Wednesday 30th October

We have had thunderstorms and very heavy rain on and off all day, so I haven't been water walking as the pool is closed in thunderstorms.

It looks like it might get better though for the next couple of days.

It starts off tomorrow at 65, drops to 58 at noon - when it is usually warming up - then up again to 66 at the end of the day.

 

I've been busy making little chocolate cupcakes today for the Wednesday meal.   And I took some snack size candy bars.   There are a lot more people now come for the meal, someone else brought four bags of grapes as well, and they all went.

 

I frosted them, then dipped them in milk and plain chopped up chocolate.

 

 

After supper everyone was going to carve, or paint, pumpkins.    They are very into Halloween here, everyone has been saying "Happy Halloween" for days.   After tomorrow all the Christmas things will come into the stores.

 

 

I didn't stay to paint, or carve, pumpkins.   Took this picture though of them all waiting to be done.



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tuesday 29th

Out and about fairly early this morning, dropping the flowers off at the hospital.   Since my shoulder problems I am finding everything heavy to hold, even the church hymnal, and the vase of flowers for the chapel.  Fortunately there is a golf buggy riding round the hospital car park, picking up those who can't walk far, or have heavy loads, like vases.

I decided afterwards to treat myself at IHOP - the International House of Pancakes - and had some blueberry pancakes.

I found a book in the dollar store the other day and have been avidly reading it today.  About a young Cuban lad who - with1400 other Cuban children - was airlifted out of Cuba in 1962 when he was 12, under a plan which for a time was kept secret from the Cuban government as well as the American public.   It amazed me that even Fr Clark - who thinks that Castro is the cats meow, and is very well up in anything to do with Cuba - didn't even know anything about it.

Some of the parents who sent their children away were underground fighters seeking to topple  Castro's government, which took power in January 1959. Others feared that Castro, who had closed all Catholic schools and confiscated church property, planned to indoctrinate children in special schools. And other parents simply thought that having children living in the United States would guarantee them a quick visa later.

Known as Operation Pedro Pan,  it is the largest child rescue ever recorded in the Western hemisphere. The family separations were meant to last only a few months--whenever the parents obtained visas to travel to the United States or Castro was ousted - as many Cubans at the time expected. But the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962 abruptly ended flights to and from the island, leaving the children stranded on the other side of the Straits of Florida.

The author settled very happily with foster parents and he loved the US.   His brother was also in a good home three miles away.   The foster parents expected that they would just have the children for a few months, but then came the Cuban Missile Crisis and all flights to and from Cuba ceased.   Even today people are only just being allowed to visit on special visas.

The author and his brother were removed immediately from the foster parents and sent to a very, very rough orphanage run by a Cuban.    And that is where I am at in the book.

Monday 28th October

We haven't had the thunderstorm I was expecting, I don't know if it has passed over.  I've seen the waves crashing over the Marina at Brighton.

I was just running round town this morning and I went water walking.  Pattisue rang and suggested lunch at the Bricktown Brewery.  There is a big fund raising drive going on in the town in aid of the new municipal pool, which it is hoped will open next summer, and if one presented a voucher at this restaurant today - and she had two - they would donate 7% of the cost of the meal for the pool.

There is a film she is anxious to see, it has been released but is not showing in Shawnee.  Perhaps it won't, I said I would see it with her but I am not that keen.   It is about a man - an African American - who was a slave for fifteen years.   I don't get it.   Before the Civil War African Americans were slaves for a lot longer than fifteen years.   As it is not showing I can't look up a review, and I've forgotten the title.  Pattisue has read the book.

Just spent the rest of the day watching tv and crocheting.

Sunday 27th

Nice today, bright and sunny, it was 74 as I drove through town.   Went to the 10.30 at Emmanuel.   I might go this evening to Larry's inter denominational  church.

The dog next door is still barking, and I managed to speak to the owner.  They have recently just moved in, and she said they are looking for a home for it, she said she realises it's not good to be tied up all day long like it is, but as the garden isn't fenced in, it has to be.  I said in that case I will hold off filing a citation which is what I was going to do next week (I don't know when I got so savvy)    They could take it to the Animal Welfare centre but I would prefer them to find a good home for it, so I'm prepared now to put up with the barking for a while.   It is taken in at night which I appreciate.

I haven't seen, or heard, Donna or her dogs for days.  I wondered if she looked at the police cars and animal welfare vehicles, and decided to remove her dogs from the cross hairs.

I had a call from a church member offering me her late mother's clothes because I am 'petite' (yeah, really, the perceptions here of fat and petite are totally different from ours, it is all relative).   I thanked her very graciously, I didn't want her to feel embarrassed at having asked me, but I suggested she take them to the consignment shop which will sell them, take a commission, and give the proceeds to the Emmanuel Youth Group.   She said some of the clothes are new, and still in their bags, so the Youth Group should benefit from them.

Mark fitted two very large closets in the house, and according to the Law which says our clothes expand to fit the space available to hang them, I couldn't take any more anyway.

Before leaving the subject of fat and petite - someone on television said recently that perceptions have changed as people have got bigger.  Fat is now viewed as 'chubby', and clinically obese (like taking up an entire row of airline seats) is fat.

I visited my friends Faye and Carolyn who are sharing a room in their nursing home.  Faye also had a visit from the family dog.  It belongs to her son and daughter in law but it spends the days with her while they are at work. 

Her daughter in law walked the dog to the nursing home, but thought it was too much for it to walk back, so she left it to go and get her car.  If I'd realised what she was doing I would have offered to drive her home for her car.   So the dog is watching for her coming back.  She doesn't normally when she is with Faye during the day, but this is all strange.   It was lovely seeing a dog loved and cherished, surrounded as I am by abused dogs.    I am sure Donna next door loves her dogs in her own way, but she screams and yells at them, which is totally unnecessary.

I was going to ask someone, if I had a chance, to take a photo of me with both Faye and Carolyn.  Perhaps tomorrow.  Faye is going home on Wednesday, and Carolyn on the 1st November.

Only in this gun crazy country would it be necessary to put a notice like  this on the door of a nursing home.  I was trying to think of something suitably sarcastic to say, but words fail me.

I heard on the Weather Channel about the St Jude storm, so as soon as I wake I will turn it on to see what the latest news is about it.

Here there is some bad weather expected.

Thursday 24th October

Continuing on from Wednesday evening.   A group from Emmanuel have been studying a book written by an American Muslim, Eboo Patel who, together with President Obama, is very keen on interfaith relations, and who founded and runs the Interfaith Youth Core (that is how it is spelt, but I am sure it ought to be 'Corps') a movement active on college campuses.    I read the book but wasn't part of the discussion group.  Anyway, last night Eboo Patel was speaking at the Oklahoma City University and eight loyal followers from Emmanuel (or rather, seven loyal followers and me) piled into the church bus for a meal at an Indian buffet restaurant in the City, followed by his address.    It was a pleasant evening, I enjoyed the meal and fellowship but I didn't go to listen to a lecture on interfaith relations, I went along because I never pass up a chance of a trip out of Shawnee.   And there aren't any Indian restaurants in Shawnee, so that was a rare treat for me.

The dog next door has got a better shelter, its owner has been busy today putting solid sides and roof on it.   I still feel unbearably sad though, no dog should be tied up 24/7, I want it to be loved and living in a warm home.   Like Tarka.   And Bubbles.  

Back to today......I was out early picking up the donuts from Tecumseh.   The Kiwanis speaker was Kate, the Director of the Senior Centre, talking about the programmes and activities at the Centre.  When she was asked she spoke a bit about herself.  Her father was American and in the military, her mother was Canadian, from the same small town in the far north of Canada where my aunt settled.  When I asked Kate's mother where she came from they didn't think I could possibly have ever heard of it, and were very taken aback when I said I knew it,  I'd been there.

Kate.

I didn't go to Communion and out to lunch, I wish I had, but I went instead to the service at the hospital chapel.   I wondered if the other chaplains had been told yet about the appointment of the new head chaplain on November 4th.

Later in the afternoon I went to visit my friend Faye, who is in a nursing home, recovering from hip replacement surgery.  I might have mentioned this, but she is also sharing a room with a member from Emmanuel.

Last couple of days

I have started water walking in the daytime now, it is dark by 7.30 now so I can't watch the sunset as I walk round in the evening; and during the day I don't have to worry about the children's attractions splashing me.   I have to put up with the sight though of massive, and I mean MASSIVE, people in swimming costumes, which grosses me out.   I kid you not, four of them were in the hot tub with me yesterday, and each one would have taken up an entire row of seats on an aircraft.

You have never seen fat people until you have been to this country.

First of all though this morning, I felt I just HAD it with the barking dogs.  I called Animal Control and a very nice guy came out, I took him out to the back garden so he could see them properly.   It is not just their barking which upsets me, but even more so are the conditions in which they are living.  He said they were not emaciated - the first thing he looks for - and they had food and water.  Unfortunately their quality of life can't be an issue. The dog next door - on the other side of me from Donna - had a shelter which didn't meet the code standards, because instead of solid sides it just had slats.    Donna has, I think, noticed me prowling about, and is keeping her dogs out of my face.

 The 'shelter' is just on the left of the picture there, and he will get a citation for that.

He said he wouldn't speak to the owner straight away because he didn't want him to know I had called him out - although I told him not to worry, I wasn't going to be intimidated.  He said he would be back either later in the day, or tomorrow, and would do a violations check.  Ask for rabies certificates etc.   He would also do a violations check on the pitbulls behind me.   I told him it was illegal to own one in Britain, and he said they are dangerous dogs here too.

I asked him why on earth people here have dogs which they just keep tied up, 24/7.  They never go anywhere, do anything.  He said it was an American macho thing.

He left me his card, even wrote his private cell phone number on it, and told me to call if I needed him.

Last night I went again to the cinema.  When Rosalyn read in my blog yesterday that someone on Fox News said no patriotic American should go and see the 'Fifth Estate' she decided she wanted to see it, and they kindly invited me.  I was right about it being a box office flop, we were the only three people in the cinema.  I have a problem anyway following anything even slightly convoluted, and I was totally lost in this, and was nodding off.  Bruce couldn't follow it either, and also fell  asleep.  Rosalyn watched it with rapt attention, and enjoyed it.

I will publish this so I can go to bed, and will talk tomorrow about tonight's outing.

Monday 21 October

I woke about 3am and was gently moving and easing my shoulder around in the bed, when suddenly the pain was gone, and I could move; the shoulder popped back into place.   Praise the Lord.  I was so relieved not to need a doctor or chiropractor.   I went back to sleep until about 8 o'clock then rang Phyllis with the good news.  

I will add carrying heavy loads to my list of cautions, like walking very carefully to avoid a broken hip, my worst nightmare. 

About noon I went out to the Art Gallery on the St Gregory's campus.   My friend Nancy, who helped me with the power point a while back at Kiwanis, was giving a presentation herself on the Spectrum Temperament Model, which is founded on the premise that behaviour can be classified into four distinct temperaments, and everyone is born with one "natural" temperament which provides us with gifts, talents, skills and preferences which directly affect our attitudes, behaviours and perceptions.  We do however have the capacity to learn and develop the remaining three temperaments, enhancing our quality of life.

It was very interesting indeed and Nancy presented it well.   She worked as an FAA flight instructor, and in the last few years she has been a professional facilitator, and a certified trainer for Spectrum Temperament Development.

Lunch was provided but we were asked to bring a salad dish.  I knocked one up from basic store cupboard ingredients of sweet corn, onion, egg and mayonnaise, which I learned years and years ago when my lads were in Prep school, and have been making it ever since.

Later in the afternoon I went to the movies with Pattisue and we saw "Captain Phillips", which was very, very exciting, action packed from beginning to end.   It was about the 2009 hijacking of the U.S. container ship Maersk Alabama by a crew of Somali pirates.

There are three cinema complexes in Shawnee, one shows 8 films, another 6, and one downtown which has two films showing;  but in spite of 16  films showing at any one time, I can sometimes go a while not fancying any of them, but at the moment there are three in one cinema.   One which I would also like to see  is 'The Fifth Estate' which has been a major box office flop.  You have probably heard of Julian Assange, the Australian computer hacker, currently holed up in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London.     I don't normally go and see box office flops but was intrigued when someone on Fox News said very loudly and forcefully that no patriotic American should see it.  Since I am not a patriotic American I reckon that lets me off the hook.