SHE HAS MORE COURAGE AND FIGHTING SPIRIT THAN ANYBODY I KNOW

 I WAS STUCK FOR A GOOD HEADER PHOTO TONIGHT SO YOU'RE STUCK WITH ME

It was a cool overcast morning at 8:45 when Kelly and I in the Subaru under drizzly wet skies rolled out of our driveway and headed for London's University Hospital.  Kelly had an endoscopy appointment for 10:30 a.m.  It was an uneventful drive there and we even found a place to park in the parking garage.  Our first order of business upon entering the hospital was to retrieve Kelly's lost iPhone charging cord on the 8th floor.  From there it was down into the basement we went where she checked in for her endoscopy procedure.  I headed back up to the main floor, grabbed a Tim Hortons coffee accompanied by a carrot muffin, and elevatored myself up to the 4th floor to a quiet little sitting area right across from the elevators.  I settled into a corner for a probable two-hour stay.  I had my Apple iPod, my Bluetooth headphones, and my Kindle.  Thank heavens I had my Kindle because I could not figure out how to get myself online and I couldn't figure out how to get my iPod talking to my headphones.  Kelly had shown me how to do all this but in my world that doesn't mean anything.  By the time she finished showing me how to do things, I had already forgotten what a mini iPod was and I thought a blue tooth is what you got if you sucked on a really cold ice cube.  Oh boy, I am quite a case of bungling befuddlement when it comes to all this techy stuff.  It was noon when I glanced across the hall to the clock above the elevators.  It was high noon and I figured at 12:15 I would head back down to the basement's endoscopy department and wait for Kelly.  Imagine my surprise when my cell phone rang minutes later with a lady telling me Kelly was ready to go.  She also told me Kelly had had undergone some extra medication and she was a tad groggy.  She didn['t feel Kelly was steady enough to walk to the parking garage and told me to go get our car there and then swing down around the hospital's main entrance and a porter would bring Kelly out in a wheelchair.  So, with that, I packed up my stuff and scurried over to the elevator.  Standing with half a dozen other waiting people, one of the four elevators stopped and the door opened.  There must have been about 500 people stuffed in there.  Cheeks puffed out, eyes bulging, and blank stares on their reddened faces.  We all waited, waited, and waited for the next elevator.  That was enough for me as my patience drained away and I hustled around the corner where I knew the steps to be.  Down those concrete steps I hurried counting all 68 steps along the way to the main floor.  I knew the Gremlins were now upon me and for sure would go out of their way to trip me up on my rush to get over to the hospital's main entrance.  Next was the parking garage dreaded payment machine.  I don't know what happened there but it certainly wasn't normal.  I didn't have a single problem with it.  What!!  Buoyed by my unforseen stroke of luck I quickly grabbed one of two elevators and headed up for the parking garage's 4th floor.  Or did we park the car on the third floor.  Surely not the fifth.  Out of the elevator on the fourth floor, I quickly headed for the opposite corner of the garage where I knew we had parked.  Almost there I didn't think it looked right.  The Subaru wasn't quite where I thought it was.  I clicked the 'unlock' button on the Fob and listened for Subies distinctive  'beep-da beep beep.'  Nothing, tried it again, nothing.  I wheeled around and headed back in the direction of the elevator.  Obviously I was on the wrong level.  Then I stopped, 'wait a minute' I thought.  What if I just walked around the corner up the slight grade and tried the Fob again.  That's what I did and somewhere out of sight around the corner I heard 'beep-da-beep beep'  Yesireeee, there was Subes right where I had parked her.  Now, to get myself out of the parking garage.  Round and round and round and round I went until finally there it was...the Exit.  Knowing the Gremlins weren't far away I thought for sure they would hang me up here at the Exit machine.  I knew for sure that after inserting my ticket into the machine, the arm wouldn't go up and let me out.  That's what happened last time we tried to exit the parking garage a few weeks ago.  Meltdown!!  I nervously pulled up to the machine, stuck my ticket in the slot, and the yellow arm went up so fast it almost went into orbit.  What the heck!!  From here it was only a few hundred yards to the hospital's main entrance.  I thought for sure by now Kelly would be out front pacing up and down the sidewalk waiting for me.  Nope, no sign of her.  It was the usual traffic chaos and it wasn't until I had made my fourth congested stop and go pass around the traffic circle that I snagged a 'No Parking' spot.  Still no Kelly but then all of a sudden here she came with Porter pushing her along in a wheelchair.  Once in the car, we didn't waste any time in getting away from that area.  It was evident right away that Kelly was in pain.  It had not been an easy endoscopy she said.  They banded one Varices in her throat and found a gastric ulcer in her stomach.  She said both her throat and stomach were hurting from the probing endoscopy.  Despite that, she insisted we stop at a grocery store near the Masonville Mall called, Farm Boy  I went in with her and pushed a shopping cart around as Kelly slowly (teetered) around the store picking up a few groceries here and there.  We also picked up a couple turkey sandwiches to eat on the way home.  After about 20 minutes we made our way back to the car and quickly headed out of London making fast tracks for home.  Raining all the way I might add.  We were sure glad to get home and Pheebs was sure glad to see us home as well.  Now, because of that gastric ulcer, Kelly is on two more medications.  These are not easy times for her and they want her back for another endoscopy in four weeks time.  She has more courage and fighting spirit than anybody I know.......................        

 IT WAS A GRAY DRIZZLY DRIVE TO LONDON AND BACK 

 THIS WAS MY QUIET LITTLE CORNER OF THE WORLD FOR A WHILE EARLIER TODAY

 ALTHOUGH I COULDN'T GET ANY MUSIC IN MY HEADPHONES THEY AT LEAST DEADENED THE HOSPITAL NOISES AROUND ME AS I SAT HERE QUIETLY READING MY KINDLE

 WALKING INTO FARMBOY THIS AFTERNOON

CHOWING DOWN ON MY TURKEY SANDWICH

 KELLY ON HER iPHONE DOING WHATEVER IT IS THAT PEOPLE DO ON THEIR SMART PHONES

Al's Music Box:)) Woman is a song written and performed by English singer John Lennon from his 1980 album Double Fantasy. The track was chosen by Lennon to be the second single released from the Double Fantasy album, and it was the first Lennon single issued after his murder on 8 December 1980.  The B-side of the single is Yoko Ono's song "Beautiful Boys".  Lennon wrote "Woman" as an ode to Ono and to all women.  The track begins with Lennon whispering, "For the other half of the sky", a paraphrase of a Chinese proverb, once used by Mao Zedong.  In an interview for Rolling Stone magazine on 5 December 1980, three days before his murder, John Lennon said that the song "came about because, one sunny afternoon in Bermuda, it suddenly hit me what women do for us. Not just what my Yoko does for me, although I was thinking in those personal terms ... but any truth is universal. What dawned on me was everything I was taking for granted. Women really are the other half of the sky, as I whisper at the beginning of the song. It's a 'we' or it ain't anything." In that same interview, Lennon said that "Woman" was his most Beatlesque song on Double Fantasy and that the track is a "grown-up version" of the Beatles song "Girl". On 5 June 1981, Geffen re-released "Woman" as a single as part of their "Back to Back Hits" series, with the B-side "(Just Like) 'Starting Over'.  In the United Kingdom, "Woman" replaced Lennon's 1971 track "Imagine" at number 1.

ONE THING I KNOW FOR SURE IS THE OLDER I GETS THE MORE WORSER I LOOKS

GROANRSER  CORNER:((  After 30 years of wondering why he didn't look like his younger sister or brother, the man finally got up the nerve to ask his mother if he was adopted.  "Yes, you were, son," his mother said as tears came to her eyes, "but it didn't work out, and they brought you back."

-----------------------------------------

There are two things on earth that are universal: hydrogen and stupidity.
There are two ways to slide easily through life: to believe everything or to doubt everything; both ways save us from thinking.

There has been an alarming increase in the number of things you know nothing about.

There has been opposition to every innovation in the history of man, with the possible exception of the sword.

There is a coherent plan in the universe, though I don't know what it's a plan for.

There is a right way, a wrong way, and my way to do everything.

There is absolutely no substitute for a genuine lack of preparation.

There is always one more bug.

There is always one more idiot than you counted on.

There is no evidence to support the notion that life is serious.

There is nothing so habit-forming as money.

---------------------------------

===============================

                            Al's Art Gallery:))