Day: October 29, 2018

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Where Does Suzanne Go When She Goes?

Bow Tie o’ the Day’s paw prints and bones are letting you know that as our ABQ trip wound down, I was sooooo missing Skitter. The way I wore Bow Tie– and the fact that I was rolling my blue eyes– tells you that I stood all amazed and was trying very hard to keep my mouth shut. Why? Because we were far away from home in ABQ, and when Suzanne had a spare couple of hours to explore the surroundings, where did we end up? At a fabric store, of course.

In the hotel lobby the day before, Suzanne had been looking at the tourist pamphlets and advertisements. Wouldn’t ya know it– she found an ad for a fabric store called Hip Stitch. AND the ad had a coupon for a free quarter-piece of the fabric of your choosing. I knew resistance was futile. The fabric store ended up being the first of the two “sights” she saw in ABQ.

To be fair, I willingly drove Suzanne to the fabric store. She said we didn’t need to go, but I knew she was secretly desperate to get to it. You already know I can’t say NO to anything Suzanne wants. And I have to admit that nothing pleases me more than to watch Suzanne’s face be happy in a fabric store. There was no way on earth I wasn’t going to make sure she got there.

Suzanne got a bunch o’ fabric. I made out like the proverbial bandit I am, as well– because I found some terrific cape material. And then we had to buy another suitcase in which to haul our new fabric home from ABQ.

BTW   Suzanne has already started creating my magical ABQ-material cape. Let me assure you right now that based on what I can tell from watching her work on it, the finished cape will be a light year or two beyond cool and hip and groovy. 😲 I’m sharpening up my pester skills so she’ll want to git ‘er done tonight.

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I Wasn’t Ready, But I Did It Anyway

Tie o’ the Day and I managed to sneak in a bow tie on a t-shirt, for double amusement. While Suzanne labored at The University of New Mexico from 9-5 every day, I ferreted out ABQ wonders to see. Tie helped me keep my eye on the fuel level in our rental car. I have told you and told you before, and I will tell you again and again: A piece of neckwear can be helpful in a multitude of ways– like reminding you to fill up the gas tank after you’ve driven every road in New Mexico.

In fact, a tie is a lot like a dog in some ways. It wants to make you happy. It loves you beyond reason. You can be a complete jerk, and your tie will still think you are the cat’s meow– just like dogs do. If you can train a mutt to do tricks and tasks, you can train a tie to do the same.

I, on the other hand, am somewhat untrainable. Or maybe “unchangeable” is the right word. Okay, the right word is “stubborn.” There. I wrote it: I’m stubborn about one or two or 8,000 things. I stuck to my stubborn-inity about lifting my own luggage and keeping up with the vacay goal of seeing as many sights as possible. Unfortunately, I stubborn-ed my way into bringing home an unwanted souvenir: a cold.

SURGERY RECOVERY ALERT! Skip this if you’ve had it with my yammering on about how my recovery is coming along. I’d skip reading about it if I could, cuz I’d like to skip the whole recovery altogether.

Here it is, four months after surgery, and I still get caught by limits. The things I can’t do are certainly fewer and far-er between, but some of my shouldn’t-do’s are so simple– like putting away clean serving dishes onto a high shelf. Nope. Still can’t do that.

It’s frustrating to hold back on doing what I feel like I can do, but know I still should not do. I mean– really! How can it be that visiting one tourist spot a day is the totality of what I can do without having to couch potato the entire next day? So in Albuquerque, I just pushed my way through the exhaustion and drove where I wanted and investigated what there was to see. I knew I would pay for it. But oh, well. I know that since surgery, my immunity is low and my body is putting all its energy into repairing my innards. Thus, I easily caught a cold, which has leveled me.

I know a cold is a tiny recovery bump, but I also know I must baby it a little, so it doesn’t become something bigger, which my immunity system can’t handle. I think it was worth it to grab some vacay time though– to be somewhere that isn’t my own house, doing something besides sprawling out in my own recliner.

The week ahead is a must-recover-from-vacay week. I am, however, planning to drive to Delta to visit Mom in a few days. Her spirit is always rejuvenating. I hope my visits give her the same energizing uplift she gives me. What I do know about when we are together is that we never shut up and we never quit laughing. That’s gotta be good for us both.