Travelin Man

I finished tiling the bathroom last weekend, but needed to wait for the grout to set and dry before sealing the grout and re-assembling the bathroom. Putting the toilet back, putting in the pedestal sink. So when I left Monday Morning for Fort Wayne, it was still a bare-bones floor.

I took Bart over to Brian and Kristin's for the week and didn't put him in a pet carrier. I had dinner with them and by the end of dinner, Bart was walking funny. Limping, with his back arched way up. But I had to go. I said take him to the vet if he was still doing it in the morning especially if it got worse.
Daryl popped over right before I left in the morning and reminded me to check my tire pressure. Good thing. About 9 lbs low all around. Temperature has fallen quite a bit since they were last filled. So if you guys are looking to get as good gas mileage as you can, you might check that. I filled them up, added some oil treatment to my 5w-20 oil change I did Friday evening, and set off down the road listening to J.D. Souther read Jimmy Buffett's "A Salty Piece of Land"... which I bought long ago but never quite got around to really getting in to.

The trip was smooth and unevenful. I stopped in St. Louis to get some coffee from Starr's in Richmond Heights... or is it Clayton? Right next to Hi Fi Fo Fum. Best coffee in the world, folks! He roasts it right there, and they have a boatload of wines and spirits and beers and gourmet food. "A toy store for foodies". Anyway, I wanted some Starrs coffee ground for Mom's percolator, so I went straight to the source as it is (relatively) on the way.

The audio book ended right as I hit Rudisill, a few blocks from Mom's house.

She was much weaker than I expected. Getting downstairs twice a day was a huge deal for her. Vicki said she thought it would be a good idea for her to come back to Columbia with us when we went back to recover over Christmas. I wasn't surprised and I agreed. With one caveat.... the guest bathroom was taken apart and her bedroom was full of stuff from the bathroom. The toilet was in the bathtub... etc. Vicki wanted to know if I'd go back a day early to take care of it.

But there was the Mizzou-Kansas game on Saturday. Mind you, these things aren't usually that big a deal to me, but if you've payed attention to college football at all this year and you know where I work and went to school, and what a huge Mizzou fan I was growing up... it was a big deal. To Vicki as well. But she wouldn't be missing it.

As it turned out, neither would I. I found out it was a night game and there'd be plenty of time to drive back before the game started.

Vicki played nurse, dietician, accountant, personal assistant, medical liason and organizer extrordinaire all week just as she had the previous to weeks. She was fairly busy all day every day.

Meanwhile Dr.'s Brian and Kristin, DVMs -- diagnosed Bart's problem via the web. Slipped disc. Apparently he slipped off of something in the back seat as I took off from a stop making a left turn on the way over there, and injured his back. They took him to the vet and got him an anti-inflamatory.

So I did a little computer updating, raked the yard, did some touch-up painting, bought stuff for Thanksgiving dinner (for Friday when cousin Linda would be coming down) and got ham and made Pumpkin Pie for thursday (well I couldn't just let the real Thanksgiving day pass by without a nod with pumpkin pie, and cousin Linda was bringing apple dumplings tomorrow).

Well, it tasted a little ... off. Turns out I forgot to put the sugar in it. So we scooped all the filling out and mixed in the sugar and spread it back in the pie shell, fully cooked but now sweetened. Looked a little funny (pumpkin pudding?) but tasted fine.

We got a little snow overnight Thursday night... about an inch in the grassy areas. Pretty. It also snowed a little Friday during the day.

Linda came friday and we did a turkey breast, yeast rolls, and a hybrid home-made/ storebought mix version of stuffing with a sweet potato cassarole. It was great, and Mom seemed to be a bit better. She stayed down with us, lying on the couch and participating in all the conversation. Linda always cracks me up. And as an added bonus Susie came from across the street. Now that lady's funny! She had us in stitches with her stories.

I packed up as much as my little car would hold on Saturday and headed back to Columbia. I Bartnapped Bart from Brian and Kristin's house (they were in Warsaw at her parents'). He was walking fine. Apparently fully recovered. So Bart and I watched the game in HD over the airwaves, and it was quite exciting. And we won! I wasn't surprised, nor would I have been shocked if we lost. Just disappointed. But as it is, Mizzou is #1 for the first time since 1960. Right before Kansas beat us. But there's a big controversy over that game I won't get in to .

Ryan came over saturday morning after calling and volunteering to help with the bathroom. Daryl came over as well and we got the grout sealed and the toilet down and the sink in in a couple of hours. But I had to go to the store for water lines and some plumbing. We shot the breeze for a couple of hours, but I needed to get going so it would be finished by the time Vicki and Mom got back -- plus there was a lot of cleanup to do when I was done. Tools, the bathtub, vaccuuming, trash from the job... put the door back up and the door frame on ... and general disarray in the house. So they went off to lunch and I went to the store. Had to go back because I got the wrong size drain plumbing and the wrong size toilet feeder line. But got it straightened out and hustled and cleaned up. Ate a little dinner before they arrived.

They were about an hour and a half late because traffic was horrible between St. Louis and Columbia. Plus before that she had to deal with rain all day. It's not that it's hard to drive in but it just wears you down when it's all day and THEN you run in to an hour and a half delay at the END of your all-day trip.

She was pooped. So was mom. Mom collapsed on the bed. But Vicki couldn't handle the disarray I hadn't gotten to in the house (and what she brought with her from Fort Wayne) and spent the next two and a half hours flying all over the house like a Tasmainian Devil in Reverse, consuming clutter and leaving sparkling order behind in her wake. Quite amazing to watch, really.

I still need to finish patching the wall where the previous counter had been recessed. And that about brings you up to date.