Sunday, June 24

This is the end of the week when I had clinic only once, on Monday, June 18. We've spent the week just taking care of me--walking for exercise, going out to eat,going shopping, driving about. It's time to get back to "real life." we are hoping that the doctor tells me tomorrow that I am well enough to be released to the care of my nephrologist. Of course I will need weekly clinic visits in Arkansas, but it will be a lot easier--and less expensive--if we can do it up there rather than staying in this $350 a week apt. Plus we are paying for eating out, we need to buy things that are duplicates of what we have at home,etc. I continue to feel great, for which I thank God often. I have my old energy level back, and I walk faster and longer than Ramiro, whose sciatica has been bothering him. He will need some medical attention when we go back home. I know he's been setting aside his concerns so as not to interfere with the care he gives me. I've been trying to do more around here to show him how much better I feel. Before the surgery, and once I was released from the hospital, he treated me like a porcelain doll, afraid I'd hurt myself if I lifted a cup. He took on all my chores and tasks and shouldered his as well. It's not fair to him, especially now that I'm able to take care of myself and some of the household tasks as well. One day this week we went to Trader Joe's which opened its first store in Texas here in Ft. Worth just a few blocks from our apartment. The first few days that it was open, the streets were lined with cars of shoppers, and the parking lot was packed, with cops directing traffic and keeping order. Ramiro, who has great "parking karma" found a space right by the front door. This Traders is smaller than the one we went to in Santa Fe, and didn't seem to have as many salt-free foods as we found in SF. There were a lot of "gourmet items" that we'd like to try, but we can't take much in the way of frozen food, and we prefer Central Market any to Trader Joe's. We are planning to make a last minute shopping excursion to Central Market to pick up coffee,tortillas, and several steaks and other meats and produce that you just can't get in Arkansas. I did find some "two buck Chuck" (Charles Shaw) white wine, but they were out of the red. However, CM carries Shaw wine, so I'll pick some up there. I'm not drinking wine yet, but will ask at clinic next week. Friday we went to the Flying Fish for dinner and loved it-it's just like Aw Shucks or BiG Shucks in Dallas, which we really liked. I ordered a lb of boiled crawfish, but it took me about an hour to peel them. They were good, but more work than they were worth. I was so "enchilada" from the cajun seasonng that we had to go to CM for some gelato to take off the burn! We sat on the CM patio and listened to some music, enjoying a very pleasant evening. Saturday we went to the NortheastMall, which hasa Nordstrom's. I bought a pair of girl's size 3 shoes that fit perfectly! The solution to my shoe problem of not finding small enough shoes I the women's section! The mall is good sized, and we walked a lot. We lunched at Ghengis Grill for the first time. Pretty good. We went to Granbury today with my BIL and SIL Guero and Connie. Since Guero is a realtor, he was able to get us into Pecan Plantation, a gated community that is very nice and has good security. We saw about 5 condos, ranging from $57000 to $90000 (this last one was fully furnished, and very nicely so). If only the lake house would sell...we had two more showings yesterday, according to our realtor. That makes 52 showings in the year and nine months that it's been on the market. And not a single offer or bite, not even a low ball offer. what we'd like to do is get a condo out there and spend our winters there, then summers in Arkansas, at least until the market improves enough for us to sell our golf course house. Tomorrow when we go to clinic, if the doctor doesn't release me to the care of Dr. Moulton, we are going to ask if it would be ok for us to travel up there at least for a few days this week. That way we can haul one load of stuff up there, check on the house, and get a feel for what it's like to be home again. Then we would come before the weekend, to be back in time for clinic next week. Let's see what happens. The couple from Pampa, TX came back from a visit home yesterday. I had suggested that we could maybe go out to dinner when they got back on the weekend, but wife had said she wanted to stay through Sunday so she could go to her Sunday school class, but guess they changed their minds. We saw him today when we went for our evening walk. He is a mechanical designer for National Rig, an oil field supplier. He is thin as a rail, bearded, and looks like a hillbilly. And today he mentioned that he has a pretty large gun collection--my boss Jim would be asking him all about it! Not much else to tell.