A blog in progress

Tuesday was a beautiful day. The temperature flirted with 70 degrees. It was sunny and I saw a harbinger of the coming season. The first fly of spring. The first really pleasant day of the year and this little winged delight makes an appearance not that  that was highlight of my day. Wednesday was just as nice, Thursday the temperature has dropped and we are supposed get a bit of snow this evening. Fast forward to the evening. It did indeed snow but nothing much to speak.

Ok it is now late Friday afternoon. This blog has been disjointed. Between my brother in law and Arlene's health issues it has been a busy time for Arlene's family and mine. My brother in law is about as good as he's going to get but you never know. He's in a facility. Arlene has had a tough time dealing with the flu as she was not fully recovered from surgery that she had a year before. I don't understand how her primary care physician didn't notice that Arlene looked puffy last week. I did, though I'm not making any claims to any medical knowledge. She looked puffy to me that's all. Also that doctor took chest x-rays. Wouldn't that at least tell you something?

So on Wednesday evening and I receive a call from Arlene at about 8:30. It was short and sweet and to the point.
"Paul I'm having Danny (her brother) drive me to the emergency room. I'm having trouble breathing. I'll call you later and let you know what's going on."
Long story not so long. Arlene went to the still operating emergency room of the recently closed local hospital. From there it was decided to admit her in a hospital of a neighboring city. She calls me about 10:30 telling me that at first they were going to admit her. The doctor at the hospital told Arlene that she was carrying around about 30 lbs. of fluid. He told her to see her cardiologist then sent her home. She did on Thursday and he was not thrilled with the performance of some of the other medical people. 

Ok now it's close to 5pm on Friday. I saw Arlene this afternoon. She's doing better. She's in a better frame of mind. She hopes that she'll be well enough to take our late spring trip to you know where. I don't have anything else.
I'm outta here.
  
        

Some left over pictures and let's see, where was I?

I've been cleaning out my prehistoric laptop which has served me well over the last ten plus years. Odds and ends have accumulated over the years and periodically I have to either save or delete things. Here are pictures, odds and ends that have collected over the years for various reasons. Most have been seen before over the years from back on my days on Spaces to here on Blogger. I've assembled them in a small video.





Oh, there I was! I am really in the stone age when it comes to new devices and phones. I will admit that I was late getting a cell phone. I've had one for about eleven years. And yes it's a flip phone. A pay as you go deal. Only family and a couple of close friends have my number. I couldn't care less that I can't play games. I can text and that's fine with me. That's come in handy. I don't need CVS,  my dentist, doctor or any sales call following me around particularly when I'm driving. Now I have nothing against all these high zoot phones. Actually I think they are amazing. They used to make fun of Star Trek and their communicators but here we are. I can't see basing your entire life on a hand held device. If that is your sole communication device and you pay your bills with it and save all the pictures you've taken with it, music, if you put your phone down and forget where it is or lose it, well you've put all your eggs in one basket. Some people are so transfixed with these devices they walk into traffic, poles, fountains, doors, glass and so on. There are many videos on you tube, some quite funny and some tragic. Even Arlene has a more sophisticated phone than I do. This is mostly due to her daughter who is highly educated and teaches web design at the high school. She's a graduate of Tufts University and later attended several classes at Harvard. That young lady lives in a universe far different than mine. She's also a very nice young woman and Arlene is quite proud of her.

Arlene's niece has a seven year old son who has his own smart phone. It's infinitely more sophisticated than my prehistoric  fliperino. I suppose all I have to say is you have to be smart about your smartphone. I probably heard or read something like that in some safety ad campaign.

Alright it's time for me to mosey out to the kitchen and rustle up some grub.
I'm outta here.
  

Lowell Ma.

So it wasn't a particularly nice day on Monday. My friend Dave called me and asked if I would like to take a ride to Lowell Ma. Though Dave grew up here he lived in Lowell for twenty five years. I visited him and his wife, when he was married, frequently, back in the 80's. Now I knew how to get to their house but that's all I knew about Lowell but Dave knows the city very well. Now I am familiar with the some of the history of the city and the key roll it played in the American industrial revolution. Lowell was the first planned industrial city in the United States. There were and still are a system of canals throughout the city. It's not a small city with about 110,000 people. Most of the old mills, of which there are many, have been converted to condos and office space. There are very nice residential neighborhoods but we stayed mostly in the downtown area. I would not call it beautiful, but it is historic. Below is just a short video while we drove around downtown.       



We had lunch at a local landmark that's been around for over 100 years, The Worthen House. It was a hangout for musicians, politicians and writers particularly Jack Kerouac.

   

This was a mural on a building in the parking lot across from the Worthen. 

 

 This shot from the inside of the Worthen House. It's not a great shot.  I took a few but they were worse than this. I had to take two pictures sideways (the camera not me) of the outside of the Worthen House, so I could get almost all of the city hall clock tower in the shot. 

 

 

 

Another shot from the interior of the Worthen House. It's basically a bar where you choose from a small but interesting selection of food items. Dave raved about the burgers. Now I like burgers and we've been to several other places where he mentioned how good the burgers were. I wanted to say, "Dave. It's a friggin' cheese burger! How bad a cook do you have to be to screw up a burger!" But I said nothing.

Now the burger I had was fine. During prohibition they would stash the alcohol behind a "secret panel".

 

 

 

 

This is the Lowell city hall. Sometimes taking pictures from a moving car is not the ideal way to do it.   

 

 

 Two drive by shots of the library. Two bad I couldn't get a complete shot of the building. It was quite ornate. 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

Another landmark we went past and stopped so I could get some shots of the house where Bette Davis was born. I had to, again, take two separate shots that I had to stitch together. Well the computer and the program do the stitching. I just click on an icon.

The picture of the plaque on the house had vines covering parts of the words but you can still read it.

 

 

 

 

 

And finally here's a sculpture in front of a fire station we drove by on the way to Lowell.

 

Alright this has taken quite a while to put together but it was fun.

I gotta go to sleep.

I'm outta here. 

 



Breaking News!!!

BREAKING NEWS!!! I dropped a plate on the floor! It broke. 
I don't know how it is where you live but here on local television news they have beaten that phrase to death. It seems almost every news story is breaking news. That's all I got on the breaking news rant, well it was a little short, let's call it a rantette. Wait! BREAKING NEWS!!!This just handed me! Arlene continues to improve though her doctor told her it could still take another six or seven weeks before she's finally done with the flu. It's mostly a cough now and regaining more energy.

So apart from what's going on with Arlene there's my brother in law, who will, in reality won't be going home. My sister has much going in her life and I admire how she has held it together. I've been the lucky one. Aside from adjusting to life of being completely retired I've personally had no major problems to deal with. I've got nothing to complain about.

I have spent a good deal of my internet time on YouTube checking out anything I could think of from clips of Johnny Carson, sporting events, news events and music, particularly the music that I grew up with. I was there for the Beatles. I think the reason their music has such enduring popularity is their ability to come up with beautiful melodies. I came across many different interpretations of their songs including a full symphony or one or two people. Below is a video of a instrumental version of a song from their first movie, A Hard Days Night, performed on guitar and cello called If I Fell. No vocals just a beautiful piece of music. At times you will hear another cello playing harmony lines and a second guitar. They were overdubbed.      



BREAKING NEWS!!! That about wraps it up for now.
I'm outta here.

I'm still here.

This will be a quickie. I started one blog entry since my last but never finished. Arlene had her surgery about a year ago and it's taking her quite a while to fully recover and she's not quite there yet. To add to all this she caught the flu and she's not quite recovered from that as well. She has had it for almost a month. So this has been a tough time for her and by extension for me though I am not sick. I really haven't had the desire to blog or even pay attention to blogger I am not giving up blogging. I've been doing it for  about ten years and I do like it! Then again I could write and publish one tomorrow.
Today, Thursday, I accompanied her to her primary care physician. She is improving but she was told that her body is trying to recover from the surgery and fight the flu all at the same time and she's not a kid and neither am I though I'm probably more childish. Her cough has lessened but a continuous cough can really reek havoc with the muscles around your chest and stomach. They can get quite sore and that makes coughing all the more painful. Still she is better than she was.

I want to thank everyone who does visit here. Blogging is part of me and I will be back.
I'm outta here.