Two and a half hours up the spout: the doctor’s other office failed to send him the results of Patty’s tests, so the whole thing today was a waste of everybody’s time. So we have to do it all over again on Monday morning. Meanwhile, it’s limbo. Not the dance: that place that’s neither Heaven nor Hell, where nothing happens.
Couldn’t jump the hurdle ’cause they never set it up.
Please continue to pray for us. We need it.
Gotta go get groceries for the weekend, and then it’s back to the doctor for Patty, to find out how her tests came out. Only then can we embark upon a course of treatment. The appointment is for early in the afternoon, which means it’ll take till suppertime.
Please pray that the news will be something much less than dire.
If it’s okay news, and we get back in time, we’ll see about Joe Collidge.
I had my regular checkup today, everything’s cool; and as no one else was waiting to see him, Dr. Swan took the opportunity to pump me for more information about the Bible and Christianity. He took notes on my answers, so I had to pray I told him nothing but what was true, and acceptable to Our Lord.
It humbles me, whenever I’m called upon to minister to someone. After all, I’m not an official and bona fide Bible scholar, not ordained. To perform this service makes me acutely aware of my limitations. It makes me careful to stick to what I read in the Bible itself, and to what I’ve learned of history. Dr. Swan grew up in a village in Burma, and the Bible is unfamiliar territory for him. So I have to get it right.
Not your typical visit to the doctor’s office.
On Friday Patty will see him to discuss the results of her recent tests. He hasn’t read them yet but he told me not to worry, “Everything looks pretty good so far.” Please pray he’s right.
This toy was a hot item in 1960, and my brother, then eight years old, got one for Christmas: Remco’s Bulldog Tank. Battery-powered, its mighty caterpillar treads would take the tank up and down steep hills of my mother’s books, all the while making a not entirely hopeful wheezing noise. Our family’s home movies show it doing that while my brother watches in angelic rapture.
Best of all, it shot! Boom! Well, not “boom,” really. It went “click.” It fired these plastic projectiles and ejected brass shell casings. Y’know something? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a tank in a war movie eject a shell casing. But they must have, right? I mean, you can’t have the turret filling up with shell casings.
I wonder if they still make toys like this for kids–or do they try to make out like there’s no more war, we don’t need tanks to protect us from the bad guys anymore? Meanwhile, the same children deemed too emotionally fragile for a Bulldog Tank spend hours every day playing Zombie Massacre video games. Go figure.
Well, there we were–lost again, thanks to Mapquest’s so-called “directions.” They’re really great at sending you on a wild goose chase for streets that don’t exist, and the ever popular “slight right” turn onto some blind alley that takes you farther and farther from your goal. We’re probably lucky we didn’t wind up in Mordor, or Venezuela. I had to stop at a library and ask directions–which turned out to be radically different from those provided by the jidrools at Mapquest, a lot simpler… and correct!
Really, it would have been easy to find this doctor’s office if only we’d had the right directions. “It’s easy to get there from here,” said the librarian; and she was right.
So Patty had a couple of tests, she’ll have the last of them on Monday, and then Dr. Swan can decide on a course of treatment. Naturally, we’re worried that the tests will indicate a whole passel of truly dreadful problems–so please, please, keep those prayers coming. And thank you all for the prayers you’ve prayed for us so far.
My own short-term prayer is for us to have a normal, peaceful day tomorrow.
And maybe I can finish writing my book!
Well, we got nowhere with this task last week, and we are about to try again today–the search for the doctor’s office. “Find the lost city of Eldorado and hang a left…”
First I had to crank out a Newswithviews column. Should’ve been done Monday or Tuesday, but there’s just too much to remember and it never crossed my mind.
I wonder when we’ll get back. *sigh* Post-election blues…
My mother used to sing this to each of her children, in turn, as a lullaby: Bell Bottom Trousers. Most of the versions on Youtube have naughty lyrics that we never got to hear. Most of the arrangements are for loud, brassy music; but my mother sang it softly, as a lullaby. With different lyrics!
“Bell bottom trousers, coat of Navy blue/ Your daddy was a sailor, you’ll be a sailor, too.”
Thing was, our daddy really was a sailor, during World War II. And the old storage space in our house–all that was left of the attic, after he’d converted it to bedrooms–was chock-full of stuff he brought back from the war. Dad’s ship was based in the Philippines, and he had a lot of little knick-knacks from there: plus the whole panoply of his sailor duds.
Oh, where is all that stuff now? Dad and Ma moved so many times, and we played carelessly with the souvenirs as kids: I don’t think there’s any of it left, other than a few Filipino coins from the war years.
But it was a nice lullaby: and I was very proud of my Daddy the sailor–never crossed my mind that he was little more than a kid himself, when he clapped eyes on the Pacific Ocean. How young he was…
Good grief. I just caught myself duplicating one of my mother’s mannerisms–and I mean to a T.
Ma was very hep to politics and culture, and had absolutely no patience with Cherished Minorities and their sponsors–especially when they tried to come over all precious and sweet. Reading their comments from a newspaper article, or repeating something she’d heard in a nooze broadcast, Ma ascribed to these characters a high-pitched, heavily lisping, garbled delivery.
I just realized I do that. Yup, was doing it just now. Just the way she did it.
Well, Ma, I’m carrying on your work as best I can. I really don’t mind being a chip off your old block.
Patty consulted with our doctor today about her blood work, and it’s so far, so good: nothing untoward in the blood. Tomorrow I have to take her to his other office for some tests: that’s where he has the equipment. Please pray there’s nothing wrong but the COPD, which we already know she has. And thank you for your prayers for this day’s hurdle: by God’s grace, she has cleared it.
I’ve been kind of worried about losing time for finishing my book, but today something extraordinary happened, when I went out to write this afternoon. It seemed to me that I could hear one of my characters, Lord Orth, saying, “Stop with the fretting, already. If the Lord our God wants you to finish this book, you’ll finish it. Trust him!” Well, I have a lot of respect for Lord Orth, and I’m inclined to listen to him. So now I feel much better about that. Just a few more warm, sunny days should be all I need.
Meanwhile, please pray those tests tomorrow lead to a successful treatment. I know that blessing is in His hands to give.
If you’ve ever been on board a World War II-era submarine, you’ll have an idea of the size of our kitchen. Not exactly a place to dance the tango.
So when the UPS man came today with our new toaster oven in an enormous cardboard box, all I could say was, “Nom d’un nom!” A la Hercule Poirot. And Patty said, “We’ll have to move.”
But it turned out to be smaller than the box, and it just barely fits on our counter. The only thing missing was an engineer to put it all together. The plethora of knobs and dialed rather dazzled me. I think one of them is for time travel. Anyway, now we’re all set for chops and drumsticks. I hope. My wife is smart, she’ll figure it out.
P.S.–Yesterday we got our new toilet flapper, which I installed successfully… up to a point. But it does work better than the old one.
P.P.S.–Someone’s in the kitchen talking to herself. I’d better go see what’s up.
