The CAP man cometh, bearing insulation materials - Then comes my landscaper

Here's Tony. His partner Ken refused to be photographed. He said, "I can show you my ID."

No, no, I trust you, I said. This is for my blog.

Dig this sheet of insulation. They also used polyurethane.... all for my crawl space. They said my kitchen floor would be warmer in the cold weather.

I put their completed work order in my "Home Impovement" file. I also asked Ken to show me all the things he did during the 4.5 hours they were here. Luckily, I remembered an exhaust fan in the kitchen that I never use but lets in cold air in the winter.

He insulated it.

Truck-lover that I am.

When Ken left, he asked if he could pick pine needles from Scott's blue spruce tree. He's gonna make pine needle tea.

He said you've gotta be careful not to use the needles of the hemlock tree.


Socrates Drinking Hemlock, by Jacques-Louis David, 1787

After the CAP guys get settled, who should pull up but Jonathan and Tim Stiles, the guys that mowed my lawn last year when Scott was unavailable. The late Bill Sanders removed a backyard tree and did other trimming.

Jon will be studying TURF MANAGEMENT at Delaware Valley College. Jon recently got back from Germany, where he was an exchange student.

For our Book Discussion Group we're reading a book by the late W G  Sebald, who died a few years ago in a car accident, something right out of one of his erudite wordy books.





Oh, no wonder it's hard to read. It's in German.

Jon's younger brother Tim is in his last year in HS. He's a skinny athlete. His fave sport is ice hockey.

Jon got a job at the great Altamonte's Italian Foods on York Road in Warminster.

I used to visit them when they had a smaller store on County Line Road. It was so tiny, you had to squeeze your butt around things to get thru.

The owner used to speak to me in Italian.... you know, the Mediteranean look.


Altomonte's: the place to go to break your fast.

Scott's bad back - North Willow Grove Family Medicine - Dairy Queen

I
I have Verizon which offers the feature "Reminders." I set the reminder to wake me up at 8:10 am so I could pick up Scott at the Willow Grove Train Station.

My phone is in the kitchen. For the first time in the dozen years I've been setting reminders, I said to myself, Bring the phone into your bedroom so you'll hear it.

Isn't it amazing how we don't think of the simplest things?

Yesterday, Scott was in agony walking home from the train.

We made an appt to see Dr Salinas at North Willow Grove Family Medicine.

While Scott was on the examining table, she was doing all sortsa tests to see what was wrong.

You're like an orthopedic doctor, I said. How come you know so much.

She said that's the job of a family doctor.

She suggested he see a chiro named Will Neff.


Horrible memories of when I saw chiros who couldn't help my sciatica, until I had my back operation in 2011.

Scott was in terrible pain when I left for New Directions. He was gonna call out sick from SEPTA.

When I got home from the meeting I was shocked to find his note on my laptop reading, "I went to work."

Whaaattt?

When I picked him up this morning at 8:22 from the train station, he said his back was a lot better.

He watered our garden and his back snapped back into place.

Not all the way, but partly.

Thank goodness! We have a vacation coming up later this month.

Cape May, NJ, where we'll rent bikes and travel around.We stay at the West Cape Motel, recommended by our birder friend Jack "Hawkeye" Fanelli.

When we saw Dr Salinas, she asked Scott a most unusual question.

"Have you felt depressed lately?"

"Aha!" I said. "That's b/c you partnered with Sharon Katz, a friend of mine."

Sharon, prescribing nurse and owner of Collaborative Care wellness center in Abington, works with North Willow Grove to have family practioners ask patients if they suffer from depression.

Then they will be referred to a mental health expert.

Most people with depression do not seek help until things get out of hand.

This is a great intervention.

My family doctor, Jim Foxhall, works at North Willow Grove. I really like him but I discontinued seeing him for a good reason.

I could never reach the practice by phone. It would take an entire day until someone answered the phone.

I wrote Foxhall a goodbye letter, saying he was the best doctor I ever had and explained why I was leaving. Tell your boss, I said, to get the phones fixed.



Jim Foxhall, MD

I will now write a letter to my current fam doctor, Rich Eisenhardt, who is wonderful.

Eisenhardt won't let me leave New Directions brochures in his office or Compass magazines, even tho ND is a support group of Abington Memorial Hospital.

Policy, he said.

Screw policy, I say. If it helps people, just do it.

I'll see Foxhall on Friday just to tell him I'm back.

Hope he hasn't forgotten me.

One of the great things he told me was: It's okay to have black n blue marks on your belly or elsewhere when you inject your insulin.

Hide your eyes if it makes you sick.

 Yesterday around lunchtime, my blood sugar was a bit low: 79. Normal is between 80 and 120.

GREAT! I thought.
It was dee-licious. I asked the girl behind the DQ counter for the carb count.

36 carbs, she said.

That's extremely low, thinks I.

Still, when I got home I went on the bike for 20 minutes.

Three hours passed until I took my blood sugar.

Condolence call to Neighbor Luke Sanders

Walked up the hill to give my condolences to Luke Sanders, father of Bill Sanders, who died on July 29, 2013, six days ago.

Here's the last picture taken of Bill. Unfortunately he had a terrible drinking problem and couldn't stop. The death certificate, which I saw in a folder, said "Cause of death: Liver failure."

He would've been 50 years old on "the last day in December," said Luke.

We had a nice long talk. I shared my memories of his son, which he enjoyed hearing.

Luke, a former sheet metal worker, has a beautiful house that he's kept up since the death of his wife, Joan. Bill was in his 30s when she died. Luke has two other sons and grandchildren.

Joan, who died of cancer, collected Hummel figurines. Sexist that I am, I always figured Hummel to be a man. Luke told me Hummel was a nun.

And here she is .. atop the Hummel cabinet.

A talented artist, Berta Hummel joined the Franciscan convent in Germany, and became a children's art teacher. Never, though, did she stop producing her own art, which culminated in the famous Hummel figurines, named for Berta Hummel, who later became Sister Maria Innocentia.


Berta Hummel aka Sister Maria Innocentia... 1909-1926.

Producing her figurines during WW2, she earned the personal condemnation of Hitler. Read more about it here. 

Her death at age 37 is directly attributable to Hitler's closing of convents or, if allowed to remain open, of cutting off all water and electricity. She died of tuberculosis.

Bill Sanders lived with his dad most of his life, so his dad will be missing him. Bill's former GF Valerie moved in a few months ago to help take c/o him during the final stages of his liver disease. Bill had told me that, saying it was good, but that there were some pitfalls, too.

As many of you know, I recently wrote a short story about Bill, in which I made him out to be a hero. I hope to get it published in a lit mag. The title is "A Hurricane for Mr Robertson."

I was so incredibly blown away by Hurricane Sandy last October, I knew I wanted to write about it. Somehow I thought of putting Billy in it.

While I was sitting on the couch talking to Luke, a series of loud chimes went off. Here's the clock, stocked with - you guessed it! - Hummel figurines.

Above the couch is a painting someone made of Bill, on the left, and his brother Bob. Bill is wearing his trademark bandana, which he wore to work as a landscaper.

Luke said he worked until the day of the accident that landed him in the hospital and hastened his death. He took a fall, landed on his head, and spent his last days at Elkins Crest Rehab.


Luke last visited him the day before he died.

Luke was hooked on collecting beautiful work. These are Japanese plates made by Beauties of the Red Mansion. Google it yourself as I don't wanna get involved in any more fantastic stories.

Valerie made a needlepoint of the Beauties.

Here's the family room downstairs. Luke told me the house was pretty much the way his wife left it.

How about all these trophies? Luke got them from bowling and Little League.

I shook hands goodbye. Earlier, I told Luke I detected an accent. He was born in NC, near Winston-Salem. I told him Bill had told me he still drives down there to see his family.

Used to, he said. Now he takes the Greyhound Bus.

I told Luke that if he liked, I'd come back and visit him. He said he'd like that.

 Beautiful trees. Bill used to take c/o the yard and garden. I told Luke that Bill had taught me the names of a few of the weeds that were choking my azaleas.

Bill was cremated and his ashes will be sprinkled in the Poconos. 

I never like visiting someone empty-handed, so I brot Luke a tomato from my garden.