Well it has been a while since I updated everyone on my personal journey through hell. It means a lot that when I go places and bump into any of you guys that you ask how the situation is going. First off, you Care! and second of all - you read what I write! It means a lot. Dad has declined further. He just now got transfered back the acute care facility where I believe a lot of the past postings took place. He begs to go home. He is finally paying attention to the bad news details. They say that patients focus on the sugar coating and ignore the uncomfortable stuff until it is way late in the game and then they act like it is all new to them. On the one hand I am dang glad I ain't the one there holding his hand, but on the other I am sad for my brother and sister who are there - more than likely answering the same questions over and over every day to both my dad and my mom. They are looking into Hospice care since it is paid for by insurance. As I understand it, all you need to qualify is a 6 month life expectancy. Once that is granted, you can recieve care at home even if it means round the clock nursing care (which is what he needs) and it doesn't matter what happens at six months, people have been in the system for years. The current dispute is over where to be buried. My dad is from this teeny tiny dustbowl town in western Oklahoma. A place that just screams 'prairie', surrounded by wheat fields and cattle with an occasional oil derrick. A place so flat you can sit on your front porch and watch your dog run away, run away clear to the next county!! I don't want to live there but I sure do like to visit it. So I would enjoy that drive once a year. Evidentally this place doesn't have the same appeal to my mother. She would rather have him buried in the town where they live now. Odd how we attach ourselves to places. Our family has lived in five states (and that's just the ones I remember! Lord knows how many there were before the kids were born), and two prefectures in Japan where I grew up. Guess this makes a good case for cremation. The only way you can possibly sprinkle yourself from one end of the country to the other. Since he seems to be one of those long lingering death sorta guys, nobody knows how long this could go on. The doctors are baffled that he persists today. He isn't uncomfortable, he isn't in pain, for part of the day he is alert and talkative. My brother is exhausted and wants someone else to swoop in and make all the decisions. He doesn't want anything blame-able to be tied to something he said or did. My sister is a realist. She sees that this isn't going to end well or soon. She just wants my dad to go home while he can participate in the house and activities there. Once he gets further diminished she won't care if he is placed in an institution. Right now, none of us can give him the medical care and cleaning that he needs. The only option would be to hire a live in 24 hour nurse. They only have the money to do that for a few months but by then he may qualify for hospice care. He is concerned about spending all his money instead of leaving any of it to us kids. Our answer is to ask him once again to draw us a map to the buried treasure in the backyard. We know its out there, somewhere, or maybe it was the yard in Fort Worth?

When you delay going to the doctor (to find out if that pain in your right side is really your appendix) two hours while you water the baby (mostly tomato) seedlings, move them to the basement, and set up the timer and the last shoplights so they'll stay alive in your (possibly extended) absence. When you spend hours of your recovery time writing and printing labels with not only the variety names, but detailed descriptions for the several dozen extra seedlings you're giving to the scholarship plant sale. [It wasn't ever very painful, but the CT-scan impressed the radiologist, the appendix impressed the surgeon, and I didn't get home for 3 1/2 days, which is ... not normal. (I'm convinced it would have been a day or two less if only they'd ever let me sleep.) The seedlings did quite well in my absence.]

I remembered more. Or rather, I was REMINDED of them. On my nights off i was watching QVCs Christmas in July. It was already annoying how the women kept on and on and on about the items. But the thing that set my teeth on edge was the fact that they referred to everything as a "piece." "This piece would make a lovely gift. This piece will be treasured for generations. Piece piece piece piece piece." Aaaaa! Why cant they say "this ornament" "this carousel " this tree" whatever. I HATE that. People do that for everything. Watch HGTV and see how many times a couch is referred to as a "piece." A PIECE OF WHAT???? And speaking of HGTV, what's with everyone calling rooms or yards or garages "spaces???" It a room. Or a yard. Or a garage. Buzzwords. So irritating. Oh,.and the QVC ladies used "gift" as a verb no less than 83000 times in the 20 minutes or so i watched. I get it now. It really is obnoxious.

Rebecca, Well, the best we could do to beat the heat was 11:30 a.m. Fort Worth is so big and there's so many deaths and the funeral homes stay super busy, so you get the time slots that are available, if you know what I mean. I am not complaining.....at least it isn't an afternoon funeral. It is supposed to be the hottest day of the year so far, but no one here on this earth can control the weather. I think the recent high heat index numbers (ours have been in the 112-114 range on recent days) have fried my brain. We were out at the pool this evening and the temperature was 90-something and the heat index was 106 and I told Tim and Lillie "you know, this really doesn't feel bad at all". lol. I've lost my mind. I've always been impressed with how well tomatoes can bounce back some years. I have abandoned the garden in some hot dry years....stopped watering, closed the gate and walked away, leaving it all to the spider mites and grasshoppers. Then, a month or two later, I look and the tomatoes have tons of new growth and look great. You just never know what they'll do. I'm glad yours are showing resilience. Your flowers do look great. Jennifer, I know how badly y'all need rain and was hoping you'd get more, but any amount of rain is a blessing at this time of the year. I'm happy for all of you who got rain. We didn't get any, but we had some last week, so we aren't in terrible shape again yet. The dewpoints and heat index numbers are horrible though---as if the plain old high temperatures wouldn't be bad enough as they are. I believe Sun-Mon will be out hottest days of the year so far. Don't let the heat get to you! September is just around the corner and will bring cooler weather. Really, the NWS is showing cooler weather mid-week, so that's something to hope for and to look forward to, unless the forecast changes and that take that bit of coolness away from us. I hope you have many more years with your mom. Our mom never took care of herself (don't even get me started on that!) and we never thought she'd live as long as she did. When our dad passed away in 2004, we all thought mom wouldn't live more than a year or two longer. See how wrong we were? I know it will take a while to get used to not being so busy with the band, but y'all did your job so well for so long, and now it is somebody else's turn, and you and Tom get to have more free time for yourselves. That can only be a good thing, right? Today the weather felt quite a bit nicer here than on previous days. I think it was because our dewpoint was falling late in the day instead of going up, so our heat index peaked earlier in the day than usual, and it peaked lower---at only 111. How sad is it that this is what I consider a better heat index? How many days until autumn? Winter? Can we start counting? Need heat relief? Skip going to the nurseries and garden centers. Go to Hobby Lobby and walk around admiring all the fake autumn flowers, pumpkins, gourds, etc. and all the other fall decor, and then mosey over to the Christmas area and pretend it is winter time. See there---don't you feel better already? Drought is spreading rapidly on the U. S. Drought Monitor Map and our fire conditions are worsening. All we need is for southwestern and southcentral OK (and much of central OK and western OK) to get some rain like NE OK had this week and then things will get better quickly. If, and only if, that rain actually falls though. I looked at the 6-10 and 8-14 day outlooks and they don't look especially promising. I say this every August---where is a good old tropical storm or hurricane off the Gulf Coast when we need one? I'm not asking for a big damaging thing...just some sort of storm that will send a plume of moisture up over Texas straight to us. Unfortunately nothing like that is in sight either. Dawn