You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘husband’ tag.
This morning Google redesigned its logo to honor the 138th birthday of Howard Carter, the British archeologist who’s most famous for finding the tomb of Egyptian Pharoah King Tutankhamun—King Tut, for short. I actually saw some of the artifiacts from that tomb in person when the Franklin Museum in Philadelphia had an exhibition a few years ago. (My husband and I came up north from Washington, DC. We met his sister, who traveled south from the Lehigh Valley area of Pennsylvania, and his father and step-mother, who traveled even further south from New York City. We all saw the exhibition together.)
That Google doodle also reminded me of this Steve Martin song from 1979.
Today is my husband’s birthday and also his first birthday since he abruptly ran out of our home on December 28, 2011 with no advanced warning whatsoever. I texted him about how he wanted to celebrate his birthday this year and I said that it could be as fancy or as simple as he wants. I saw him briefly in person before a dinner at our church last Saturday and he basically told me that he’s not into celebrating his own birthday this year.
It’s so sad but it’s his birthday and he can celebrate it or not celebrate it as he wishes. I have no other option but to honor his request and not get him a card or a gift. But I’m still putting up this special blog entry to let him know that I’m not going to totally ignore his birthday today.
In fact, I’m playing the same Facebook game that I played for my birthday last month by looking up what song was popular on the day that my husband was born. This one is interesting. It’s one of those rare instances where both sides of the same 45 R.P.M. record were hits in their own right. Both songs are by Elvis Presley. One side is a song called “Don’t.”
The other side is called “I Beg of You.”
As a teenager, I loved this song by Patti Smith (which turned out to be her biggest hit single). It wasn’t until years later that I found out that she co-wrote “Because the Night” with none other than Bruce Springsteen. I’ve heard The Boss perform this song in concert and my Springsteen fanatic husband will probably kill me for posting this but I still think Patti Smith’s version is the best. (It’s not only better than what Springsteen has done in concert but it’s also superior to the 10,000 Maniacs’ version that was overplayed on alternative rock radio back in the 1990’s.)
As I last left off on The Left Hip Chronicles, I had an incision from my recent hip revision surgery that only partially healed. The bottom half of the incision is healing quite nicely and the scabs have mostly fallen off. But the top half of the incision, where it went into the skin crease between my pelvic area and my thigh area (where the leg bends at the hip), it’s a different story. I still have opened wounds that are not healing at all. So yesterday I got sent to the hospital’s Wound Center in an effort to heal those opened wounds.
I started off yesterday by dropping my husband off at the airport so he could fly to Phoenix and go through the rest of his deceased mother’s old things with his sister. (Due to my recent surgery, I’m not really ready to endure a 4-5 hour flight in a cramped plane seat.) After I dropped him off, I drove straight to the hospital’s Wound Center.
I was pretty apprehensive when I first learned that I had to go to The Wound Center because it sounds like a place you’d go to for a gunshot wound. But it wasn’t as bad as it seemed. Everyone was quite nice and the bed I laid in was pretty comfortable while I waited to be treated. The only downside is that I ended up waiting two hours for the dotor because there was another patient ahead of me who had even bigger wounds than mine that required more work. I did take a nap while I was waiting so it wasn’t so bad. (LOL!)
Basically I was given this product called Medihoney. As you can guess from the name, it’s made from honey and it has the scent and sticky texture of honey. The only difference is that you can’t eat Medihoney because there are other medical ingredients besides honey that can’t be taken internally. One of the nurses who showed me how to apply Medihoney on my own wounds said that the ancient Greeks used honey to treat wounds thousands of years ago. That’s pretty interesting. So I learned something new yesterday about the ancient Greeks. (LOL!)
So this Friday I have a follow-up visit with the surgeon and next Tuesday I have a follow-up visit with the doctor at The Wound Center. Personally I would prefer a visit to a day spa but that’s life. (LOL!)
Since I wrote my last entry, it turned out that my husband didn’t return home first. He arrived at the cafe right from doing his duty as Treasurer of our church and nearly freaked out over seeing me there. I had to prove to him that I walked to the cafe and not drove there. (Mainly by showing him the parking lot.)
He was impressed by my walk but he made it clear that he still intend to be bossy towards me regarding walking and exercising. He’s determined to live up to his nickname of Mr. Bossypants.
I’m glad that my husband hasn’t read my last entry about how I managed to put my TED hose on myself because he would really freak out.
I’m trying to maintain an active social life but I have a hard time maintaining my stamina. Tonight we went to a South African barbecue dinner known as a “braai” that we purchased at our church’s annual auction last year. The dinner was interesting (the menu included python sausage and lion steak) but I grew tired after dinner so my husband and I left early. I’ll admit that I was on the listless side throughout the evening and I couldn’t bring myself to do much talking. I was satisfied with listening to my friends talk.
I know that I have far to go before I make a full recovery from my surgery three weeks ago.
Lately I’ve been getting antsy because I’m still banned from driving so I have to rely on the kindness of others to drive me around. On top of that, the vast majority of my trips have been to the physical therapy and/or the lab to get my blood drawn to make sure I’m taking the right amount of blood thinners. There were a few times where my husband drove me to a nearby cafe so I could do some web surfing on the laptop using the cafe’s free wi-fi.
But I’m getting worn down both physically and mentally from my recent ordeal. There are so many events that I read about either online or in the local paper that I would’ve loved to check out in person but I can’t because I either 1) need a car, 2) I would need to take the Metro and I would have to deal with the system’s constant problems with broken elevators and broken escalators (which has been a chronic problem for many years—every week there’s at least one station with this problem), or 3) would require a lot of walking and I haven’t regained my full stamina yet.
One such example was the annual Crafty Bastards festival in Washington, DC that took place yesterday. Getting to the location would’ve require a Metro trip to the Columbia Heights Metro stop then taking a 10-15 minute walk to the location. Once I got there I would have to do more walking to check out all the booths and displays. If I was healthy that would’ve been no problem for me. With my current health condition, there was no way I would’ve even considered it.
The only silver lining to missing Crafty Bastards is that the weather has been really sucking lately. It has been raining constatnly every day for at least a month (with some days resulting in torrential downpours while other days it’s an occasional drizzle with dark clouds) and yesterday was no exception. I would’ve felt really pissed about missing Crafty Bastards had the weather been one of those glorious sunny fall days with low heat and low humidity.
I’m also getting tired of my husband nagging me to do my exercises and walks. I know he means well but it’s starting to get on my nerves. On top of that, he acts like I’m totally blowing off doing what I need to do in order to get well and I’m really not. I know I have to do the physical work and there is no other alternative but I wish I wouldn’t be subjected to his constant reminders because it really gets old. There are times when I call him Mr. Bossypants after this Tina Fey book because he can be so bossy about getting me to walk and exercise.
Yesterday my husband did some errands while I was stuck home. Lately I’ve been getting my Internet fix by playing around with my new smrtphone (a Droid 3) but the only catch is that I”m limited to just 2 GB of data usage a month. Yesterday I got a text message from Verizon warning me that I have used 75% of my alloted data usage and if I go over 2 GB my husband and I would have to pay more this month. I know I’ve been using the smartphone to web surf way too much but keep in mind that I had surgery three weeks ago so it’s really no coincidence that my data usage is a bit on the high side. All I have to do is be very careful about not doing too much surfing on the phone until October 16, when the whole data usage gage will flip back to zero.
When my husband found out about the warning yesterday he became really irritable and started kvetching about how expensive it will be if I go up to over 2 GB and yadda yadda yadda. I know that my health problems have been a financial drain but at least we have health insurance so we aren’t going to be thousands of dollars in debt. I really wish he would feel sorry for me regarding my recent health problems and loosen that tightwad pole that’s permanently stuck up his ass just a little bit. (I’m not asking for much. Seriously, I’m not.)
Today I skipped church because I was tired so my husband went off to church without me. Since he’s currently the church treasurer he spends Sunday afternoons doing things like pay the church’s bills and stuff like that. Naturally I was left home alone for the second day in a row with my only method of accessing the Internet is a smartphone that’s on the verge of hitting the 2 GB ceiling.
But then I decided to take matters into my own hands. I packed my computer laptop into a bag, took my walking cane, and walked 1.5 miles to the nearby cafe so I could do some web surfing using the cafe’s free wi-fi. I’m at the cafe right now as I’m typing this. When my husband arrives home, he’s going to freak out that I’m not there because my car is still parked outside yet I won’t be home. 😀 Hopefully he’ll realize that I am capable of doing my own walking and exercisisng without him nagging me and leave me alone.
I do feel exhiliarated because just three weeks ago making such a walk would’ve been very painful, especially with the very lousy weather. (My hip used to hurt worse whenever it rained.) But thanks to taking painkillers prior to the walk, my only obstacle is fatigue. But I toughed it out and arrived at the cafe.
The only downside to the walk is that it took me much longer to get there than before my hip injury. I’m also pretty tired and I have another walk ahead of me in order to get home. (The local Metrobuses don’t run on Sundays in my neighborhood, so riding on one is out of the question.) I’m just going to have to wait until my husband call me on my cell phone wondering where the hell I am. Boy won’t Mr. Bossypants be surprised!. 😀
I also did something for myself this morning. As you may know, I have to wear these white TED compression stockings in order to prevent blood clots. I’m required to wear them for 22 hours a day. I can remove them for one hour in the morning and one hour in the evening in order to give my skin a break but I’m generally stuck with wearing them almost all the time. This morning I woke up at 6:30 a.m. because my TED hose started to pinch some skin in one of my legs so I decided to remove both hoses (which I can do with the aid of the grabber so I won’t violate the ban on bending my body more than 90 degrees) then go back to sleep.
My husband went off to church but I was too sleepy to remember that I removed the TED hose and I needed him to put them back on me. By the time I realized what happened, my husband was gone and I had no TED hose on my legs.
So I came up with a solution. I took the TED hose and placed it on a foot device that I use to put socks on my feet without bending over. I put my right foot through the TED hose and the foot device and it worked really well. But the swelling had completely gone down in my right leg to the point where it’s now looking normal again.
I repeated the process for my left leg and there was a snag where it was stuck on my calf. My left leg is still swollen (although much of it has gone down) so it’s no surprise that I wasn’t quite as successful.
In desperation, I decided to cheat on bending the body beyond the 90 degrees and quickly pulled up the TED hose. I decided to use the classic “Five Second Rule” that is generally used regarding food spilled on the floor. (Basically if you pick up the food within five seconds after dropping it, you can still eat it because it’s not quite as germ-ridden as leaving it on the floor for several minutes.) I figured that if I bend the body beyond 90 degrees for just five seconds, I could quickly pull up the TED hose without damaging my left hip implant. Well it worked.
I’m not going to tell my husband because he would really freak. Besides, I really love seeing him putting my TED hose on me since he chants stuff like “FUCK TED! FUCK TED! FUCK TED WITH A SANDPAPER CONDOM UP HIS ASS!” Sometimes he’ll even revert to alternating between the “FUCK TED!” chant and Quebec French profanity, which is really hilarious. I would miss it if my husband, Mr. Bossypants, made me responsible for putting on my own TED hose.
Yesterday was my last full day in Ocean City, Maryland and I was determined to make the most of it. It was also one of the few days that had no rain in the forecast and it was sunny and hot all day long. That morning I finally was able to do the one thing that I couldn’t do earlier either because of my back problems or the weather or both—go for an early morning stroll along the beach. Aside from a few early-morning swimmers and angler fisherman, the beach was mostly clear, as you can see in this photo below.
After my brief stroll, I returned to the condo for some breakfast. After that my husband, sister-in-law, and I decided to make a last visit to The Bookend Cafe where we had some drinks, browsed the gifts and books sold there, and did some web surfing using the cafe’s free wi-fi. On the way back from the cafe, we stopped off at the same Fenwick Island lighthouse that I took a nighttime photo of just a few days ago. Here is what the lighthouse looks like in daylight.
After lunch we spent some time in the afternoon at the beach where we took a few last dips in the ocean then did some final book reading on the beach. Then we changed out of our swimsuits and headed to the Boardwalk for one final time. Unlike the last time I went to the Boardwalk, the day was much brighter and I was able to do some more walking than I was before since I didn’t have to worry about raindrops. Here’s a photo I took of the landmark Esskay Clock. When I used to go to Ocean City as a child with my extended family (including my cousins), we kids used to be instructed to wait by that clock if we somehow became separated. I remembered when I did just that one crowded night when I got separated by my family and they were all happy that when they found me at the clock.
Next to the Esskay Clock is a newer Boardwalk landmark. This is the Firefighters Memorial and it was erected to honor the firefighters who perished in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.
Here’s a different kind of landmark. For many years a sculptor and minister Randy Hofman has been creating these gigantic sand sculptures based on events in the Bible. They are really a sight to behold.
If you want to see more of Randy Hofman’s work, check out his website right here.
The Boardwalk have long been home to would-be artists and musicians who try to ply their trade among the vacation-goers. Sometimes you’ll see someone who is both an artist and a musician, like the guy in the photo below.
After walking around on the Boardwalk, we headed to the Angler restaurant to take advantage of its dinner and sunset cruise. We ate a wonderful dinner in the restaurant then we went out on the dock in the back of the restaurant where we boarded a boat. I took a whole bunch of sunset photos. Here’s one of the sunset over the Route 50 bridge that leads into Ocean City.
Here’s another sunset photo, this one over Assateague Island.
And here’s sunset over West Ocean City, Maryland.
And here are a few sunset photos of the Boardwalk, where you can see the bright lights from far away.
In this photo, you can see the kites that are located right outside The Kite Loft. The kites are flown day and night during the summer.
Towards the end of the boat trip, things took a really dramatic turn. Our boat got word of another boat that had literally run aground and the boat I was on decided to go over to see if it could offer some help. By the time we arrived, the Coast Guard had already arrived to offer aid to the boat. I managed to take a few photos of that ship that ran aground but it was really dark and my camera had a hard time picking up the image so the next two photos are blurry. Here is the white boat that’s stuck among the rocks.
The blue lights in this photo are the ones from the Coast Guard boat.
Yesterday was another one of those days that started off nice and hot before it turned into yet another thunderstorm. My husband, sister-in-law, and myself all went down to the beach while it was still hot and sunny. I managed to stay in the shallow end of the ocean again before returning to my chair to read a few chapters from my book, then returning to the ocean for one last swim. I read some more from my book and I thought about going back in the ocean until I saw some nasty clouds come in. The lifeguards then closed the beach because of reports of lightning further south.
The rain came in really hard then it tapered off to a drizzle. At one point I decided to do some driving around Ocean City, which I hadn’t been able to do earlier in the trip because of the huge mass of people who came for the Fourth of July. (Most of the crowds left after July 4, which made the trip more pleasant.) I made a brief stop by the Boardwalk but I ended up cutting the trip short because it started to drizzle again. I took a few photos before I called it quits for the day.
Here’s a mix of the old and the new. This plaque describes a carousel that has been running continuosuly in Ocean City since 1902 with a newer sign underneath it that contains one of those smartphone codes that probably provides more information about the carousel. (I don’t know for sure since I currently don’t own a smartphone.)
Here is the carousel itself. All of the animals were hardcarved and each one is a work of art.
Not only does this carousel have the traditional horses but it also has a variety of other animals that people can choose to ride, such as this rooster.
Here’s a claw machine that’s offering prizes based on the very popular video game Angry Birds. (Yes, I have a copy of it on my iPod Touch and I was addicted to it for a while until I hit a level that—no matter how hard I try—I can’t seem to master.)
Man, the weather has really been variable on this trip. It has gone from rainy to blistering heat to more rain. My back has adjusted accordingly. If it is going to rain, my back tends to hurt worse. But once it rains, my back feels normal.
When I woke up yesterday morning my back was aching a lot. It was very cloudy outside and the ground was wet from the rain the night before. We were wavering as to whether to even go down to the beach or not. I went on a few errands after breakfast and, while I was out, the weather became very sunny and it turned really hot and humid. I took a few photos while I on these errands in both the northern part of Ocean City and Fenwick Island, Delaware.
Happy Harry’s was a chain of pharmacies that was prevelant throughout the Delmarva area until Walgreen’s took over the chain a few years ago and converted the bulk of them to Walgreen’s. This Happy Harry’s store in Fenwick Island, Delaware is one of the last of the pharmacies that still has the Happy Harry’s name and logo. Even though this store carries bags that has the Walgreen’s name and it carries a number of Walgreen store brands, the store is still known as Happy Harry’s. I don’t know how much longer it will be known as Happy Harry’s so I decided to take a few photos of it for posterity (I’ll admit that the drawing of Happy Harry reminds me a lot of comedian Drew Carey.)
On the way back to the condo, I decided to treat myself to ice cream from Dumser’s Dairyland on 124th Street in Ocean City. Next to that ice cream parlor is something I have never seen in Ocean City before—an abandoned mini-golf course. For those of you who have never been to Ocean City, I’ll say that this place is loaded with all kinds of mini-golf courses with a variety of themes ranging from dinosaurs to pirates to vikings. Miniature golf is probably the second biggest thing to do right behind going to the beach. Normally min-golf courses are very profitable businesses, which is why I found it jarring that there was an abandoned course. I guess the ever-worsening economy is a factor in this particular golf course being closed permanently.
These space aliens wait in vain to greet miniature golf players who don’t visit anymore.
One mini-golf course is closed but another mini-golf course opens for the first time this season. I saw this place under construction last year and it is now completed. This one is located close to my condo so, after dinner, I decided to check it out. This mini-golf course is an indoor course, which is great for those rainy days. It also has a small arcade complete with an air hockey table.
This indoor course is really big. It has a jungle theme and, as you can see, it’s a very elaborate course.
After I checked out the indoor mini-golf course, I drove by the Fenwick Island Lighthouse located near the Delaware state line. This lighthouse hasn’t been used to help boats in decades but it still gets lit up at night.
The weather has veered between rain and hot and humid so much that we weren’t sure whether we would go to the beach that day or not. In the late afternoon, my husband and I decided to try the beach because it became very sunny, hot, and humid. (My sister-in-law opted to do some shopping instead.) By the time we put our suits on and smeared suntan lotion over the exposed parts of our body, the clouds returned. We decided to go to the beach anyway and we managed to get a brief swim in the ocean. (I still stayed in the shallow end. It was just as well because the waves were a bit on the rough side.) We hung around on the beach (I was still using the tall chair from the balcony of my rented condo) reading our books for a while until we felt raindrops. We managed to get an hour’s worth of beach time despite the crazy weather, which wasn’t bad considering the circumstances.
The weather has been acting weird. It started off with showers this morning then it was cloudy and cooler than usual. Then it alternated between being cloudy and sunny and some of the clouds looked like they could produce some more raindrops (but it didn’t). By the late afternoon the sun came out and everything seemed like a normal sunny day. By that point, we weren’t in the mood to change into our swimsuits.
My husband and sister-in-law spent the day talking about their childhoods (which I couldn’t get into because I didn’t meet either one of them until after I turned 20) and they talked so much that they ate breakfast then lunch way later than usual. As for me, I ate on time. 🙂
Then they really got into spending huge amounts of time chopping up fresh produce and stuff. It’s a far cry when I was a kid and my parents used to share a condo with my grandmother, aunt, uncle, and four cousins. We basically ate either cereal or donuts or Pop Tarts for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch, and either frozen dinners or something that could be done quick (like dunking chicken in barbeque sauce or pouring McCormick’s Season All on a slice of steak). None of the adults were into chopping up vegetables or cooking up anything that was too complex (even making scrambled eggs was considered too much work <LOL!>), or making exacting schedules on which meals would be eaten on which day and when they would be eaten. As far as they were concerned, they were on vacation too and they didn’t want to do as much cooking as they usually did at home. (Don’t worry, we kids survived extremely well, we were still well-fed, and none of us were angry or bitter about the adults’ decision to not cook as much as usual.)
I spent time trying to get rid of this excessive ear wax that’s been clogging up my right ear for the past two days now. (I purchased some ear wax removal and I’m making some progress but I’m going to work on it some more.)
I managed to get away from the condo to purchase some caramel popcorn from the Fisher’s Popcorn that’s located just one block over the Delaware state line. While I was still in the town of Fenwick Island, Delaware, I checked out this shopping center that has a new cafe that’s also offers free wi-fi plus sells used books called The Bookend Cafe. It’s a charming place and, in fact, I’m typing this entry from there.
At one point in the late afternoon I took a brief walk along the beach. I cut it short because I saw this elderly couple sitting in low-slung beach chairs and I became upset. That’s because this couple is a few decades older than me yet they were able to sit in normal beach chairs with seats slung close to the sand. As you may have read yesterday, I have a hard time with sitting in beach chairs with seats that touch the sand because of my back. It’s so unfair that I’m younger than that elderly couple and I can’t enjoy the beach like I usually do because of my back. (That’s right I have excessive ear wax in my right ear that’s clogging up my hearing—it’s like having an ear plug lodged in my ear—AND I have back problems.) I got so upset that I left the beach after only a few minutes because I just couldn’t take it.
I brought my camera with me during my brief foray to the beach and took a few photos. Here are a few American flags and other patriotic-themed decorations among the sand dunes in anticipation for tomorrow’s Fourth of July holiday.
The Good Humor ice cream truck makes its periodic stops along the beaches of Ocean City, Maryland while playing "Turkey in the Straw" over and over.
One classic feature of the beaches in Ocean City is the frequent appearance of planes hauling advertising banners for the beachgoers to watch as they fly by. These planes have been flying as far back as when I was a child.
I’ll admit that this entry is melancholy. Part of it is because of my health issues and part of it is because we’re pretty limited as to where we can go to avoid the excessive crowds that are here only for the Fourth of July holiday. After tomorrow most of the Fourth of July revellers will be gone and the area will be less crowded so we can go to places like the Boardwalk and not have to wait in long lines to get a cup of soda or worrying about bumping into people because the area is so packed.. For the time being we’re limiting our expeditions to walking to the beach or going into neighboring Delaware to check out some of the upscale shops and the sales tax-free shopping.
Sagittarius Dolly 
You must be logged in to post a comment.