A Conundrum

That's a good word for a lot of issues I face in my life.  I looked up the definition of the word when it popped into my head, "A confusing and difficult problem or question."  It fits.

This weeks' conundrum has to do with having a wisdom tooth extracted.  I have never cared for dentists so making the first appointment took some courage on my part.  I felt like I either had a sinus problem or a tooth problem.  It turns out that I have a wisdom tooth growing sideways into the tooth next to it causing it to decay.  My dentist says that soon it will cause me a lot of pain if I don't deal with it.  So I allowed him to make me an appointment with an oral surgeon.  Okay, so "soon" in dental terms means I wait two weeks for my "consultation".

I head off to the oral surgeon thinking that by the next week, my problem would be solved.  Wrong....because I have a pacemaker, he wants my cardiologist to clear me for the drugs he will use to sedate me.  Even though I'm a coward (only with dentists) I ask about just using a local and leaving me awake.  I want to get this over with.  But he says that working so far back in my mouth would be very uncomfortable as far as "gagging" and he would prefer to sedate me. He also mentions the possibility of doing this at the hospital.   At this point, I have $250 invested in a tooth that is still in my mouth and causing me a great deal of discomfort.  As I leave his office, I hear him calling the cardiologist and still believe that I'm going to have this over with soon.

Wrong again.  After a week I call back and they have not heard from the cardiologist.  I then take it upon myself to make the call.  After explaining to the nurse what I need, I make the statement that I cannot be considered a "serious" heart patient because I don't even have a follow-up with the cardiologist.  She tells me that I "missed" an appointment in December.  (I called them in November and was told I had nothing scheduled.)  So now I have an appointment with the cardiologist on Monday.

I have made the statement several times that I will not have this done at the hospital ($1500 out of pocket plus oral surgeon's fees) and I will not have a bunch of tests done.  But realistically, is a cardiologist going to sign off on something that easily? No, he is going to cover his *** (prison word).

In addition I have checked the oral surgeon's hospital affiliation and he is not affiliated with the hospital where the cardiologists are.  Does it make sense that if I'm hospitalized for this extraction due to my heart issues, that I would go to the hospital without my heart doctors?  So now, would I change oral surgeons?  

For all my assertions about what I will not do, I am not a doctor.  How do I know what is best for me?  Do I want to gamble with my life -- over a tooth?

I truly believe after my meningitis last summer that a lot of what goes on in the medical field is a "racket".  You should see the list of doctors that we owed that I don't even have a glue what they did for me.  I think they all just wanted a piece of the pie (me).

Sometimes Bubba says that we have a lot of bad luck.  I don't think a wisdom tooth and plumbing leaks qualify as a lot of bad luck.  In the grand scheme of things, we are very blessed.  It does seem like every week brings on a different conundrum though.   Who knows how long it will be before this is settled?

It's Not All About the Food

As the weekend of April 11 approached, we were very excited as this would be our first camping trip of 2013 with Joe and Judy.  For over a month we had looked forward to returning to the Georgia Veterans State Park in Cordele, Ga, and sharing the return with them.  Read last year's blog entry for details of the trip and description of the park.  At bedtime the night before we were supposed to make an early start the next morning, we received a phone call from Joe stating that they would probably not join us until Friday due to their pastor's wife undergoing serious surgery on Thursday.  Joe felt that someone from the church should be with the pastor in Birmingham so he decided to go. We agreed to head on to the park hoping to save them a place next to us (hopefully on the water) until they arrived.

When we arrived at the park around noon, there were only four places left on the water and only two of those were next to each other and easy to back into.  We chose those two and quickly marked Joe's spot so that no one else would try to claim it. 

Soon we learned that Joe was back from Birmingham and they were on their way to us.  We spent the afternoon taking it easy and resting knowing that once they arrived there would be plenty to do.  Joe and Judy arrived around 4:00 and once they were situated, they came over to our trailer and we all enjoyed a meal of smoked ham, potato salad, baked beans, and yeast rolls.  Then we returned to their new trailer for dessert of pound cake and/or strawberry pie.  Delicious!  This was our first time getting to see their new trailer.  

For a view of the luxurious interior, check out this site.

We left their trailer after sharing dessert and some catching up on what we've all been doing.  It started raining and the wind was blowing.  According to the local weather we were in for a rough night with the possibility of tornadoes.  Were we scared?  Not really.  After all about 42 years ago we all weathered a hurricane on our shrimp boats out in the bay.  We all slept well with the exception of Judy who apparently is our night watchman.  We will count on Judy who suffers from insomnia to alert us to when it is time to panic.

The next two days were beautiful although a little cool and we thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the weekend.

Have you ever noticed that good times usually happen around good food?  It's hard to tell about a good weekend without sharing what we had to eat.

Bubba and I started off Friday morning with oatmeal and strawberries which we ate while watching a squirrel play outside our window.

Now don't turn your nose up at oatmeal.  I think I make the best oatmeal ever.  I used to make a big pot every morning at work and I had quite a following of people who wanted to know if I had enough for them to have a bowl.

Later in the day we gathered outside for lunch.  We had sandwiches and chips, but doesn't eating outside make everything taste like a feast?

For supper Joe and Judy fixed something new for us -- Philly Cheese Steak Sandwiches.  I've had them in restaurants, but never thought about preparing them myself.

One of the reasons we wanted to return to this park was so that we could get some more of the sausage like we got last year from Stripling's Store.  Joe cooked some as an appetizer before our main course.

They were just as good as we remembered.  We returned to the store the next day to stock up so we could bring some home for the freezer.

Breakfast on Saturday was a joint effort.  Joe cooked bacon and sausage on his new gas grill/griddle.

And I cooked pancakes in an electric frying pan on the picnic table.

Don't you like my outdoor kitchen?

It was a cool morning and Bubba built a fire while Joe and I were cooking.

And then Judy made s'mores.

As I said in the blog title, "It's Not All About the Food", there were other activities as well.  Both brothers had invested in a Georgia fishing license and were eager to try fishing from their kayaks.

They fished and fished.  Joe set out a trot line and tried fly fishing.  And, although it wasn't the most productive fishing ever they did bring home a nice catch.

 Apparently when you are fishing from a kayak, you just let the fish pull you around until he gets tired.

Joe's fish in this picture was really bigger than it looks.

Bubba was proud of this nice size bass.

Guess what is pictured above?  

Supper!! Fried Fish, French Fries, Beans, Potato Salad, and Hushpuppies!

There was more fishing.

And some relaxing....

I'm sure you're wondering what Judy and I did while the men folks were fishing.  Actually, I'm not quite sure.  We talked about anything and everything.  We played Scrabble.  We walked around the park and checked out all the other camp sites.  Judy wants a kayak and I think I want one too, but for sure not until I retire.  I think I want a bicycle, but I want to try someone else's first to make sure my knees still work.  We really don't have enough room to carry many more things with us so we'll see.  For now I'm content to just enjoy the scenery and have time to relax.

Every time we go camping, I wish that we could stay one more day or maybe two.  I'm really looking forward to November 1 and RETIREMENT.

In closing, I would like to leave you with this inspirational thought.......

The family that dumps together, stays together!

"Son of a Gun, We'll Have Big Fun on the Bayou"

Do you remember that line from an old Hank Williams' song?  It's a fun song about Louisiana and the joys of living there.  It seems like an appropriate song for our Good Friday Crawfish Boil we attended with Amy, Darryl, and Amelia.  Their long time friends, Damian and Rebecca, invited us all to join them at Rebecca's family's farm.  Our hosts, Bill and Debra, made us feel very welcome and we enjoyed meeting them and the rest of the family (and there were a lot of them).  We arrived to find big baskets of crawfish sitting out waiting for the water to boil.  I didn't know they would still be alive, but they were and quite lively too.  There were all kinds of good things to snack on while we waited for the main event -- some pepper jelly on cream cheese that was especially tasty.  There were three long tables sitting out and I envisioned everyone sitting down to a plate of food, but then I saw that these were actually the crawfish platters.

The crawfish were dumped from the baskets onto the long tables.  It was 24 feet of crawfish, corn on the cob, potatoes, sausage, asparagus, artichokes, mushrooms, and sweet potatoes.

Okay, they are all there and look like colorful bugs on the table.  I've made up my mind that I will try them just to be polite.

Darryl begins to peel one for my first bite.  Bubba is already eating them as fast as he can.  He loves them!

This is it.  My first crawfish!  Not bad!  In fact it was actually good.  I ate about ten, which is not really a lot because in that whole bug there is not really a lot to eat.  I also ate some of the other things that were cooked with them.  I especially liked the aparagus.  Would I eat them again?  Probably in a setting like this I would, but I won't be ordering them in a restaurant.  I would much rather have a hamburger.

While all this was going on, Amelia was having fun with her new friends in the hammock.



There were children everywhere.  It was a nice big yard with plenty of fun things to do.

There was an egg hunt.  Lots of eggs to find

Amelia "poses" with Nana and Paw-Paw for a picture.

Later Debra (our hostess) brought out a basket filled with all kinds of treats and doled them out to the children.  Somehow Amelia talked the little boy next to her out of his cowboy hat and holster/gun.  She wore them for a good part of the day.  Eventually she laid them down for a jump in the bouncey house and the little boy eased up and reclaimed his possessions.

Bill saddled up two of his horses and the children lined up for a ride.  Bill told Bubba that the horse Amelia is riding is "30" years old.  Bill patiently led the horse around the pasture giving every child the opportunity to ride.

 

Eventually the adults got their treats as well.  As you can see there were plenty of desserts to choose from.  I brought the carrot cake.  Somehow it survived the drive from Florida, but I was afraid it was not going to make it to the farm safely.  The roads in Louisiana need some serious attention.

We headed for home late afternoon after saying good bye and thank you to our wonderful hosts.  They were obviously the type of people who think the more the merrier and it was very kind of them to include us in their invitation to Amy and Darryl.

There were a lot of other fun things over the weekend.  Shopping for an Easter dress for Amelia was one of them.  This was the first time she participated in that process and she took to it like a duck to water.  She picked out four dresses that she thought were "beautiful" and we proceeded to the dressing room to try them on.  This one was the winner.  Apparently it is very important how far out the skirt will twirl when you spin around.  I liked them all.  I'm glad she picked.

Easter Sunday we attended a church on the campus at LSU.  We returned home for a delicious lunch of ham, scalloped potatoes, brocolli casserole, fruit salad, rolls, key lime pie, and bunny cake.  (I didn't cook any of it.  Amy is a great cook.)







Amelia and I baked and decorated a bunny cake on Saturday night after we returned home from Chuck E. Cheese.  If your eyes are good, you will notice that the bunny has a third eye under his nose.  We were almost finished with the cake and Amelia said, "It would be soooooo funny if he had another eye!" So she determined that a proper place for a third eye would be under his nose.  She placed it there and laughed and laughed.

Saturday night Amy and Darryl went to a restaurant in New Orleans to celebrate their 14th anniversary.  Don't they look nice?  The picture on the mantle was done by Amelia at a painting birthday party.  I decided that she was obviously artistically gifted when I saw her owl picture, but later in the weekend she spent some time creating the masterpiece of Rapunzel which you see below.

At least she enjoys drawing pictures.  I enjoy seeing them.  The weekend also included dying Easter eggs, Chuck E. Cheese, and a lot of good family time.

The little basket of eggs above were probably my favorite part of the weekend.  Amelia hopped into the car after school on Thursday and immediately began to show off her "Resurrection Eggs".  Each egg contains a picture or object pertaining to the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus.  She began to open the eggs and tell me the story.  The first egg had a picture of a donkey in it.  She told me that Jesus rode into the city on a donkey and the people were so happy and were waving "pom-poms".  (I think that is her interpretation of the word "palms".  The next egg contained a picture of bread and wine and she told me that Jesus ate a last supper with his friends in a special room.  Next came a picture of a cross and she told me that the bad people put Jesus on a cross and he died.  The next egg had a little piece of white cloth in it and from what she said I think she thought they tied him to the cross with white cloth.  A little rock was in the next egg and she explained that after he died they put him in a cave with a rock in front of it.  Then she opened the last egg and exclaimed, "It's empty!  He's alive!  He's not dead anymore!"  And that, my friend, really touched my heart.

I hope that you all experience the same joy that Amelia had when she opened the last part of the story. "He's alive!"