HAPPY HALLOWEEN
We had a little Halloween party for the residents.

I always have pork chops and applesauce for my birthday - which I often would celebrate on Halloween. I put pork chops on when I came back from the hospital - he didn't even know what day it was.

I ended up eating a sandwich and soup and just put the pork chops away. I was so tired from everything. One person rang the door bell. I'm not sure if it was a neighbor or a trick or treater - I did leave the entry light on when I checked the mail so maybe they thought it was ok to ring.

I didn't answer.

Happy Halloween.

CAN'T STOP THE FEELING
Chrissy and I met at that little place before Dick's… she's been going there with Sally and my cousin Cathy goes there, but I have never been there before. I walked in and couldn't catch my breath...

Everything reminded me of something else…

These windows didn't even have candles but I couldn't stop thinking about the Christiana Candles at Dixon House.

Hello, there. It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

We still love you, Fall.

We ran out to Primitive Pines after…

…and I still felt a little weird. There's always something there to remind me.

VENTILATOR ESCAPADES
Cara, Chrissy and I were out shopping yesterday and went to Evolution Grille.

My favorite thing was the leftover containers...

…and the tiny creamer pitcher. I always liked those. I don't know why I don't have one of them or twelve.  I need to get on that.

The Dad is still in the hospital on a ventilator. I feel like I'm trying to find my way through fog…I fight the want of being at the hospital 24 hours a day versus trying to believe he's taken care of there (and I shouldn't worry) so we stayed out a little longer and went to Pajer's.

As always. So so pretty.

Like I always say…

…I haven't met a pumpkin yet that takes a bad picture.

You are all so very lovely.

I bought the three in the front and Cara got the white ones and the peach one.

Cara bought me this giant sunflower from Simple Gatherings. as part of my birthday presents. 

One can never have enough sunflowers, right?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY
My mother would have been 72 years old today… I'm always amazed when I see people around that age come to the facility to see THEIR mother/parent. We have a lot of people in their 90s. One that's 102! So their kids can easily be in their 70s.  I don't know why that gets to me. It's nice but it's kind of weird. I was 23 when she died  - 22 years ago. I think I might have said this last year but I can't remember her voice. I still remember mum's voice but I can't remember my own mother's voice. Isn't that sad?
 

CLEANING HOUSE
I'm starting to wonder if he is ever going to make it home. I'm not sure this time. There is too much against him and this hospital stay is a disaster. Chrissy came over to help me clean his room and get it a little organized for when he does come home - if he does.  What else would you expect when you opened up his closet? Of course he has a toy saxophone hanging with the clothes.

I think we played around more than we cleaned - though we did get a lot accomplished. We tried wigs on and fake noses and did take a few selfies with his pug mask.

After all that hard work there was only one thing to do.  Go to Johnny's.

IT'S PASTA NIGHT SOMEWHERE
This is still going on at the hospital...

Today would have been my parent's 47th wedding anniversary. Chrissy and I went to Luciano's.

It was slightly weird. It reminded me of when David and I would go explore Norfolk while daddy was on the ventilator there.  It's tuesday. Spaghetti is 5.99. He likes spaghetti so we both got it in homage. We're not going to tell him - yet.

MY POOR PUPPY
I wake up every morning like this… she is just the cutest little thing.

This is proving to be very difficult and I feel sorry for my poor pup. I've been going to the hospital every night and she has to be wondering what the hell is going on. She hasn't had any accidents except one. She tried to get downstairs. Sorry pup.

YAY - I DON'T HAVE TO COOK
Kenny and Cathy brought me dinner.

Side note - I never could make rice krispie treats. One of my best childhood memories is sitting on the counter stirring the marshmallows - in fact I still have the pot - but I can NOT make them to save my life. Cathy's are super good and Denise's mom and Steve's mom always made good ones too.

I JUST WANT TO TAKE A SHOWER
So, to add insult to injury… I get back to the house and this is going on...

…everything across the street is being dug up, no water in the house and those lights are making it look like it's the middle of the day.

DIE HARD
I think I've come to the conclusion that 2016 is my year to watch people die.

Today, we went from this…

…to this.

…to this.

Here are the highlights - They had him up to go for an endoscopy for the GI bleed… as they moved him from the chair to the gurney to take him down  for testing I saw him gasp. For a brief second, I thought he was being an asshole because he is always joking around but what happened was a mucus plug (from the pneumonia) dislodged and choked him and he coded for about 4 minutes. I was sitting on the couch (in front of that chair) the whole time - I was blocked in when they brought the crash cart in so I watched the whole thing. They didn't think anything was going on and finally the nurse said she thought there was a problem and I saw the monitor and I'm the one that was like this is serious - they threw everything out of the way and the one nurse jumped on top of him and started CPR and the rest of the crash team came in and I was just sitting there on the couch shaking my head saying YOU'VE GOT TO FUCKING BE KIDDING ME?!? So here we are now - in ICU - on a ventilator.

THE BEST A MAN CAN GET
All he wanted was to shave and these assholes here couldn't find a razor anywhere. They finally brought one in that was awful but Kenny gave it a try.

I SEE YOU
They think he has some sort of GI bleed now so he had to move to a more monitored unit On the ICU.

He can't get out of bed to use this…

…but he thinks it's the neatest thing.

…and I finally made it to the store.

CALL ME
We never had a problem at this hospital the last couple times but this stay is proving to be the opposite.  I don't want to be the bitch daughter but this place is a mess - figuratively and literally. I almost called this number today.

NORFOLK REVISITED
I was at the hospital all day. I feel bad for the pup. This is tough to do alone. I don't even have Aunt Gloria like we did in Norfolk! Lily is not big on junk food but I stopped at Sheetz for coffee and got her chicken fingers for some reason… like we did in Norfolk for RoseBud. She had a bite and the rest went in the garbage. She did like playing with the box.

I LIKE RUSTY CHAIRS
Do you remember Salad Fingers and the rusty spoons? That just popped in my head when I wrote the title to this post. I moved these guys…

…to my rusty chair this morning.

And I'm just hanging around while The Dad is down for testing. He has pneumonia.

DOWN GOES THE DAD
So… this happened.

I was confused about all of it because he was actually fine. The day before, he called me from work - we were in Ligonier - and he wanted to know when Isabella's party was… I brought home dinner and I was home all day today. He was fine. I was on the phone when he was getting ready for bed. He came back out to the kitchen and said goodnight to Chrissy as he does every night and said he was going in. I heard a sound and went in his room and he was sitting on the bed and  his cane was on the floor. I asked what happened and he said it fell - I didn't think anything of he because he often doesn't even know where his cane is. About 15 minutes later I hear another noise and I can't remember if I actually heard him call my name or not now... Anyway, he was on the floor. He said he slid off the bed. I tried to get him up and couldn't so I called Michael who couldn't as well so he called Kenny and by then I had called the paramedics because I questioned whether he hurt himself and, for the record, I'm getting a little sick of calling 911. Just saying. I didn't know if he maybe had a stroke - I asked him all the questions. He responded fine. I had to call the paramedics back because they were taking too long - apparently there was a "big thing" going on locally so they had to send another EMS - they come in and check him out and he has a 103 temp… so we end up at the ER.

He was aware of everything - first thing he said was Tony gets married tonight and I end up in the emergency room. We didn't even know what was going on until after 3:30 am. By the time we got up to the room it was almost 6 am. Here we go again.

THESE ARE LIGONIER DAYS
They are still selling these wreaths and buckets… God, how many years did we have those stupid wreaths over the fireplace?!?

It ended up being a nice day even though we are kind of over this festival and I feel like we've been up there a thousand times this year.  We really just came because Cara wanted to spend a million dollars on concrete pumpkins.

I bought a little baby one for $8, I think. I have to say I love it. I'm not sure I would get the big ones (though those stacking ones are nice) but this little guy makes me happy.

MY DOG IS CUTER THAN YOUR DOG
…and she likes to sing silly songs.

I THINK WE'VE BEEN WALKING AROUND HERE FOR DAYS
I met Chrissy for dinner and then we went to Walmart for three hours. I don't often shop there but when I do I always find things I never knew existed.

CRAFT-O-LANTERN

Saw this on Pinterest and thought I would try it with the residents… These are some of their creations.

They all liked making their jack-o-lanterns. This one is mine.

FAIRIES LIKE HALLOWEEN TOO