Time zooms by in a drawing by Kliban

Wilson turns 77 today. It’s been a very rough month, with a trip to the ER only ten days ago. He was groggy and congested in the morning, even though his blood pressure was good, and he didn’t have a fever.

So I called 911, and we spent the entire day at Davies Hospital, having tests & scans done. Around 6pm, they finally released, rather than admit him, and we took an ambulance back home. There was no diagnosis of anything, but a suspicion that the shunt in his brain might not have drained a buildup of fluid as fast as usual. It was two more days before he perked up, and his eyes resumed their blue, wide-eyed expression. I must have checked him at least five times during the night, and hovered like a hen over him during the daytime.

Sitting up at dinner on the third night, after Rena left for a vacation at Disneyland, Wilson was a bit puny, and kept his cuddle buddy, Mambo, close by. It was so cute, I placed him on Wilson’s shoulder and took this photo.

Mambo, the smiling giraffe

He has been gradually improving over the weekend, while the fabulous Paula O’Rourke came to help out in Rena’s absence. He used this time to be as obstinate as possible, making it difficult to get him up, get him moved over by the windows for a cheery meal, and just generally reduced us, at times, to near BEGGING for his cooperation. It was an exhausting five days! I am so glad Paula was available to assist. He alternated between staring at her with enraptured interest to glaring with what we refer to as that “stink-eye”, which can reduce a person to tears sometimes, if he does it for too long. The brain is a mystifying thing, I must say. Especially HIS! Even with this devastating injury, he is still creative. Even if it’s occasionally in the torture department.

Tuesday, Rena returned to work, and Wilson resumed actually WALKING UPRIGHT, and smiling at me as I held his hands, guiding him across the room or down the hallway. I will have to nominate him for an Academy Award this year for his performance in the production of “Torturing My Wife (and everyone else)for No Good Reason”!

I hope you will remember to send a donation to the Trust for his birthday, if you can. Yesterday the washing machine died, and flooded the entire back porch laundry room. It took nearly two hours to clean up the deluge and dry things off. What an awful time…at day’s end, for this discovery! Thankfully, Paula was still here to help throw things into the garbage outside. It was a terrible mess. It’s a used one, which would cost more than I paid for it to get it repaired AGAIN. (Since it was already chewing holes into everything, I’d prefer to replace it.) So until later, it’s back to the laundromat over on 17th street with everything piled onto my walker. Our car, you might recall, was totaled last Valentine’s Day. It was too damaged to afford getting it fixed, so we have been living like real hermits ever since. I was hoping to get another used car this year, but first it’s going to have to be a washing machine. *Sigh….*

If it isn’t ONE THING, I always say, it’s TWO.

Happy Birthday, my darling!

Back to party plans;

I will try to get it together by Saturday, and invite a couple of people over to celebrate Wilsons birthday with us. Today just isn’t possible, so I’ll open his mail with him at lunchtime, and show him his gifts & cards. He will be happy to see his pals just as much in a few days…and I will be ready then, too!

It’s a nice day for…

So today is a nice day for BIRTHDAY PART ONE! Please write Wilson a birthday note or an anecdote about him, and I will read it to him!

I’ll read belated ones to him at BIRTHDAY PART TWO, on Saturday.

Thanks so much for looking in on him! And thanks in advance if you donate to the Trust, for the Washing Machine Fund. Not glamorous, but so very much needed. Cheers from the Barbary Coast!