By Loretta Humble
If this column doesn’t make much sense, I’ll admit it won’t be the first one. But this time I have an excuse: I just got a big knot on my head. I mean, I saw white light and heard strange noises. I don’t know if I was headed for the light, but if I was, they didn’t take me in. I woke up in about a second. I did get a lot of attention out of it, as I did it right in the front parking lot of Cedar Lake Nursing Home. Actually it was kind of spectacular, as I fell flat on my back, on the concrete, and just lay there for a minute before I was discovered.
I had my hands full with two plates of scraps for my dogs, and I was trying to open the very back door of my old SUV without putting them down. I just lost my balance and went down. Of course, if you are going to hurt yourself, the nursing home is a good place to do it. I was soon surrounded by nurses, who took good care of me and wouldn’t let me move around until they had watched me for a long time. That was yesterday afternoon. This morning my knot is gone, and I think I’m as good as new, but now I have to write a column quick, so this did at least help me fill a couple of paragraphs.
Then I guess I can tell you that I had a great Thanksgiving, and hope you did too. As usual, I had several. I think I made a whole column last year out of telling you about every one of them. I’m just going to tell you about two this year. If this bores you, please excuse me. Remember, I had a serious blow to the head, just yesterday. The first was in Longview, with Carl’s daughter Jodi, her mother and step-father, and Jodi’s kids. Seriously delicious food, and way too much. The star of the day was Carl’s granddaughter Melia, who was expecting a baby any minute. But she held off two more days, and has now produced a beautiful little boy named Kadron Zane, suddenly lifting Carl into great-grandfather status.
But my favorite Thanksgiving get-together was the one at my house with most of my family this Sunday. I made the biggest pot of gumbo I’ve ever made. And it was delicious, if I do say myself. We stuffed ourselves, played games, laughed a whole lot and had a wonderful time. I guess there’s not much unique about it to tell, except I learned there is a free iPhone app called “Head’s Up!” where you hold your phone to your forehead, and a word comes up, and someone gives you clues and you have to guess them in a limited time. It really is hilarious, whether my descriptions tells you that or not. You might want to try it.
Okay, maybe all the above is pretty boring to you, but this might interest you: I don’t know if I can tell the details yet or not, so I’m just going to tell you a little. Somebody just gave the Garden Club a very nice check. Enough, combined with the “O’Keeffe!” money to fix the porch, and probably the fence too, if we are careful. I’m pretty sure I’ll have the whole story next week.
Plus, there is another part of this story. Someone is coming to stay at the farm, who, even though he is disabled, believes he will be able to do a lot of the work required to fix those things at the Bartlett House. Free. If that is true, it will stretch our funds a whole lot further. We’ll see what happens with this. It is exciting that both things are happening at the same time.
Stay tuned. I’ll have more on this next week.