Wednesday, June 25, 2025

6/25/2025

Wednesday, June 25, 2025

D+210/142/1304

Day 12

1867 1st barbed wire patented by Lucien B. Smith of Ohio

1876 Battle of the Little Bighorn

1950 North Korea invades South Korea, starting the Korean War

In bed at 9:30, up at 5:30.  62°, high of 70°, rainy.  

Kevzara, day 2/14; Trulicity, day 6/7; morning meds and Blink pill at 9:50 a.m.; Eye wipes at 5:50 a.m. and  p.m.; Eye mask at  p.m. and   p.m.; Ketoconazole wash and cream at 11:30 a.m. and  p.m.  Eye ointment at bedtime.   Zyrtec at 9 a.m

Kitty.  I think I had 5 'pit stops' during the night; perhaps it was 4, but more likely 5.  On the last one, I found myself thinking of Kitty, how we were each other's connections with our Mom and our Dad, how only the two of us shared the knowledge of what life was like growing up as children with our deeply unhappy and unloving father and with our loving and protective mother, how important each of us was to the other, and how for the last several years of Kitty's life, we started every single day talking with each other in the early morning, while our mates and much of the rest of the world were sleeping.  When I went back to bed and fell asleep, I had a dream in which we were together, discussing some medical problem I was having with the VA.  I remember next to nothing of the dream (as usual) other than the fact that I was with Kitty again, discussing in the early morning a problem I was having.  I make note of it here to record that she is still with me, in my thoughts and in my dreams. Of all the losses I have suffered over the past few years, her's was and is the hardest.  I lit a 'Kitty candle' when I came out to the TV room to start the day, remembering the votive candles I sent her to light when she was awake in the middle of the night as she often was, as a reminder that I was with her in spirit, in love, just as she is with me now in spirit, in love, in memory.  She died on March 3, 2022, 3 years, 3 months, and 22 days ago.  Almost five months later, I started talking to myself in this journal, a sorry substitute for my morning talks with Kitty.  On her birthday last year, I posted the tribute - is that the right word? - I wrote about her while she was in hospice care,  and included a good selection of photos of her.

The Volvo and news of John M.  I called Goodyear and learned that my left rear tire had been punctured by two screws and that one of them was very close to the sidewall, making repair problematical.  Later, I got a call saying the repair couldn't be done safely and that a replacement tire would have to be installed.  One was ordered and will be installed on Friday.  I'm carless this week!  Geri drove me over to Andy's to pick up their mail while they are vacationing in Canada.  On the way, she told me that Debbie M.  told her that John M. had given up driving.  He's suffering from leukemia and was recently diagnosed with some level of some kind of dementia.  He and I are the same age, both of us born in 1941.

Ed Felsenthal.  It was yesterday that I received the call from Mary Fran, his firstborn, that Ed had died.  We were good friends for 65 years, college roommates who remained close friends for 65 years.  Kitty three years ago, Ed last year, Tom St. John two and 1/2 years ago, David Branch long ago.



Out of it all day.  So it goes, though I did have one of those magical moments on the drive over to Andy's house to pick up his mail:  I saw each individual tree and the aggregate of trees on the route and saw how beautiful they were.  It was as if Bayside had been paid out by Frederick Law Olmstead between laying out Central Park in New York and Lake Park in Milwaukee.  I saw the village as a large, magnificent arboretum and wished Kitty were with me to enjoy how gorgeous it is.






 

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