don’t know by how long we missed the beginning of it, because Gary had taken over “greasing his butt” and doing the skin checks, and the new rash was in the hard-to-see area of his crack. But when we went back to me doing the greasing to make sure the stuff he was putting on wasn’t aggravating the old rash, I became aware of the new rash. He called the bridge nurse about it, and she told us to put antifungal cream on it. It didn’t seem to help, so after a few weeks she recommended an antifungal in a moisture barrier cream. After a few weeks of this, I still hadn’t noticed any improvement, so that is why we went up to Shepherd on Friday the 16th. When the doctor saw it, he commented, “This is not good.” It is definitely a fungal infection and the area affected is too near the ischial (“sitting”) bones to be sanguine about it. He gave Gary a prescription for a stronger cream (one with steroids in it) that I will put on him twice a day (like I’ve been doing with the other creams). Gary hates the fact that the doctor also told him he has to go back to doing weight shifts every twenty minutes instead of every thirty. I told him it could be worse – the doctor could have told him he needs to stay in a prone position until the area is healed.

The doctor asked Gary how his “peeing and pooping” were going. Don’t you love doctor talk? It certainly wouldn’t have occurred to me before Gary’s accident that this is of primary concern with those with SCIs. Anyway, Gary told him about his visits to the urologist. The doctor didn’t seem all that impressed that they had done the IVP on him without having him empty his colon by taking those preparations – in fact, he said it was useless without that. Oh, well, the urologist hadn’t seemed to think so – and I think we would have had to hire someone else besides me to deal with the aftereffects of the preparations all through that night!

The doctor also said that for the urodynamics to make sure they are doing it with video, again saying it was worthless if they didn’t. He said Gary should have that done every 3-5 years. He also said that Gary should have a kidney ultrasound done and “KUB” pictures taken – kidney, ureter, bladder – both of those things done once a year.

I was exhausted by the time I got us home about five p.m. and felt terrible, counting the minutes until bedtime. Gary suggested I go to bed after dinner, but I reminded him that that would mean he’d have to go to bed then, too. He might have been willing to skip the bed bath – at least the parts I help him with – and I suppose he could have organized things to he’d have his pillows where he could get at them and so forth, but he couldn’t be sure he was putting the cream where it needed to go. Fortunately I revived a bit later in the evening, but I was ever so glad to hit the pillow that night.

The next day, the 17th, Gary wanted to go to Montgomery to buy the van. As we were leaving, Gary tried to call the guy who was to sell us the van. Gary couldn’t get hold of him, either at the work phone or his cell phone. I didn’t want to go because I didn’t want to make a two-hour trip there and back for nothing. Not to mention that I was still tired from yesterday and didn’t want to subject my back problems to more driving, especially if it was unnecessary. Gary was confident the guy would be there because we’d just told him on Wednesday that we’d be there on Saturday (the dealership isn’t usually open on Saturday, but the guy said he’d come in special), and Gary had called the dealership yesterday to say we were coming. I was pessimistic and warned Gary I was going to be mad if we made the trip for nothing.

Well, we made the trip for nothing. Gary tried to call the guy several times during the trip, and he never answered. No one was at the dealership. We hung out there a few minutes and then headed home. I told Gary that for future reference I was never going to do anything like that again. Grrr.

I definitely needed a nap when I got home!

Feb 18, 2007

I think I’m still a bit tired from all that driving the past two days. When we got home from Kroger, I went to get Gary’s wheelchair from out of the back of the Ford Escort. “Oh, my God,” I said. No wheelchair. I had left it in the parking lot at Kroger.

In my defense, Gary had transferred himself into the car while I had loaded the groceries in the back. I’m used to helping him transfer and then immediately breaking down the chair and loading it into the car. This time, he got in and closed the door because it was so cold out. Not having my usual cues, I simply got in the driver seat and drove away. Obviously Gary also didn’t take note that I had forgotten to load the chair.

I was very anxious driving back to Kroger, fearing that someone had taken the chair, but fortunately it was still there.

We have finished Star Wars 3 and are on to March of the Penguins.

Feb 15, 2007

The Dept of Rehabilitation person dropped by today with Gary’s “plan” for him to sign so he can get the money for the modifications to the van (should come to approx. $20,000, so I was right about that :-p). The form he had to sign is a standard one and had been filled in for him, just requiring his signature. I looked it over. For employment goal, “Professor (math)” had been filled in. In the section entitled reasons for selecting employment goal, it said, “I explored options and feel this is a good choice. I have received training in this area. It matches my interests, abilities and strengths. The job outlook for this type of work is good.” Thank God Gary felt this was a good choice and decided not to pursue, say, carpentry ;-). I hadn’t realized he had been considering giving up his secure, tenured position for some other form of employment. As for the outlook for this type of work being good, this is of course especially so since he already holds the position ;-).

There was also a list of responsibilities he needed to agree to. For example, he is supposed to attend all scheduled meetings and appointments, he agrees that he understands the importance of attendance and punctuality (fortunately the woman didn’t take off points there today – his bus was late getting home and he was late for his appointment with her), he is supposed to cooperate with all job placements efforts, and he is supposed to take all his prescribed medications.

Anyhoo, things are moving along there. Not absolutely sure I’ll have the energy to take him to Montgomery to pick out a van this Saturday. Originally, Shepherd had scheduled him a follow-up appointment with his Shepherd doctor tomorrow (Friday), but they had told us they would cancel that for him because they scheduled another one for him in March. We got a call yesterday reminding him of this appointment, so apparently they forgot to cancel it. We decided to go ahead and go to it because we are making no progress in clearing up the rash on his booty. This does mean I don’t get to go to the dentist and have another two cavities filled tomorrow. But fortunately the dentist had a cancellation for next Friday, so I will have it done then.

We are now watching Star Wars, Episode 3. I missed episode 2, but if it was anything like episode 1, no great loss. This one isn’t too bad – at least there’s a story in there amidst all the light-saber rattling. But I don’t buy how Anakin becomes the ruthless Darth Vader seemingly in one swoop. Of course, Gary says he’d destroy a republic without remorse in order to save my life. Just call him Darth Gruenhage. Except I think he is conflicted. He spent the rest of the evening trying to talk like Yoda, putting his verbs at the end (or maybe he was just being German ;-)).

Feb 14, 2007

Happy Valentine’s Day! Gary gave me a nice e-card and Poirot and Garrison Keillor CDs to listen to while I walk. I got him a couple e-cards (one funny, one serious) and flowers and chocolates – and I made him a pizza from scratch for dinner. The next celebration will be Gary’s birthday on the 24th.

Gary found out the next step for the van. We are supposed to go to this place in Montgomery that is authorized to modify vans. There, we buy the van, and they modify it and send the bill for the modifications to the State Rehab Office. We are thinking of picking out the van this Saturday. Oh, boy!

By the way, I forgot to mention that the reason the state is going to pay for the modifications we are sure is in large part due to the letter that Michel Smith, head of the math dept., wrote in support of Gary, stating that he is a valuable employee and needs the van for his transportation to work.

On the 8th we found out that the state will entirely pay for the modifications to the type of van we selected (Toyota Sienna)! Gary called the Driver Rehab specialist to tell him this, and he said he was waiting for the authorization from the Department of Vocational Rehab. Unfortunately, Gary forgot to ask him what the next step is, but we think he goes out with us to pick out the van.

Gary has been continuing to do well with his rehab weight training at the university. He says he gets a lot more sore doing three sets of ten with more weight than he did with the one set of thirty routine, even though while he is doing the exercises the new routine feels easier than the old did.

He recently made it up the hill from the Student Rec Center (where the gym is) to the math department with just one rest (at first, he needed three). He said he turned down two offers of help from people asking him if he wanted to be pushed (I’m so proud ;-)). He says his record there is being asked three times if he wants to be pushed up the hill.

He says that when he is going across the parking lot to get to the hill he actually is asked more often than that if he wants a push (and he has never accepted). It’s not a steep push, but it is a fairly long one. He notes that he is getting good exercise doing it and that he notices improved lung capacity as a result of those pushes. He says he can cough much better, for example – though his sneezes are still weak (I’m sorry, but I can’t help laughing sometimes when he sneezes – the sneezes sound funny to me).

We switched beds last night (the 10th) so Gary could try out a double bed at home. It went fine – for him. I got cold in the other room and slept badly. I guess in part that shows he’s in much better condition, healthwise, than he was while at Shepherd. He used to get cold so easily – we were constantly at war with one of his roomies over the temperature controls. And he used to get so cold after his bed baths that his teeth would chatter and I’d have to bring him hot chocolate or tea to warm him up.

I had a bunch of weird dreams all night last night, though I don’t remember them. But I do remember a recent one. I was in an airport to catch a plane, and the security procedure had been changed. I had to be interviewed by this woman. The result of this interview was that you could “get” to be one of the people assigned to stop any terrorists on your plane – I guess we were supposed to throw ourselves at the terrorists. The alternative was to do an hour of community service. I didn’t say so aloud, but I planned to opt for the community service (didn’t want this woman to know I was a coward, I guess ;-)). She noted that I had read Kurt Vonnegut. Boy, I didn’t know the government knew such details. I admitted I had, but that it had been required in high school (I didn’t admit I liked the book ;-)). She was quite disapproving and told me she had voted for Nixon. Then she asked me if I was paraplegic. I thought the answer should have been quite obvious ;-), but I said “no.” I assumed the question had to do with my ability to throw myself at a terrorist, but when I told Gary the dream, he said that probably the questioner thought that all paraplegics were subversive.

We finished the Dorothy Sayers mystery videos sent to us last summer by J.P. and Pam Holmes. Recently we watched the original version of King Kong, and now we are watching the recent remake to compare. I was surprised by how well I was liking the movie – until last night. They went too overboard and made it unbelievable (yes, I could suspend disbelief up to then – I would even have accepted shooting one giant grasshopper off the back of a man with a machine gun, but not a whole horde of them – at least, not without killing the man).

I will finish this entry by passing along a little story someone sent me by email. Thanks, Vicki – most of the techniques for dealing with the burdens of life had me chortling.

Stress Management

A lecturer, when explaining stress management to an audience, raised a glass of water and asked, "How heavy is this glass of water?" Answers called out ranged from 20 grams to 500 grams. The
lecturer replied, "The absolute weight doesn't matter. It depends on how long you try to hold it. If I hold it for a minute, that's not a problem. If I hold it for an hour, I'll have an ache in my right arm. If I hold it for a day, you'll have to call an ambulance. In each case, it's the same weight, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes."

He continued, "And that's the way it is with stress management. If we carry our burdens all the time, sooner or later, as the burden becomes increasingly heavy, we won't be able to carry on. As with the glass of water, you have to put it down for a while and rest before holding it again. When we're refreshed, we can carry on with the burden. So, before you return home tonight, put the burden of work down. Don't carry it home. You can pick it up tomorrow. Whatever burdens you're carrying now, let them down for a moment if you can. Relax; pick them up later after you've rested. Life is short. Enjoy it!"

And then he shared some ways of dealing with the burdens of life:

* Accept that some days you're the pigeon, and some days you're the statue.

* Always keep your words soft and sweet, just in case you have to eat them.

* Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.

* Drive carefully. It's not only cars that can be recalled by their maker.

* If you can't be kind, at least have the decency to be vague.

* If you lend someone money and never see that person again, it was probably worth it.

* It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others.

* Never buy a car you can't push.

* Never put both feet in your mouth at the same time, because then you won't have a leg to stand on.

* Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance.

* Since it's the early worm that gets eaten by the bird, sleep late.

* The second mouse gets the cheese.
* When everything's coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.

* Birthdays are good for you. The more you have, the longer you live.

* You may be only one person in the world, but you may also be the world to one person.

* Some mistakes are too much fun to only make once.

* A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery on a detour.

Feb 4, 2007

Gary tried out the raised toilet seat today for bowel program. So far it’s hard to imagine he’s going to find it preferable. It took fifty minutes to get through the bowel program while sitting on the seat, whereas lately doing it in bed takes about thirty. He found it hard to be in that position so long – having to lean over to one side all the time in order that fingers reach the proper aperture. I stayed with him to make sure he didn’t lose his balance, especially on the weight shifts, though he thinks he’ll soon be at the point where I wouldn’t need to. He does need to work on technique. He has to regularly change to a new pair of rubber gloves, and a couple overenthusiastic snaps of the gloves he was taking off led to instances of flying poop (in my direction, unfortunately; I told him if he hit me with it, I was outta there). After he was finished, Gary noted it’d taken him until 11am to have breakfast and go the bathroom. He noted that at least it wasn’t like our experience at the Transitional Living Apartment, where it’d taken us what seemed like the entire day to get through his morning routine. We’d worried it was always going to be like that! Hopefully the time it takes him to get through this will get shorter too. But, who knows. He still sticks to bed baths except for the once a week shower, due to how long the shower takes.

Feb 1, 2007

Catching up on this journal out of order, let me first say that Gary’s hospital test went fine – at least as far as he’s telling me ;-). They did not let me go back with him, even though both of us asked several times for me to be allowed to do so (I confess it touched my heart when Gary gave it one last try: “So, she can’t come with me?”). Gary told me they did a two-man transfer on him to get him onto the x-ray table. Maybe at that point he was glad I wasn’t there, cuz I would have said, “No way, you wimp, we’re doing a depression transfer!” (Actually, I probably would have let him be a wimp – he said the table was very high, higher than any transfer we’ve ever attempted.) For weight shifts, they turned him from side to side. He had to do an IC for them, and then they shot dye into his arm and took their pictures of his urinary tract. We got to the hospital at about 10:30, and he came back out into the waiting room a little after noon. Then he wanted to go to the burger place nearly directly across from the hospital, saying he needed some solid food in him!

After taking him to school, I had just enough time to go home and have some lunch before racing off to the chiropractor. I have definitely had some pain reduction, especially during the day, though the pain still interferes with getting decent sleep. The chiropractor has given me some stretches and abdominal strengthening exercises and some exercises to help increase mobility of the pelvic region (I call them my “bump and grind” exercises).

Oh, by the way, speaking of wimps, Gary says he hopes people who read the blog don’t think he is one, given all the times I mention him crying about something ;-).

On Jan 27, I had a rather bizarro experience after finishing my walk. I’ve been parking at the end of a street a few blocks away, where there is a flat stretch of road. I walk down that road to where it dead ends (it wasn’t until I came to the south that I knew “dead end” was a verb) and then turn around and go back to my car. It takes me about an hour to take this at a stroll. That evening, there was a truck parked in the place I usually put my car, so I parked behind it. When I got back from my walk, a man was in the yard near my car, and he asked me if it was my car. I said it was. He identified himself as the owner of the house in front of which I had parked, and anticipating him, I asked if it was the case he didn’t like me parking in front of his house. He indicated this was the case. I said, no problem, I wouldn’t park there anymore. (I happen to know that legally I can park on the street there, but my purpose was not to antagonize anyone.) He mentioned there had been some problems at his home, which he didn’t want me to get involved in (whatever that meant), and I said again that it was no problem, that I had parked there just in order to take my walk, but that I wouldn’t park there again. On the drive home I decided I would park at a school about a block up from there.

So, I drive home, and about ten-fifteen minutes later, this cop is at my door asking me if the car in the garage is mine. I said it sure was. He then goes on to talk about how this guy is upset about my car being in front of his house, that he’d had a break-in at his home, and so on. The cop “assures” me that they’re not thinking I was involved in the break-in (meanwhile it’s going through my mind that I would have to be pretty stupid to break into this guy’s home and then regularly leave my getaway car parked in front of it while I take a walk) but that they didn’t know what I was doing in the area. I told the cop I was taking walks and that I had already told the owner – twice, and in what I thought was a friendly way – that I wouldn’t park in front of his house anymore. The cop then asks me if I couldn’t leave my car in the garage and walk around the blocks near my house. I’m thinking, “Huh? Since when are people restricted to walking around their homes?” But I say, no, that I have back problems and I can’t take the hills around my house, that I go to a flat area. He informs me I can go over to the university or to the high school track and walk there. I don’t say anything but I’m thinking, no way am I going to go traipsing clear across town when I can drive a few blocks away. The cop finishes by saying I haven’t done anything wrong, and leaves. I’m still wondering why he was saying all that stuff in the first place, unless it was to somehow intimidate me on the house owner’s behalf.

Upset, I went back into the bedroom and told Gary of the cop visit. Gary told me I should have come and got him when the cop came, and I wish I would have. I was very upset that night, and it still bothered me for days, first of all that that guy had called the cops on me after I’d talked to him and secondly that that cop was saying those things to me. My massage therapist gave me some perspective, however. She said that the guy had probably called my license plate into the cops long before the guy had talked to me, and the cop probably hadn’t known I had already talked to the guy. When he found that out, he probably felt obligated to find something to say, since he’d bothered to run my tag down and had come all the way out to my house. Vindictively, I hope the cop felt a real idiot, because he certainly ruined my night and had me upset for a few days. I literally shook each time I went by this guy’s house in order to take my walk. My massage therapist told me I should make a story out of this. She also told me I should take a bunch of photos of my car, and every time I walk by this guy’s house, I should slap a picture of my car on the guy’s curb. I nearly fell off the massage table laughing.

On the 28th, Gary ran through the logistics of using the raised toilet seat. It looks like it will be a fairly easy transfer onto it, as he has the height approximately equal to his wheelchair. The difficult part will be in leaning to the side on it for the twenty or so minutes required while performing the desired task. I looped the chain loops around a grab bar in the shower, and then he looped his arm through them, to give him stability while he leans, but he says he wants to use something else for that – he is afraid the loops might tear (I don’t really think they would), and that would be a disaster. He is going to try it out “for real” this coming weekend.

On the 28th, I also finally felt like I had my short fanfic story where I wanted it to be. I finally yielded to its pull, and as a result I felt like it finally came together. I was still anxious about posting it, however. The “test readers” I had asked from the RS Fic group for advice really seemed to enjoy the story, but it didn’t get as big a reception from my local critique group. In fact, after the first week’s work on it (I spent a little over three weeks on it), one of those members told me the story fell flat, which almost led me to throw it out. Gary, however, told me that just because that one person didn’t think it was funny didn’t mean it was funny – he thought it was funny. The other person in the group thought it was ready to be posted on the 26th, but there were still things I wasn’t satisfied with. But after working a few more days on it and running the final prospective version past the RSFic test readers, getting their comments and making some changes based on those comments, I felt an internal voice tell me, “Now, it’s ready.” So I posted it and anxiously awaited the reaction.

Boy, am I ever glad I didn’t throw it out! It got the biggest positive reaction of anything I’ve ever posted to the list (though it doesn’t, in my opinion, match the quality of the RS novel or another short piece I wrote). To enjoy it I think one would have to have a pretty solid knowledge of the characters of the series and as well some familiarity with fic writing. In fact the people who would get most out of it would be those who are immersed in the TV series and in the RSFic list, and if they had already seen the movie I had gotten the inspiration for the story from, that would probably further increase the enjoyment. A pretty small percentage of the population! But I felt really good about the response, I can tell you!