Search Results for: Photo Friday

Cecil Lyon and Eliza B.

Did you ever buy something you just love and then can’t find it again?  Did you ever get so delighted with a purchase that you had to tell someone?  Did you ever meet someone who impressed you with his or her commitment to quality?  All three things happened to me just before I went on my camping trip.  (Spoiler alert:  remember last week’s Photo Friday.)

I bought these great pair of flip-flops in Hilton Head.  I was attending a conference and the flip-flop sandals were an end-of-season-great-price in the resort gift shop.  The flip-flops were $30.  On sale.  It was 10 whole years ago.

What? You’re probably asking.  $30 for a pair of flip-flops?  I hate to shop; I’m not that woman who moans when she smells good shoe-leather. (That’s my sister, Deanna.)  Still, every once in a while, I decide to treat myself to something purely unnecessary; something that makes me feel pampered; something a wee bit extravagant.

This year, one of the sandal toe-ribbons on my flip-flop broke.  Oh how I love that gentle gross-grain ribbon between my toes; no break-in-my-flip-flop blisters to welcome me to summer.   Okay, maybe it is time I gave them up anyways.  The fabric is getting a little tattered looking.

My 10 year-old sandal; the one with the ribbon still intact. Okay, it IS a little worn out.

 

Yes, I was wearing the same sandals for the past 10 years.  A quick trip in the washer, and dried in the sun, and I am set to go again.  Good as new.  Lucky for me, the leather Peanut still proclaimed loud and clear:  Eliza B.  So for $30 over 10 years, that’s just $3 a year.  A pretty good deal.  One I want to repeat.

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WWII:Osteomylitis as Veterans:Duckie (Putting a Healthcare Puzzle Together)

“For every subtle an complicated question, there is a perfectly simple and straightforward answer, which is wrong.”  – H. L. Mencken

 

Maybe this is about health care; maybe it’s about health insurance; maybe it’s about parenting a mildly mentally disabled adult.  Then again, maybe it’s just me trying to get my thoughts in order, because this is one bizarre story.  One with a happy ending.  I think.

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Duckie at her happiest: Healthy and Active.

 

I remember when the whole thing started, as clearly as if it were yesterday.  I flew in from San Diego, picked Duckie up from work and headed 2 hours north, into the next State, for a short vacation.  That day was the first of the manifestations.

“My leg hurts,” Duckie said.

“Where?”

“Right here.”  Duckie rubbed deep on the top of her left thigh.

“You did work an 8 hour day.”

Duckie is a courtesy clerk at the local grocery store.  She bags your groceries, loads blocks of salt and dog food into your car, and brings all those carts back to the store.  When the weather is nice, she walks the 3 miles to work and back.   She enjoys the walk; it’s part of her weight management plan.  Besides being a bit overweight, Duckie is in great physical shape.  Her normal work schedule is 15-20 hours a week, in 4 hour shifts.  Sharing Duckie’s life gives me a whole new appreciation

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