Slips, shopping, funeral planning

Friday morning I found out about a friend of mine who was in the hospital in Amarillo with a broken hip. He is a little older than me but not by much. I tracked down the contact information and gave him a call. He gave me the detail on what happened that put him where he was. On Friday morning last week at about 3 a.m. he was wakened by one of his grandchildren rushing into their master bathroom. The daughter and grandchildren had come over early for Thanksgiving and had all gotten some sort of stomach bug.


He went on to say about the same time he got the same urge and since his bathroom was occupied he rushed to the nearest hallway bath. His daughter was in there holding on to the toilet. The only bathroom left was at the end of the hall by the kitchen so he made a mad dash for it only to find one of the younger children had not quite made it to the pot in their attempt to relieve the nausea.

Too late he realized the tile floor was slick with the remains of that failed attempt and his feet shot out from under him and he landed hard on his left hip. He said he heard something crack – it was no the tile. After making a bigger mess of the area he dragged himself back to his bedroom and got cleaned up - with much help. Then, he told me, he made one of the worst decisions possible relative to his injury, he dragged himself back into the bed.

About an hour later, because he was completely unable to more, he was transported to the hospital where the x-rays proved inconclusive. He explained what had happened, what he had heard and what he had felt, concluding that something broke and it was not the tile in the bathroom. A cat scan proved him right. A metal plate and three screws later, he is on the mend.

Mama, Victoria and I went to Trade Days on Saturday. I was expecting to buy the door for the apartment so I had set aside the cash for that. I also took along a little extra since you never know what can be found in the many booths. Turns out that Victoria found a desk for her computer and I found an old wooden bucked about the size a person would have used as a lunch box. It even had the original lid with it. Victoria’s desk was $20 and my little wooden bucket was $5. The door was $220. We feel like we did pretty well.

We also found some pigs that we took Grandpa back to see. Mama and I thought they were a bit small for twelve weeks old but they seemed pretty healthy other than being a little small. Grandpa thought differently. He saw that they were malnourished and dehydrated. He even diagnosed them with some sort of lice. Needless to say, we passed on them. He and Mama will go to the sale in Gainesville on Tuesday and see what can be found there. All that happened before 10 a.m.

Later that day Mama and I went to Sam’s and Costco. We took an alternate route to Costco and on the way we passed a rustic furniture store. There Mama found the bed she would like to have and I have to admit it was priced fairly at $450 for the King size model. We also found some cedar furniture that we would like to get but probably will not. One of those “that would be nice if..” items.

At church Sunday morning we got there fairly early and got into a discussion with some of the older women there about music to be played at a funeral. One of the ladies, Lola, now seventy five years old, had been to a funeral on Saturday and had heard two lovely songs she was adding to her list of songs to be played at her funeral. By what one of her long time friends was telling that put the total up to about fifteen. “”You’re gonna have to trim that down, Lola.” She scolded, “We’re not taking up a whole day just to bury you. You’ve got thirty minutes. Tops!”

“How about a drive through funeral?’ another dear friend added, “If you have it on a Saturday we could honk and wave and just go on about our business.” “No”, Lola instructed, “I think I am going to have a funeral rehearsal so I can sit on the front row and see how everything is going to turn out. After all I am the guest of honor and I won’t get to enjoy a minute of it. I especially want to know what the preacher is going to say.” “Maybe” her friend corrected, ”you’re forgetting that you are going to be the only dead person there.”

It was all done in jest and we were all laughing, but it was one of those moments when you knew you were around family.