Columbus OH

Bobbi continues her surprisingly uneventful recovery - even though she is not the most compliant patient. By Christmas Day (Saturday) she was well enough for Lew to attend the ASL mass - and pick up the goodies (a fruit cake and a hand-carved wooden vase) her friend had prepared for her. Lew also brought her communion.

As behooves two antiques whose house is crammed to the rafters with the offal of years of collecting and inability to throw anything away, gifting was pretty abstemious. Bobbi's sister and brother-in-law dropped by long enough to gift us with two small chocolate cream pies and a religious coffee table book - at least the pies will not last long, and will quickly disappear down the drain and in the trash. Brother Luther gifted us with fruit - from Florida. Scott sent us a CD, but currently it is lost among all the other "stuff".

That evening Paul prepared Xmas dinner for us - vegan, and delicious. We made the usual phone calls around to Linda, Luther, and Scott - all of whom were doing well. Our friend Johnny Wanko made his call also - we had not spoken to him in many months, and it was wonderful to be oriented again, though regrettably Johnny's wife is badly crippled by osteoarthritis from years of being overweight.

Columbus OH

Brief medical bulletin:

Bobbi continues to do well on her fourth post-op day. Yesterday was the peak of her pain, and today it is beginning to taper off. So she is cheating on some of her medical precautions (like sitting in a chair for over an hour). Lew had to get prescriptive, but Bobbi always resents that.

Lew is doing better, recovering somewhat from the pain engendered by his long time upright on Friday. Still no fun. He continues to take the first shift (9-9).

Paul also is doing well, very attentive to Bobbi. His back has not been so affected by this episode. Of course, he takes the second (vampire) shift.

Stay tuned.

Columbus OH

OK. I paid perfectly good money (most of it not my own) training to be a physician, and it wouldn't be fair to hold me responsible for the result - time for another medical report.

Bobbi got a new hip Friday, while Paul took care of the pets and the house, and Lew sat in un-orthopedic chairs putting extra strain on his back. Part of my sick perspective is that Bobbi got the best part of the deal - except for the orthopod who got paid a substantial sum, and the appliance manufacturere who got paid a whopping big sum - both out of the 15% of my salary that was set aside for 50 years just for this occasion.

Bobbi came through it in fine shape, sitting up and smiling when at the end of the day the authorities finally let me into her room. It did not require any part of that expensive training to tell that she was feeling no pain. In fact, the staff got her up and out of bed, and she walked a short distance that very afternoon. So the many people who offered up prayers for her are rewarded.

Paul traded off with Lew for the evening shift, and in fact the staff found him a nice rollaway bed so he could sleep in Bobbi's room that night: private duty nurse, unpaid.

Unfortunately, the day of standing, walking long distances, or sitting in unorthopedic chairs left Lew (neurotic that he is) with what he was convinced was excruciating pain in his legs. Paul was kind and understanding enough to wheel him downstairs to the valet parking to pick up the car (driver's seat fortunately very supportive). Back at the house he serviced the pets, ate, and fell into bed.

On Saturday morning Lew did the necessaries (like picking up more medication for one of the dogs), then relieved Paul for the afternoon.

Bobbi was even better than the previous day, sitting, smiling, trying to relieve her boredom by reading the paper. There was business to settle and emails to answer (of course the hospital had WiFi). And after supper, Paul once again took the night shift.

Lew had a restless and painful night, but the pain eased some after he got up to take care of the pets and eat. And that's where we are at the moment. Bobbi is scheduled to return home today, though I've heard nothing more from the hospital. That works on Lew's neurotic insecurity, since there are all sorts of arrangements that need to be made to ready the house for her convalescence - not the least of which is a hospital bed. Neurotic Lew distracts himself by writing this note and chews his fingernails (figuratively) and obsesses about whether he will be the next surgical candidate.

************

Completely unrelated, but I think a caution well worth passing on. While all this was going on OSU announced that their computers had been hacked, and someone made off with the personal records (including names, birthdates and even SS numbers) for 730,000 faculty and contractors, present and former. The hack was made and discovered in October, but OSU waited until now to reveal it so they could hire "experts" (remember, OSU has a large computer sciences department with a relationship to IBM that extends back into the early 1950's) to verify the damage. The university then backpedaled furiously with platitudinous and utterly impossible reassurances that no one's identity had been compromised - but even though the university was confident that no one's identity had been compromised, someone would pay for identity insurance for the 730,000.

I know the lessons are obvious, but bear with my stating them explicitly: (1) no computer that ever attaches to the internet can ever be secure; corollary = there is no way to make one truly secure; (2) Google knows everything.

Merry Christmas and a happy 21st century to everyone!

Columbus OH

Things have been relatively quiet during the current period.  Lew has continued using his free time for genealogy, slowly posting results to Genii (http://www.geni.com/family-tree -- "The franke Family").  Unfortunately, he has come to the point where he really can go no further back.  

Lew has been unable to trace Louis Franke's ancestors any further back than the fifth century. Beyond that point, records have been lost to such an extent that even imperial ancestors can be followed back for only a very few generations.  The problem is not that there are no relationships recorded, but rather that too many were recorded in records that were neither contemporary nor reliable, and do not agree.  In other words, while the Gaullish ruling elite of the fifth century almost certainly is descended from senatorial families (among others), consensus records establishing the specific lines simply no longer exist.  But we will persist with what we can -- there undoubtedly are interesting things along some of the sidelines.

Medical Report:  of course, Bobbi's hip continues to pain her, and she sustains with opiates.  The 17th is getting closer, so then we will have some resolution.  She is looking forward to having her own private duty nurse (Paul) once again, and we all are hoping that this will be just a repetition of her first two uncomplicated procedures.

Lew's back continues to pain him, and he has made an appointment with an orthopod who is noted for doing everything possible to avoid a fusion.  But he also started going back to his original PT, and now that he has made an appointment with the orthopod, his back has improved significantly.  So perhaps between the two, he may avoid the fusion for a bit longer -- hopefully.

Columbus OH

Finally, some real news.

I finally overcame my torpor and developed a little initiative.  

As I have explained before, Yahoo arbitrarily closed down it's Geocities service last year -- which of course took my former family history site down with it.  This did not disturb me too greatly because I assumed that with so many other relatives interested in family history, and with so many free genealogy services available today, one or the totality of my relatives long ago would have replaced and indeed improved upon my primitive site -- it  had been, after all, 15-year-old technology.  

But recently I went looking for some of that family info.  Lo and behold, I couldn't find it anywhere.  It was as if the Fran(c)kes and all the rest of my huge tribe never existed.  Even Google didn't know.

So I resolved to restore the data to the internet, with a few simple modern improvements.  

• First, I reserved a site on Google sites, thought up an overall format, and set out chapter headings for an (over-)ambitious narrative.  Of course at this point the chapters were empty, but that will give me something to do on cold winter nights.
• In the 15 year since I first set up my Geocities offering, genealogy sites have proliferated.  Some of them allow people to post their family trees, and one (Geni) makes the intriguing promise to link one's local family tree to all the others  around the world.  And their display is colorful.

This was not something I could pass up.  I went to Geni and immediately started to post the family tree data from my old Geocities site.  With the additional space Geni provided I was able to add all the (deceased) relatives I could remember, including all the people that were related by marriage.  I also was able to add all the entries my mother had teased out of the Latter Day Saints library in Salt Lake City, thirty years ago, my paternal grandmother 50 years ago, and others even further back.  All this gave me enough of a base to pluck additional data from the the internet: Wikipedia, Google, ancestry.com, and all the rest.  Indeed, I have reached the point where there is no end to it all -- the more people I add, the more there are to add.

Now I know some relatives have privacy concerns.  So let me assure everyone that I've not added any information about any living relative, nor information that I have received from any living relative.  The core of this tree is the same one I published 15 years ago on Geocities, and the additions have come primarily from my mother's gleanings and various internet reference services.  It is all public information available to anyone with an internet connection and the initiative to go chase it -- no secrets here.

So now the tools are there.  I passionately hope first, that the other genealogists in this impressively extended family will read this entry, and then be irresistibly inspired to add to these beginnings.  Maybe Geni's grandiose goals really can be reached.

++++++++++++++++++

Just for medical followup:  

• Bobbi remains on the surgery schedule for 17 December and is attending Physical Therapy several days a week in preparation.  
• Lew also attends PT in his continuing attempt to evade the knife.  
• Smokey continues to heal according to schedule, not even noticing the results of his surgery.  But he still is lazy.  
• Finally, our little calico kitty has joined the ranks of the patients.  For the past few months she has acted just like a human patient with an inhalant allergy -- runny, sniffly nose, watery eyes, bouts of sneezing around sunup and sundown.  She sounded miserable.  So we let the local vet take a few tries at straightening her out, without success.  We got a specialist referral -- he did a very thorough (=expensive) workup with CT scan, numerous chemistries, and even anterior and posterior rhinoscopy.  All the news was relatively good -- her nose was inflamed, but he found to tumors, foreign bodies, or other ominous things.  The chemistries and the biopsies are not back yet, so we wait...

Hopefully all of you are in better health than we and will be able to enjoy a festive holiday season.  Hopefully we'll also add at least one more entry before then -- just don't hold your breath.

        Peace and Love from two aging hippies.

Columbus OH

Complainers never are very attractive; unfortunately, post by post, that is what this blog has degenerated into.  I realize that no one wants to read about "I hurt...I'm feeling sick", but I've not yet figured out what to do about it - neither  creativity nor patience were among the gifts given to me (is that another complaint?).

But -- two more weeks have passed.  There certainly has been progress, but it would be lying to label it pleasant progress.  I suppose the big news is that we took Smokey to the clinic for his knee surgery on the evening of Monday the 18th, the surgeons cut him the morning of the 19th, and we brought him home the next day.  It's true he was medicated - but came back acting like nothing had happened, for which we are grateful.  Oh, he did limp a bit, and for a few days he avoided bearing weight on the operated limb, but from the time he saw us in the clinic he acted happy, pranced around, and jumped up (a bit) despite the diminishing limp.  He ate well - gained 2 pounds in 2 weeks!  And he never took the first lick at his incision.  We never even had to use the C-collar, just watched him constantly.

So it was a great shock last night when we woke and heard the ominous sound of licking.  Now Smokey has had bad skin for years - the moist folds (groin and axillae) have an intractable tendency to become infected, so that it seems he is on antibiotics more than he is off.  On the possibility that the condition might be exacerbated by a food allergy he has been on prescription food and semi-weekly medicated baths.  But nothing ever stopped it completely.  We always knew when the infection had returned because he started licking the infected area.  And last night it struck again - we woke and heard that licking sound.  Of course initially we immediately panicked that he had started to lick at the incision.  But when we turned on the light, instead we found his chest wet.  On further examination, his 2 axillae were inflamed and crusted with the infection, as was his chest in between - but thank God, the incision was untouched. 

We trimmed the hair over the lesions and cleaned them, spraying with an antibiotic solution.  We put a C-collar on him, fastened it securely, and went back to bed for a fitful sleep.  After we had gotten up in the morning, walked the dogs, and everyone breakfasted, we took him back to the specialty clinic where the surgery had been done.  A vet checked him over and opined that his incision was uncontaminated, but upgraded the antibiotic regimen and reminded us of the importance of keeping the collar on him (which we will do any time we can't keep continuous eyeball contact with him).

The humans aren't faring quite as well as the pets.  Bobbi's bad knee cut into her work and even her church attendance.  Lew's low back pain increased progressively until today he was unable to attend the ASL mass.  Can he avoid the knife?  We'll see.

Outside the medical area, life has been pretty low-key - there has been little time or energy for anything else.  When Lew has not been caring for the animals, he has worked on genealogy, collaborating with his aunt Irene.  Several times he was interrupted by phone calls from Dayton to straighten out prescribing issues for a rural patient.  Not hard, simply difficult to get everyone and everything coordinated.

Positives?  Bobbi continues her gratifying church involvement - though in light of her hip condition she has been overdoing both the time and the energy commitment.  Lew finds that boredom is exacerbated by pain - but we have had enough excitement.  Boring may be therapeutic.

Columbus OH

Another week of enforced sedentarism, but busy nevertheless, mostly with medically-related activity.  Smokey got his medicated baths on Monday and Thursday.  He saw the orthopod on Wednesday and was immediately put on the surgery schedule for this next Tuesday, the 19th.  Thursday Bobbi saw her orthopod for what originally was scheduled to be a followup on her knee replacement, but became mostly planning for his hip replacement.  Friday Lew held a clinic for Deaf patients in Dayton, then spent all of Saturday and today writing progress notes.  Today while Lew typed progress notes, Bobbi was in the prison hospital with her ministry.  

So here we are, end of week - looking forward to: more medical stuff.  If we don't get out of this rut...

Columbus OH

Seems to me that it is about time to abandon the pretense that this is a travelog.

Wednesday Bobbi' left hip was examined by the orthopod who specializes in replacing hips and knees - in fact, he is the one who replaced her right knee.  Not unexpectedly, he scheduled her for the hip replacement on 14 December.  Allowing some time for her to recover enough for even the gentlest travel, this one threatens to wipe out our winter vacation just like our summer one went down the tubes.  And that is gambling that I won't need back surgery - I wouldn't take odds on that.

Smokey, the shepherd-collie mix with the bad rear joints, goes to the veterinary orthopod on Wednesday.  It is almost certain that he will have surgery, the only question being "when".  He too will have a prolonged recovery, made more unpleasant by having to wear the collar.  But depending on how everything works out, he well may be able to travel before Bobbi.

So it may be a while before we see the road again.  Instead of a travelog, this has become a static-log.  That being the case, perhaps we can use the blog for keeping people updated.  In the meantime, I guess I will devote my time to genealogy - so look to that website for more changes.  

To this end, I have taken the Geocities site that Yahoo closed down, and at have transferred some of the files to Google.  The main stem page is up, and I am in the process of adding other information that I have in my (paper) files as they have been augmented by the documents which Luther has furnished to me from our mother's legacy.  This time, I will bow to the inevitable and in order to make the data available to the widest audience (as well as to encourage people to add to the family tree) put the data into a GEDCOM file instead of the previous set of HTML files.  

Currently that file is posted at here for Louis Franke.

Hopefully, if we cannot travel, at least we can do that.  It will keep me busy and off the streets.

Columbus OH

Did we mention that everyone is sick?  Everyone!

Added to the last sick list:

A month or two ago the small calico cat started showing a URI that never cleared.  If anything, it slowly got worse.  The vet looked, took a blood sample, and reported high titers for bartonella.  No point in our describing the disease here - anyone who is curious can resort to Wikipedia.  We are not too anxious here - it is supposedly transmitted by flea bites, and all our animals are constantly treated with Frontline or the equivalent (vet says kitty probably picked it up before she adopted us).  Not easily transmitted to humans - and even when it is, not usually a threat in immunocompetent persons.  But we will have to treat her with antibiotics for a while - how long, the vet has not yet said.

Then on the human side Bobbi had been having increasing left hip pain for a couple of months now.  A plain AP film a month ago wasn't diagnostic, but an oblique film today clearly showed osteoarthritis.  Since she now must take excessive opiates to manage the pain, she faces another surgery as soon as she can get on the schedule.  At least the recovery is projected to take less time than her last two.

The invalids still are.  The large dog is still waiting to get on the canine surgery list.  The black cat finally was diagnosed as IBD (irritable bowel disease).  His emesis cleared up for a couple of weeks with a diet change and a tapering course of steroids.  However, he is out of the steroids, and guess what - he puked tonight.

Lew's back pain continues, pretty much unchanged.  No one is talking surgery - yet - but neither is he running races or lifting weights.

So at this point travel definately is on hold again.  Indeed, there is every  possibility we will not even make it to see the grandchildren before the end of March.

Once again, all we can say is: stay tuned.

Columbus OH

Everybody is sick.

We took Smokey (dog) to the vet this afternoon because he has been limping badly for a number of days.  We knew he had bad hips, and feared he faced a hip replacement.  However, the vet said he had blown his other knee (right) and of course still needed surgery.  She reassured us that a new procedure had been developed which was more satisfactory anatomically, but equally expensive.  And the Deaf girl continues to give him medicated baths twice a week.  Oh well.

Lucky (the black cat) did better over the weekend on his daily injections of antinauseant and acid inhibitor - has not vomited once since they were started.  So while we were at the vet we picked up more medication for him too.  The vet is going out of town, so she was preparing us to last a few days until she returns next Monday.

The other cat and the other dog go on perfectly fine.  

But the humans are showing the signs of high mileage.  Lew continues to have relatively severe back pain unless he carefully avoids standing or walking for more than a few minutes.  This morning he had to renew some of his computer supplies so he could send out copies of Lydia's archives to varous relatives.  This meant he had to remain on his feet for quite some time including standing an a waiting line at the checkout.  He survived, but would have preferred to avoid the experience, and the rest of the day had to take every possible opportunity to recline.  

Bobbi too has been having fairly severe (7/10) L hip pain, and is less successful than Lew in finding a comfortable position.  Normally that would be manageable with opiates, but Bobbi has proven to be allergic to so many of the synthetic derivatives that her doctors are having problems finding an agent that will cut the pain without making her sick.  She has worked her way through all the common ones: Percocet, codeine, Vicodin, Nucynta, and even methadone.  Of course old-fashioned morphine would handle the problem without a problem, but everyone is afraid to use that for anything except terminal cancer pain.  So Bobbi continues to suffer more than is necessary - or even excusable.

So here we are again - Lew is stuck in Columbus indefinately, and very depressed.

Columbus OH

Another 3 weeks, more or less.  The delay is all for perfectly sound medical reasons, but as Lew waits for them to resolve -- and resolution conceivably could occur all at once, quite unpredictably -- all he really can do is fritter some more.  Patience is not one of his virtues, particularly when he is just plain stuck.

The good news is that Paul remains in recovery, attending his AA meetings faithfully.  Indeed, he has been asked to chair one.  He also attends school faithfully -- this afternoon he has a final.  Rob too has made enough progress to make one sit up and notice -- he has made it through the entire summer without once requiring a financial transfusion from his parents for survival.

The other news is more frustrating.  The black cat with the H. pylori finished his course of triple antibiotics a couple of weeks ago and was doing fine -- no emesis/diarrhea for the next week.  But then the emesis returned slowly -- once one day, twice the next, and do on.  In less than a week we had him back in the ER last Sunday where he once again was examined, x-rayed, and hydrated (subQ in a cat, not IV).  Nothing remarkable except an obviously inflammed bowel -- and a questionable density in the intestine.  Restored to the antibiotics, that instantly was the end of his vomiting.  He has not vomited so much as once since.  But it raises serious questions about how we are going to get him off the antibiotics.

Meanwhile big furry amiable Smokey has been progressing well.  His surgical wounds are healing well.  His medicated baths seems to have been effective.  After the first bath we discovered two places hidden way up in the folds of his pits and groin, where the bacteria had been able to hide grow and form large foul-smelling crusty colonies.  We cleaned all that out and have been obsessive about checking the pits almost daily, and the technician has very helpful also.  It turns out that she is Deaf, so we have a great time socializing each time we take Smokey in.  So far, no recurrances.

All of this is good.  However, as Paul and the animals have made progress, Bobbi seems to have slipped backwards.  Over the summer she developed pain in her left hip, but plain x-rays of the joint show no obvious arthritis.  Her orthopod wants to do an MRI (a very sensible choice given the anatomy), but the insurance company is balking, insisting that she do physical therapy first.  Of course, in the end they will have to pay for both the PT and the MRI, but their bean-counters are not sharp enough to figure that out.

Lew remains status quo.  Of course his back is still bad, but he manages to control the pain by positioning and finds no limitations on his driving -- in fact, he is willing to leave on 15 minute's notice.  Paul probably can housesit and care for the cats while we are on the road (the regular vet is only 300 ft away, the ER 30 min), but Smokey is not yet stable enough for Copper Harbor, where the nearest (and only) vet is 60 miles away.  

Reality is that after we wait a bit longer for the pets to finish convalescing and for  Bobbi's contest with the insurance company to resolve, it is likely that we will be into October.  By then Copper Harbor will be too chilly, though Eau Claire might still be a possibility.  Otherwise, we will have to look southward down the old Dixie Highway.

Columbus OH

Another 2 weeks of frittering.  The end is not in sight.

This time the hold up is the black cat.  The biopsy came back positive for helicobacter pylori -- the same bug that causes ulcers in humans (I always enjoy it when we share).  Turns out the treatment is exactly the same.  So twice a day we try to encourage a large strong cat with firm opinions that he really ought to take his medicines.  So far we have succeeded, but just barely.  But like most animals he is very forgiving -- let him up and he is our friend again, sticking to us like a puppy dog, lying next to us when we sit down.  Definitely a lover, not a fighter.  Of course we have to feed him his special diet by hand -- otherwise the little bitty calico steals it (like most calicoes, she is very domineering).  The treatment for h. pylori is protracted, so we still have a couple of more weeks.

Smokey is not without his problems either.  He continues to develop skin infections if we relax our precautions for even a day.  So while we are waiting for Lucky to finish his meds, the vet has persuaded us to give him medicated baths twice a week.  We shall see what we shall see.

Other than terminal boredom on my part, we are basically OK.  I still have a very temperamental back, Bobbi still attends Al-anon several times a week, Paul remains sober.  But we all are holding in.

Columbus OH

Still pet-sitting in Columbus.  Smokey's surgical wounds have healed slowly, but finally enough that the vet has cleared him for  travel.  So far, so good on that front.

The black cat is another story.  Since the last update, he has made two trips to the emergency room, at emergency room prices.  Followed by a trip to the veterinary internist, at specialists' prices.  Of course the internist had to order extensive lab work, at those prices.  The good news is that the chemistries all were within normal limits, the bad news that the abdominal ultrasound was not -- diffusely thickened intestinal walls.  Next stop = endoscopy.  Grossly negative, except again diffusely thickened walls.  Next stop = biopsy (pathologists' prices).  So more wait.  Since pathologists are used to patients that do not go anywhere, this wait will be another 1-2 week .  Then the next step will depend upon: benign or malignant (inflammatory bowel disease vs lymphoma).  Since the nearest vet to Copper Harbor is 60 miles away, one must be prudent.

Meanwhile, we are not in Copper Harbor, Toto.  It is way too hot and humid in Ohio -- Texas and Florida are unthinkable.  So we fritter away the time indoors, writing blogs.

Columbus OH

Only 4 days into the month -- I'm doing better (pat, pat).

But part of the reason I'm successful in producing an entry this quickly is that I'm stuck in the house, dogsitting.  It's Smokey again.  On the 24th the vet surgically removed several tumors and cysts.  So now he looks like a patchwork, with zippers made of staples in the middle of each shaved area.  Most were on his back, but a large one was on the dorsum of his right rear paw, and it was a technically difficult procedure -- stretched the skin very tight and put a lot of strain on the incision.  And while he can't reach the incisions on his back, this one is a piece of cake.  In fact, he is so flexible that he is able to stretch that limb even around an extra-large, built up collar.  So we cannot trust him even for a second, and someone must eyebell him continually.  But Bobbi and Lew do need their sleep -- so at night Smokey not only must wear the extra large collar, but Lew has to sleep with Smokey's leash in his hand so any attempt to reach that foot will wake Lew.  This is the way it has to be until at least this weekend.

As if that were not enough, yesterday the black cat we inherited from Audrey developed intractable vomiting, so he too was trundled off to the emergency room.  As of this morning the vet has excluded the most serious possibilities, in fact has been unable to find a cause for his  problem, so is treating it symptomatically.  We expect to pick him up this evening, and hope there will be nothing more to this.

Columbus OH

Gee whiz!  This interim has been so quiet there truly will be little to report.

Most of the month the Airstream has been sitting quietly on the back corner of the lot, hidden by walls on two sides and some out-of-control decorative bush overhanging the rear -- almost invisible except to Google's satellite.  But on 8 August Lew towed it up to the factory in Jackson for its usual semi-annual going-over; fortunately, no excitement, and he fetched it back on the 11th.

Things have been relatively quiet family-wise.  Rob has been positively invisible throughout the month (a little disquieting, since it is so unlike him).   Paul has assiduously applied himself to attending his AA groups and his therapy sessions.  Bobbi has been attending Al-anon meetings pretty regularly, to her intense surprised satisfaction.  She already has roped in a young lady from our church, the daughter of a friend.  And Lew has attended a few times as well.

But most of Bobbi's energy has gone into the church.  She has continued her chaplaincy at the prison hospital -- only now she wears a big badge that says "Catholic Prison Ministries" instead of her former clerical collar.  Other than that, she has changed little: still attending the same chronically ill old men, occasionally replacing the deacon to conduct services (careful to stay within the rules), still pan-handling for hygiene items for the inmates, still harassing the deputy warden for supplies, etc.  She had a fine time lunching with her former Bishop's Assistant and meeting with her former clergy cluster; both committed themselves to continuing their support of her ministry!  

The Catholic Church has many more parish activities than a Lutheran church, and Bobbi has thrown herself into them with abandon.  One of the long-time members, a former almost-nun who has been intimately involved in the activities of this Diocese all her life (she is Lew's age, fraternizes with the Bishop and all the priests), has adopted Bobbi and kind of sponsors her at the dinners, festival, and other fund-raisers in which she participates continually.  Of course, adoption means Bobbi has acquired a whole new extended family, with all their problems and accomplishments.   Very busy.

And Bobbi has continued with the closing out of her mother's estate -- a new owner takes possession of the house tomorrow.   This continues to be a wrenching experience for Bobbi -- thank goodness she has the church to support her, and Al-anon to help her deal with her feelings about her severely alcoholic maternal grandmother.  She also has continued to attend her Optifast meetings.

Lew has kept in the background with the goal of being supportive in Bobbi's ministry and grieving.  He himself has attended one planning meeting for Deaf services in Ohio, wherein everyone was frustrated because the Department of Mental Health had pulled all the funding for Deaf services, including even training programs.  No one knows where this is going to go, although the Deaf community is itself pulling together and trying to set up their own system.  Other than that, he has busied himself with history -- family and otherwise -- right now concentrating on the obscure medieval goings on in northern Germany.

Until later...

Columbus OH

It's been a very rocky ride since these snowbirds returned from a relaxing 2 months along the Gulf coast. They have been in constant 24/7 crisis mode that only now is beginning to calm down

Tuesday (6 April) Bobbi and Lew picked Paul up from the hospital -- and a friend who also was in recovery with him. As soon as Paul was home, Rob re-newed his feud with Paul. When Bobbi and Lew would not answer his phone calls, he texted Lew to try to hit him up for money. Rob came by later that same Tuesday afternoon and threatened Paul. Now some months earlier Bobbi and Lew along with Rob's therapist/advocate had agreed that Rob was to get no more money after Bobbi and Lew returned -- so Lew listened politely, but in the end responded with an unequivocal "no". But at Bobbi's insistance, Lew eventually "loaned" Rob $400 just to get him to go away and not mess up Paul's recovery. Bobbi and Lew even omitted mass due to the stress.

Four days later (the afternoon of the 10th) Rob parked in front of the house bootlegging my WiFi signal (it should be noted that there are many other Wi-Fi signals near by which Rob could bootleg just as easily). Paul needed to take his friend to Chillicothe to visit her home, but Rob refused to move. Eventually Lew had to escort them out to Paul's car and wait until they had driven off while Rob was arguing with Lew. Again, the whole scene had exhausted Bobbi so much she did not go to mass.

Paul and April returned that evening, but Paul took her to Chillicothe again on the 13th. Meanwhile, Rob tried to reach Lew by phone, but thanks to caller ID, Lew simply did not pick up. Rob left rather abusive voice mails for Lew, but he ignored those as well -- finally responding to one by texting (it's hard to interrupt and be abusive in text). Lew arranged to meet Rob in the van in Rob's parking lot on Thursday (the 15th), at which time Rob tried to intimidate Lew for more money -- which doesn't work with Lew. That evening Rob's therapist/advocate got involved, reversing his former stand and advising that Bobbi and Lew support Rob until 1 July.

In the middle of the night -- actually, early Sunday morning, the 18th -- everyone in the house noticed a great commotion outside across the street, with several police cars in front of the neighbor's house. However, it wasn't the first time this had happened, so Bobbi and Lew simply rolled over and went back to sleep. The next morning Paul told them that Rob had been sitting outside again and got into an argument with the neighbor, eventually threatening him with a knife. When Lew met Rob that afternoon (again in the van in Rob's parking lot), Rob subjected Lew to a prolonged threatening and delusional tirade (not unexpected, even when he was receiving money) denying that he had done anything, or even that he had a knife.

While all this was going on, April was progressively showing more disorientation and memory impairment. I suspected, and Paul evenually confirmed, that she had found some old medication in our medicine cabinet and had relapsed. So on 2 May Bobbi and Lew went through the entire house ferreting out every old pill they could find, eventually dissolving them, and running the fluid into the garden. At the same time Paul brought Lew the guns (April had a record of suicide attempts) and Bobbi gathered together all the fenceable items in the house. Bobbi stashed the fenceables in a safe-deposit box, while Lew stashed the guns in the Airstream. On the next Wednesday (5th), April elected to move back to Chillicothe, and Paul drove her down. But her dealer continues to phone Lew trying to get hold of her.

At the opposite pole from crises is the comfort of religion. Of course Bobbi has attended daily mass whenever the crises permitted -- she even managed to get to services on Good Friday and Easter. But more significantly, on 27 April (Tuesday) Bobbi met with Bishop Calloway of the Southern Ohio Synod of the ELCA to turn in her resignation from the ELCA clergy roster, and that evening Fr. Benecki confirmed her and received her (officially) into the Catholic Church. She already had assurances from Bishop Campbell that he would support her prison ministry. And she has been ministering gleefully in FHC since she came back. In fact, the last two Mondays she has conducted services for the Catholic Deacon.

Lew does his little part by being a eucharistic minister. But he also saw Deaf patients in Troy, Piqua, and Dayton on 5, 21, and 28 April.

On the legal front, Bobbi and Lew turned in the taxes in April, and Bobbi gave a deposition for her suit against a lady who ran a stop sign in front of us a few years ago.

Lew has duplicated Luther's DVD of photos from both the Lindner and Franke families so he can share them. They will be coming along

And for readers who may be mothers -- a happy belated Mother's Day!

Columbus OH

We arrived in Columbus about 5:30 PM Sunday, having left Corbin KY about 10:30 AM.  The drive was quite unremarkable -- this all was freeway that we had been over many times.  Neither was docking the Airstream out of the ordinary -- just the usual tight fit.

The next few days were devoted to catching up -- Bobbi once again was going  to 8 AM mass, on Monday (the 29th) we spent the day showering, doing laundry, phoning doctors (including the vet) the Chevie dealer, and the Airstream polishers.  In the afternoon Lew went to the chiropractor because his back had been acting up the last couple of weeks. 

Tuesday (the 30th) Lew spent the morning taking phone messages off the voice mail.  In the afternoon both of us drove Paul to the hospital.  Of course, we didn't get out of there until 7 PM.  By the time we returned to the house, there was time only for supper and showers before we fell in bed.

Today (the 31st) Lew picked up one of Bobbi's friends who had agreed to help with housecleaning and brought him over to the house, while Bobbi drove the van to the dealer for service.  The friend had been working with Paul during our vacation cleaning our the basement, and this day he went to work on a bedroom.  Bobbi phoned to be picked up, then got ready for a meeting at PCI (the prison).  When she returned in the middle of the afternoon, she began helping the friend with the cleaning, while Lew advised on items to be kept or discarded and caught up on accounts.

Corbin, KY

"Sadly, we left Lutz and the grandchildren behind on Friday (the 12th). The rain of the past 2 days continued, so we got a late start, making it only to Lake City. Bobbi rented a site in the Casey Jones Campground -- an experience quite without memorable features.  In other words, the campground was acceptable, but not outstanding. 

On Saturday (the 13th) we were more into the routine of travel. The weather had cleared beautifully, and we made good time until Bobbi decided to rent a site at the Chattahooche KOA. Bobbi thought this campground unusually beautiful -- piney, with widely-spaced sites, neat dark gray gravel roads and RV pads, quiet and peaceful -- one of the nicest settings we have encountered.

Sunday (the 14th)

Monday (the 15th) Vinton LA
The campground from Deliverance.

Tuesday (the sixteenth) we got an earlystart and drove through light rain most of the day. We arrived at familiar old Artesian Park RV Park about 4 PM. Various medical problems had prevented our visiting the preceding three years, so this was homecoming. The place had hardly changed at all.  

Wednesday (the 17th) we cleaned up our bodies and our clothes.

Thursday (the 18th) we went into Brenham to refill a propane tank, visit the monastery of the Poor Clares who raise the miniature horses, have supper at the Coliseum.

Friday (the 19th) we drove to cousin Mag's house in Austin to visit with here, uncle Julius (age 96!) and aunt Elizabeth (age 93!), cousin Michael and his wife Verlyn

Saturday (the 20th) Lew had to print up more prescription blanks on tamper-proof paper for one of his clients.  This was a long and arduous task for him because 

Sunday (the 21st) we visited Lew's aunt Aggie (age 90!) in San Antonio.

Monday (the 22nd) Bobbi took the van to LaRoche Chevrolet.  Lew reviewed the images Luther had scanned onto a CD

Tuesday (the 23rd) Artesian Park to Sulphur LA

Wednesday (the 24th) Sulphur LA to Picayune MS

Thursday (the 25th) Picayune to Meridian MS

Friday (the 26th) We left Meridian (and Mississippi) behind and targeted the Chattanooga West KOA .  This was a bit longer than we cared to drive, but in all the reference books we had, we could not find any campground in between -- it was as if they were prohibited in Alabama.  However, we survived another unremarkable day of following the car in front of us down the right hand lane of the interstate.

Saturday (the 27th) we got our usual late morning start (about 10:30) and tooled routinely up I-59, through Chattanooga on I-24, and on up I-75 to Corbin KY.  We stopped for a pancake lunch and to refuel about 1 PM.  We had intended to go as far as Renfro Valley, but discovered that their campground didn't open until 1 April,]\

Lutz FL

That was a hectic ride!

The first few days here were spent just setting up the basics -- ordering dog food and meds, grocery-shopping, laundry, church, servicing the van, etc. We occupied much time with phone calls: Lew phoning his sister and brother in Texas, Bobbi phoning Paul, Rob -- and especially her new friend Mary Margaret Gerlach -- all in Columbus. And we spent much time giving prayerful thanks that we have not seen a snowflake!

On the 11th (Tuesday) Lew drove the Bobbi and Scott's family up to St. Leo's Abbey. Bobbi had gone because she wanted to go through their bookshop, but we ended up going through the abbey church, taking photos with Su's camera. Bobbi started to attend morning mass daily.

The 12th (Friday) was one of those "eureka" experiences. Lew had noticed that despite the (supposedly) huge capacity that one receives on Google Sites, the webpages he had transferred there when Yahoo shut down the old Geocities site, the pages that occupied 1.5 mb on Geocities, were now occupying 38 mb on Google! Being unable to imagine why, Lew pushed the button on his browser and started looking at the source code for one of his pages. Lo and behold, initially his code was nowhere to be found. Instead, the page seemed to consist of an immense morass of obscure and recursive code -- and finally he found that buried here and there within the morass were a few lines of his original code! The remainder consisted of totally irrelevant (to Lew) hooks and esoteric HTML 4 and 5 tags that could benefit only Google. Indeed, it appeared that each page coded the entire background and template for each of the pages that needed only a few simple lines of HTML 2 code to display Lew's entire data.

Immediately, Lew was reminded of a short sequence of pages in early January from the comic strip Pearls. In that sequence, mentally challenged Larry the croc comes up with the discovery that the Zebra has a new friend who knows everything, and tells him -- "Da Google". At the same time Lew recalled the news stories about the new Google "service" Gmail -- "Buzz". "Buzz" had attracted much negative reaction because Google started it up automatically on all Gmail accounts, without telling anyone and especially without asking anyone's permission. Essentially, each time a subscriber sent an email (or did anything with the related services), "Buzz" broadcast it to everyone in the subscriber's "contacts" file. In the face of the uniformly negative publicity, Google backtracked almost immediately, but the damage to it's credibility was permanent: no computer literate person would trust Google ever again.

Because Lew did use several of those services (carefully) it was obvious that he needed to review everything that Google had on him. Fortunately, Lew always had been dubious of Google's intentions, so it turned out there was little that he had to remove. Mostly it was a case of going to the dashboard and deleting a few random items that snuck (sic!) past his prior precautions. But of course, that assumes Google has been honest about putting all it's information about a subscriber on the dashboard....

(On the 22nd, newspapers around the country carried a column about how law enforcement officers are using our cell phones as personal tracking devices, all without the knowledge or permission of their owners or the courts. Needless to say, it also is doubtful that this has escaped "Da Google" with its 20 PB of storage.)

Almost the entire next week was given over to med-surg care for Lew's computer -- including impressive transplants. For several months it's power jack had had an intermittent contact, and slowly it had gotten worse. So finally in the project to clean up his presence on the internet, he phoned Dell service (he has carried a contract with them since the unit was purchased). The oriental gentleman on the other end of the phone told him that the jack was irretrievably fastened to the mother board, so he would have to send him a replacement of the whole board!

As the reader might remember, Sunday (14th) was Valentine's day. Scott put on a renewal of wedding vows at his church, but Bobbi and Lew stayed out of it -- Bobbi because she had gone to the early service, and Lew, who habitually gets up around 9 had just made it to the later service.

The next day Su had a new drier delivered and installed. This thoroughly disrupted the day. Not that any of us really were involved in the installation, it simply was disruptive of whatever one might be doing. And after the installation, of course the ladies had to test it.

Tuesday (the 16th) Lew picked up a large bag of Smokey's hypo-allergenic dog food (kangaroo meat!) and fiddled some more with the dying computer. The next morning the technician phoned and told he would be out to change out the mother board that afternoon, between 2 and 6. Of course, he arrived at 7. He was most charming, made the change, and departed. Lew sat down to check the computer out, and discovered that the console was freezing up erratically each time the computer was booted. So at 10 pm, Lew was back on the phone to another oriental service tech. The tech dismissively informed Lew that he must have picked up a virus, but Lew pointed out that that was impossible, since Lew had not connected to the internet since the motherboard had been replaced a few minutes earlier. After arguing back and forth for about 2 hours, the technician agreed to replace not only the mother board, but the HD and the memory chips as well.

The tech had told Lew not to expect the new parts until the next week -- but the next morning Lew got an early call from the local tech promising to bring the parts out and install them that afternoon. Clearly, someone had intervened (probably the oriental man's supervisor) and deciding Dell could not afford bad customer relations, had ordered the parts shipped overnight. The local tech again promised to show up between 2 and 6, and again showed up in fact at 7. He ran the computer through a number of diagnostics that demonstrated that the HD was going, so he replaced the HD and the memory chips -- keeping the replacement mother board in hopes that this would do it. But when Lew tested it again, the console again froze up every time the computer was booted.

The next morning another phone call to the local tech, and another promise to come back that afternoon. This time he made it at 6, changed out the mother board, and this time tested the whole unit out. This time it checked out OK, and has not frozen since. While working on the unit the tech very kindly told Lew that the HD (which Lew had kept because of HIPAA) was not completely dead, could be mounted in a USB enclosure and the old files taken off of it. Although Lew had backed up the HD only 5 days before the computer quit, he decided to try this -- and was very grateful that he did, because the old HD worked just perfectly. In essence, Lew now had a completely new computer -- the mother board, memory, HD and battery were new this week, while the keyboard and the power supply had been replaced only a few months before. On top of that, he now had an external HD, a spare battery, and a spare power supply. The value of all these parts totaled substantially more than the service contract cost. Lew remains very impressed with Dell and its reliability.

Not to be outdone, on Saturday (the 20th) Bobbi finally purchased a digital camera. Completely overwhelmed by the object and its accompanying manual, she spent the afternoon being overwhelmed by the task of configuring the new purchase. The next day she got Su to help her cope, and was very pleased with the results. She now has several new photos posted, though I'm not exactly sure where.

Yesterday and today (that is, the 22nd and the 23rd) the normal pace returned -- Bobbi went to early morning mass before Lew awoke, then both checked their email and the news. Yesterday afternoon Lew worked on the taxes, and this afternoon on this blog.

And that is where we are at. Stay tuned.

Lutz FL

Well, so much for the sun and the mockingbirds.  Today the temperature may be in the 70's, but it has been raining all day.  The wind is picking up, and although I've not looked at weather.com, I presume cold air is pushing in.

We haven't accomplished any more really than any other day since we arrived.  Scott remains quite busy holding his church together (the bulletins for Sunday have not yet arrived, etc.), and Sue continues to hold other people's houses together in the morning, then does her own in the afternoon.  George arrives home a little after 2, Brian later in the afternooon.  And the dogs continue to stretch out on the beds -- not much interest in exertion, even chasing squirrels.

To Bobbi and I, these two grandchildren are model children.  Unfortunately, our own children are a different story.  Rob needs a case manager.  He managed to get his gas shut off today, the day of the worst winter storm in some years.  So he keeps phoning Bobbi trying to get her to rescue him by long distance.  Bobbi would like to find him a case manager, but to date she herself has played the role.  Fortunately, Paul has kept a low profile -- we are happy our backup house sitter has had nothing to do (she says).

Stay tuned.

Lutz FL

The sun is shining, the (mocking) birds are singing, the dogs are sleeping, it's in the upper 60's.  Life is good (living in the present).

Nothing beyond simply breathing, eating, and excreting has taken place since the last post.  The grandchildren are at school, and Su is working at her favorite house -- actually an excuse for playing with their two large Great Danes.  We are surfing mindlessly.  After two years, this is well worth celebrating. 

Now if only I could stop spilling chocolate on my shirts.

Lutz FL

We did it!

Bobbi spent Tuesday (26th) throwing stuff into the Airstream and the van -- starting from scratch (she hadn't had anything in it for two years).  She continued the next morning, and to Lew's astonishment, she was ready to hit the road by 1:30 PM!

As usual, it was down OH-315 to I-71 south to I-275 (clockwise) to I-75 south as far as the Horse Park outside of Lexington KY.  Since Bobbi is mainly on Optifast, there was no problem eating in the Airstream.  And since this campground had no WiFi we got to bed rather early.

Since neither of us had spent much time outside the past two years, the cold was a bit of a shocker.  But we installed the new electric blanket (a gift from one of Bobbi's friends) and turned on the electric space heater, so we were pretty comfortable so long as we stayed inside.  But since neither of us can walk very far, walking the dogs was an experience -- that we survived.

Thursday (28th) we once again repeated our last two trips down I-75, staying at the KOA in Sweetwater TN.  We were rather apprehensive because we knew a winter storm was bearing down on our tail, went to bed early and got up early the next morning to be on the road as soon as possible.

However, the day proved anticlimactic.  We stayed on I-75 through the center of Atlanta -- a truly frightening experience.  Because of the sheer bulk of the traffic that drive is downright dangerous, as well as hair-raising.  

But as soon as we left the metro area, everything calmed down and we were able to amble as far south as Perry GA before stopping at the Twin Oaks campground.  We finally breathed the traditional sigh of relief because the internet showed that we had outrun the storm, which had gone no farther than Atlanta.

Saturday (30th) we uneventfully progressed as far as Lake City FL before we hunkered down.  Sunday we slept in late again, but made it to Scott and Su's place in Lutz FL and backed into one side of their driveway.  Everyone greeted everyone else enthusiastically -- especially the dogs, who had not seen (smelled) our grandchildren in all that time.  Everyone cheerfully hugged and renewed old acquaintances, while the grandchildren walked the dogs.  There ensued a great gabfest for the rest of the evening, right through the Italian supper at a nearby restaurant.  When no one could stand any longer, we all retired.

After the grandchildren left for school, Monday (the 1st) was cleanup day -- laundering all the soiled clothes, walking the dogs, and listening to Prairie Home Companion as we worked.  Then we caught up a bit on our interneting (we had only missed one day on the trip down).  Scott had to leave for a church conference in Orlando, so we were not going to see him for a few days.

Today (Tuesday the 2nd) was very domestic -- doing our email, housesitting for Su, and finally catching up on this blog.  However, we did go out in the afternoon to look over the nearby Catholic church and to pick up some groceries.  

So now we are up-to-date.  Stay tuned.

Columbus, OH

Sunday.

No change.  This morning Bobbi showed a backup housesitter the ropes.  This afternoon she watched the Colts play the Jets.  And this evening she went to a church function.   It's 10 pm and she just got back.

Columbus, OH

Friday.  

Progress.  Wednesday we took Saphire to the vet, Bobbi and Paul went to Sam's Club.  Yesterday, Bobbi made her last visit to prison -- and as usual was frustrated by the custody staff.  Today she had her first confession and  we picked up our  medications.

Tomorrow: mass and spaghetti dinner.  Bobbi still has to pack.  Stay tuned, we still could use the prayers.

Columbus, OH

Things are moving ahead, but still aren't going the way I plan.  Based on the recent record, I'm too embarrassed to make any predictions or promises whatsoever.

So, this is where things stand.  I had planned to leave for the Gulf Coast on 1 January.  The van had been serviced and checked from stem to stern, and received a clean bill of health.  The Airstream likewise had been to the factory in Jackson Center, and also gone over completely by the same mechanic who always services our coach.  My side of the coach was all packed, ready to go.  Insurance premiums all had been paid, the generator had its oil changed.  

But Bobbi had a few extra things to do -- since recovering from her knee replacement she had become heavily involved in church activities.  I knew what was coming when she was not packing.  Ever since the first of the year she has been on a frantic round of activity at the church and the prison -- where the hospital was being moved to a completely new building.  Even her exercises (and mine) were not getting done.  Worst of all, she really wasn't accomplishing anything, rather just generating anxiety and conflict with fellow workers and parishioners.

But she has promised to turn over a new leaf and take a real vacation from the whole mess.  So she is promising to take the dogs on one last run-through at the vet, a supply trip to Sam's Club, and to start packing her clothes and supplies in the Airstream's lockers.  She has set this weekend as a goal for her departure.  Prayers are in order.