04 30 - Happy Birthday, John and Susan

Today is my babies 27th birthday.  Here they are, all dressed up on the family cruise.  I still don't think of them as 'twins' but as two of my three children.  Oh yeah, these two have the same birthday.  If you line up all three kids, these are not the two that you would pick out to be the twins.  Most people would pick John and Elizabeth.  Happy Birthday, Susan and John.  (Susan is older by one minute, born at 12:35 (noon) and John at 12:36 on April 30, 1985.)

04 27 - Knee Walker

Ray is under strict instructions of ‘no weight bearing’ on his foot.  Not a problem since it hurts too much to even think of standing on it.  Since this is the second time that we have been through this (Ray previously had Achilles tendon repair two years ago – same foot), I knew to go rent the knee walker to have as soon as he came home from the hospital.  The picture looks like he does not have a left leg below the knee, but his shorts are long.  You kneel with the bad leg on the walker and push with the good leg like a scooter.  This is way better than crutches.

04 26 - The Ivy Tree

I am trying to get back in the habit of walking every morning.  Ray won’t be able to walk for months but I need the exercise and Sally is always ready for a walk.  Our normal route takes us by this tree that I call the Ivy Tree.  I think that it used to be an elm tree but it is totally covered in English ivy.  I always thought that if ivy covered a tree, it would kill the tree.  This tree is not quite dead but has a few elm branches at the very top.  At this point, it has character as the Ivy Tree.

04 25 - Shake that bottle!

We had left-over steak today for lunch.  Everyone knows that you need to shake the A1 sauce before you use it, but have you ever actually read the directions?  In case you can’t read the picture, the directions say: 

SHAKE WELL. 

If there’s only one drop left,

a more extreme form of
shaking may be required. 
Like dancing.  Or jumping jacks. 

You can do it. 

Yeah, it’s that important.

Bet you’re going to go look at your bottle in your kitchen!

04 29 - Who Killed Kinney?

Unless you are a South Park fan, you won’t understand this post.  In the early years of South Park, at the end of every show, Cartman would say, ‘Oh my god, they killed Kinney’.  Then one year at Halloween, I found these paper towels that our whole family thought looked like Kinney from South Park.  I bought several rolls and only used them in October.  Now, I am in ‘use it up’ mode.  No matter what the design, the supply of paper towels is getting used up.

04 24 - Happy Birthday, Becky!

If it is your birthday (and I have a picture of you), you get to be the post of the day.  Today is my middle sister, Becky, 60^th birthday.  I actually have a picture of her from February, but it is much more fun to post the pictures from her 40^th birthday party.  When she lived in Seoul, Korea (she is civil service), she was involved in the clown ministry at her church.  Both of these pictures were taken in 1992.  The Clown Family is Becky, daughter Meera (age 9), and daughter Sara (age 6).  Happy Birthday, Becky!  May your life always contain a little clowning around!

04 23 - Ray, first look at the foot

Today was Ray’s first doctor’s appointment after falling.  We got our first look at his foot.  I have some really gross, close-up pictures of his foot, but I will spare you and only post this one.  Dr. Gaddy came by Ray’s room in the hospital and warned us that he might get fracture blisters.  I had never heard of them and they are about the grossest thing that I have seen in a long time.  Where his heel looks purple is one of the huge blisters.  The bad news is that his foot is too swollen for Dr. Henning to do the surgery right now.  We will go back to the doctor, probably twice a week, until Ray is able to have the surgery.