Still Alive Here

This morning is Rachel's first college class at Delaware County Community College. No thanks to the economy or our finances! She is anxious about not having attended classes in 5 years. Prayers are appreciated.

Posted accident pictures on facebook

Since most people following me are on facebook, I posted pictures of my accident there for anyone who was 'wanting to know'. The prime movers were an old classmate who hadn't seen me since graduation, and one of my son's friends/coworkers who got stuck handling the shift alone after Tom took off to see if there was anything to be done.

For me, the hospital was handling it; but for clearing personal effects out of the car, he got stuck with it in spades. The pix of the wreck are all by him. The girls visited me in rehab and took the pic of me in bed. I got stuck between bed and wheelchair for 12 weeks. And it still makes me annoyed that I can't go out in snow like I used to! The injured knee interprets any overload beyond straight walking as pain, and down I go.... :P

Been REAL Busy

Tom and his girlfriend told us on Dec. 26 that they got airline tickets to come visit. I'm glad to meet Britany, but I wish he'd stated his intention to take Britney sightseeing more than helping me fix stuff here. Bob isn't that handy; the girls all cry "I don't know what to do"; and I'm limited in pain and position by the arthritis from my injuries. See my facebook wall for all the good stuff they've been doing.

Still Alive Here

Been at war with each other over tight money. To really help things out, Rachel, who has the only thing passing as as a job here, got a jury duty summons. Frankly, I she and Maria are enrolled at Delaware County Community College by the time Chester County wants her in a jury box, and that she can claim hardship.

Happy Thanksgiving

Hi nonexistent audience,
We've been to New York, didn't pass the test for contestants, moved some of Bob's aunt's furniture, and now am waiting for a 20 lb turkey to thaw. See you around when I get more time to tell the story of doing the champagne town on a beer budget.

Really busy on Facebook

besides Bob breaking a metatarsal in his left foot, Anne's Saturn starting to blow its transmission, and the Durango not wanting to start in the rain, it's been busy here.

Out on Facebook

I got enough people after me to show on facebook, so there I am if I'm not here. Easier to find the new babies, grandbabies, 2 zillion games from people my kids' age, etc.

Anne's out

It won't make any difference what bit her - Anne tested positive for MRSA. So that's why she got such a GROSS infection. She was released last Thursday, went back to the ER briefly on Sunday, and finally got someone to kick her Medicaid to allow the high-priced antibiotic.

She still has an open wound to keep clean until it heals. It puts a big crimp in working at the stables. Anne accompanies Rachel to drive - Rachel's still on a learner's permit - and then has to sit in the car and read a book. Bummer.

Prayers for Anne

Last week Anne got bitten on the left leg by SOMETHING - big mosquito, tick, brown recluse spider, we don't know. Over the weekend it got infected: redness, discharging, fever, pain.
She's in Brandywine Hospital, after 2 rounds of intravenous antibiotics. Staff is still waiting to see how she responds to it.
Of course I'm concerned! Mommy reflex has kicked in!

No Readers?

Looks like everyone is over at CarolinaChronicles.blogspot.com looking at all the cute pictures of Ian, and his worn-out parents Nikki and Dan. (I still don't know if labor was induced, or if Ian decided to come out on his own.) :D

Nikki and Dan's baby is here!

Ian Gordon Johnson was born last night (Aug.3) at 745pm. He weighed 7 lbs., 9 oz. (an entire pound less than Anne, my lightest baby) and is 21 inches long. His first name is the Scots variant of John, and his middle name honors both grandfathers. See CarolinaChronicles.blogspot.com for pictures of the baby and his parents.

Nikki and Dan's baby

The 'pregnancy ticker' says 8 days. But since Nikki has been schlepping around at 3-4 cm dilated, and the baby is at -2 station, for two weeks now, it's about time for something to happen.

For those uninitiated in late pregnancy terms: The uterine cervix has begun to dilate - 10cm means the cervix has 'disappeared' and the baby is ready to be born. Also -2 station means the baby has begun to descend into the birth canal; -4 station is 'crowning', and the baby's head is appearing at the opening. But being on the launch pad for TWO WEEKS? Nikki is treading the edge of sanity. :)

Labor may be induced on Monday. Stay Tuned!

Memory Eternal (sorry I'm late, Grandma, and Grandpa)

Missing Grandma Grace's birthday in June (16?) was a bad habit in this family. After losing Grandpa, she had to downsize to an apartment and eventually to a nursing home. She lost two sons before she died. She paid more attention to us kids' birthdays and didn't expect anything in return. A salute to a woman who persevered in the circumstances she was given, and passed away at the age of 96.

Grandpa Walter, however, deserves more honorable mention. Anyone who took world history noted his birthday was Bastille Day (July 14), although the only revolution he ever subscribed to was that of Christ. He lost his mother at 12, took flak from his stepmother for marrying a divorcee with a child, lost his wife when she was 57, remained a widower for 13 years, kicked smoking cold turkey at the age of 70, and quietly passed from lung cancer at 75.

This was the only man my mom called Daddy. He was the only man my sisters and I knew as Grandpa; Dad's father died when I was 3, Grace was 2, and Deb not yet born. I am confident that he knelt before the throne of God and declared himself unworthy, and was told, "Friend, come up higher."



PS. Any news on the baby, NIkki and Dan?

Survived surgery (ha)

Bob and I were the first customers at Paoli surgery center last Wednesday -even waiting for the door to be unlocked. I was dressed and prepped; and waited, and waited....... When the doctor arrived I asked if the traffic on the 202 was bad. He replied that he was at a prayer breakfast for a friend and it went a little overtime. (Note to self: Keep this doctor. A doctor who prays is not going to be cocky about his own powers!)

I was positioned on the table before the sedative took effect. So when I awoke, still on the table, I was expecting the quick removal of a 1" orthopedic hardware screw. The nurse handed me a specimen jar (for you-know-what) with a screw spanning the diagonal volume of it. THAT'S 2 1/2 TO 3 INCHES!!! Then she added that they had to boost my anesthesia to spinal anesthesia. Guess that screw was a lot harder to extract. Plus there was a sac of fluid on my knee that had to be drained before anything else could be done. That was the point of removing the screw; it irritated the skin over it. So it was THAT bad, that my knee tried to make a water balloon cushion. When I had shaken off a mild nauseous feeling, by burping out all the air in my empty stomach, I was repositioned on a gurney and rolled to the post-operative area.

I lay a short while in the post-operative area. Once sensation had returned to my ankles and I could rotate my feet, I was moved from post-op to the recovery area at the other end of the room. The nurses raised the head of my gurney to a semi-sitting position so I could eat. Graham crackers are a standard in medical facilities - not salty, nor empty calories - and I chose to wash them down with ginger ale. Take that, nausea!

The last surprise came before leaving. I had chosen to dress in the restroom. I found my legs worked fine, but my nether lands were a block of numb wood! I was freaked enough to pull the call light. The nurse responding told me that all was normal: the very end of the spine is the last to recover. "Numb butt? It'll come to in an hour." I wondered if (a) they retained men until all the feeling had returned or (b) anyone male had ever threatened a lawsuit. It seems to be a tenet in this culture that a man who is dead in this department may as well be dead and buried. And yes, feeling had returned by the time I got home.

Bob stopped at the pharmacy and picked up the Vicodin. I took it for a day and a half and promptly misplaced the bottle - I guess I knocked it off while sleeping in my living room lounger. So I went back to my Aleve-and-Extra Strength acetaminophen arthritis routine. The only thing that hurts more than usual is hitting the two-stitch incision. This too, friends, shall pass.

Stumbling through family history

You wouldn't believe it from looking at me, but:I'm 5/512ths Iroquois Confederacy.

That's 1/512 Oneida - a Tory colonist married a French Canadian - Oneida woman about the time of the Revolutionary War (marriage legally recognized) Mom's side

And 1/128 Mohawk - around 1850 a Mohawk - white man was part of a raid and raped one of the settlers. (Observation is probably not 100% accurate. I suspect the man may have been the child of a white man raping a Mohawk girl, and that he decided to 'return the "favor"')
Dad's side
(you can be sure they kept this one covered up!)

What does it mean for me? High-set cheeks, an unusual set of blood proteins besides the A-B-O positive and negative, and the conviction that Custer acted stupidly in the Indian Wars and paid the ultimate price for it.

Also, the recognition that there are always two sides to every story... and that the majority view isn't always the right, just, or fair conclusion to a problem.

Prayer, por favor

For friends, family, and anyone not bored stiff reading my declaration of a pox on the digital conversion:

I'm having surgery next Wednesday on my bum left knee. The orthopedist is taking out a dubiously-placed screw in hope of giving me some relief from the pain that is my constant companion.
Love to all, and Thank you.

Digital Conversion, MS, PhD

(That's More of the Same, Piled higher and Deeper.)
Sometime over the weekend WPVI fine tuned its signal, so here in Coatesville we are getting a decent picture with only occasional pixel dropouts. Sound runs continuously, too. This is on our small TV with the old antenna and 10 dB amplification. The big TV with the S-video and a 20 dB amplifier is near perfect. This is good, because Bob prefers WPVI 6ABC news.

Wonder how they are doing in Washington, DC with their two deadhead stations? A lot better than Metro, I hope. We rode that Red Line through the accident site on May 29. There but for the grace of God.....

Results of the digital conversion

Goodbye, rabbit ears falling on head. Goodbye, interference from the computer in the next room and the DSL modem. Goodbye, fridge door antenna. Goodbye, hand as antenna. Goodbye, head in the field.

However, goodbye WGAL channel 8. It was refreshing to watch news that wasn't full of gang war and city corruption, and had views of country life. But goodbye WPVI channel 6??? Google 'digital stations lost', and the leading story is that BOTH the CBS and ABC affiliates in Washington, DC went AWOL. Philly channel 6 is next, followed by Chicago's ABC affiliate is a distant third.

It seems that some digital stations kept or moved to VHF frequencies (the old channels 7-13), and these are giving the FCC a pain in the netherlands. Hey, I'm still using my mother-in-law's roof antenna with a 20 decibel amplifier. Channel 6 has to get it to me before I can use it to blast out the living room. :) Stay tuned....

The Joy of Digital Television

Keep coming back - I won't be finished until later with this!

Since we brought all our analog sets with us from California, and everyone is SO unemployed, of course we went for the converter boxes. Bob had to blow both $40 coupons on the cheapest GE model available at BJ's Warehouse (closest competitor to Costco and Sam's Club), after I had told him I wanted one box with analog pass-through since our local PBS (WHYY 12, Wilmington/Philadelphia) was not broadcasting a strong enough signal for us to get out here in the boonies of Chester County.

I hooked up the converter to watch the Rose Bowl in hi-def. So Bob tried to change the channel to tape something else. Hello, the converter box changes the channels. Plus one box feeds the same signal to both the TV and the VCR. Disconnect box.

We went down to Costco in Delaware, and decided to check out the Circuit City bankruptcy sale across the parking lot. The store was virtually sacked down to bare shelves, except for stacks of APEX brand digital converter boxes... with analog pass-through. Price $30, with a disclaimer that the bankruptcy sale operator wasn't taking the $40 coupons. We didn't have one anyway.. so home one goes. I hooked it into the TV antenna line, but left it unplugged. That way, we can get our TV regular or hi-def and not pay PECO (Philadelphia Energy Co. to you non-Pennsylvanians) one mite more than necessary.

The big day of June 12 came. When I woke up and went downstairs for breakfast, I plugged in the box with the pass-through. WHYY 12 (PBS) had announced it was switching off the analog at noon. Just after noon I switched from WGAL 8 to 12.... static. I kicked in the converter box and scanned. Success!!!! Channel 12 had gone digital! They'd diverted the power from the analog broadcast to boost the digital signal enough to get out of Philly and reach us. I switched back to 8.

Fifteen minutes later I tried WPVI 6 (ABC). "Channel 6 is gone," I announced. By 12:30 pm the only analog stations still in business were the CBS affiliates and associated stations: KYW 3 Philly, WGAL 8 Lancaster, and Channel 57 (CW Philly, but owned by the group holding KYW 3). WGAL 8 had announced it was switching at midnight.

We watched Channel 8 news for what I figured would be the last time that night. Its reception had always been fuzzy, but it was the only thing the rabbit ears would pull in, in the kitchen. The digital box wouldn't pull in the New Jersey PBS stations, so I knew Channel 8 Lancaster would go too.

I went out to Radio Shack after the girls got hoe from the barn to get some video cable connectors, so I could use what cable I had on hand to connect the kitchen TV to the roof antenna. While I was there the salesman commented on how many complaints he had gotten that day of "Channel 6 went off the air!!"

However, watching Channel 6 for Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune proved to be a new trial. The picture had digital pixel drop-outs scattered all over it, and sometimes it froze. Ditto for the sound. BIG bummer. How can a family figure it has the full offerings of broadcast TV if one of the Big 3 is AWOL, or acting hung over and/or stoned? We watched what we wanted for the night on other channels.

Then Bob switched to a newly discovered treasure (for us), Y arts on WHYY 12.2. Y arts provides concert music and dance in all genres. Bob stated he prefers it to Conan O'Brien.


EarlierI got to work on putting in that kitchen connection through the basement. As a woman, I am happy that I understand the work and can do it. But as a married woman who was expected to stay home with the kids, I am fuming that my husband doesn't "get it" well enough to do the job. And as a handicapped person, I know there will be a price to pay in pain to do the job. I miss my son Thomas. He does this electric spaghetti stuff much better than I.

First, on Friday,I cleared the broken concrete away from the spot where the high water pressure shook the hot water pipe until it broke the wall. There's my pass-through from the back basement room into the main room. Then I pulled the stuffing out of the hole the kitchen sink pipes pass through the floor. This was a surprise... the floor joists had been covered with plywood, and the space between the laundry room ceiling and the kitchen floor there was stuffed with trimmings of plastic-backed fiberglass insulation. It's itchy as all get-out! (insert one of my dad's profanities here)

Now that I could see my target, I hooked the connector of one end of a 25-ft. video cable in a straightened coathanger and poked the hanger through the hole by the cold-water pipe. Then I went upstairs to see my progress. I couldn't see the wire, back down I went. Poked the wire a little farther. Went back up the stairs. This time, I could see a foot of the 3' hanger wire, and pulled the cable through. Now I have to get it behind the sink cabinet, and the space didn't look big enough for the video connector. Lo and behold - it went straight up behind the sink. I pulled out enough slack to reach the opposite wall, screwed the connector to the converter box we got for this TV, and went back downstairs and repacked the fiberglass. (@#$$!%!!)

I screwed a connector to the other end of the 25-ft. cable, connected it to a 10-ft cable I'd picked up from the recycling dumpster at the apartment we'd lived in in California, and pushed it through the wall. Much easier than the last job. I found the joint cleared the water heater, and I packed the hole with some of that itchy fiberglass and some foam. The cable followed the water intake into the main basement room, but didn't quite reach the main video cable from the roof antenna. I had to connect another 4 feet of cable to get there.

Saturday was the day of the big connection. First I fed some of the slack in the antenna line down into the basement through the hole the installer had drilled in the living room floor. Then it had to be fed back through its tight carrier clips to the point where the kitchen cable caught up to it. (Repeat 2-3x.) Then I had to select a good position on the floor joists to fasten the 10 decibel amplifier/signal splitter; it had to reach both the cables, and the only available electric outlet fastened to the floor support beam near the furnace. I could reach it standing on tiptoe, and bear in mind, I'm lucky I can stand on tiptoe at all.

Cut the mainline from the roof to the living room. Attach screw-on connectors to the two cut ends. Be sure the end from the antenna attaches to Input, and the two diverging lines are attached to the Outputs. Screw the box onto the floor joist.

The last thing proved the hardest, as first I hammered a pick into the joist for start holes. Then screwing in the Phillips screws was tight, and required a lot of strength. After getting them half done I found the Kick Step stool, and got on the first step 6" up from the floor, and found the going a lot easier.

But after all this reaching overhead, my calves, hamstrings, and glutes were on fire. (They are still!) So I plopped down with my feet up for the last job - making a short connector for the signal splitter. I put the short connector between the 20 decibel amplifier and a (non-powered) signal splitter, and then connected leads for the TV and the DVD/VCR combo. Yes, a technological fossil.

Channel 6 was still ornery, so I called the FCC number and the local DTV info number.... which proved to be WHYY info. (A fox in the henhouse?) I was told by the FCC to file a complaint, and by WHYY that channel 6 was having "internal issues", which probably means more than the 65+ comments on WPVI's DTV site. (I left 2.)

So it's time for me to sit back with my feet up in my lounger and ease my aching legs, and enjoy the fruit of my labor.

Memory Eternal (sorry I'm late, Dad)

In memoriam: Vernon Lydens, 5/28/1932 - 11/30/2003. Memory Eternal. Also for Adrian Lydens, 10/16?/1889 - 5/30/1957. (My dad's 25th birthday was spoiled by losing his father.)

Why late: Auditions for the quiz show Jeopardy! in Washington, D.C. After that, Bob and I went to all the memorials on The Mall. We made sure to see the Lincoln Memorial, Vietnam Veterans Memorial(s), and the Korean Veterans Memorial. They're clustered together on the west end of The Mall.

More on this later.... my bum knee is killing me from all this walking!! Someone there has Segway tours; how about Arthritic Senior Citizen Scooter tours?? Bob wound up the next day pushing me through the Smithsonian Castle, Museum of the American Indian, and the Air and Space Museum in a wheelchair. :)