We wondered how our four cats would respond when we walked into the house on our return to Honolulu Tuesday night.
We didn’t manage to remain silent as we came in through the garage, and then unlocked the door from the garage into the house. So the cats had at least some warning.
Here’s a short, rather chaotic, and unedited video of what greeted us as we opened the door and walked in.
Hint: Kali was more interested in checking out the garage than she was in welcoming us back!
Thursday ended on what we thought was a high note. Two plumbers, one from Redwood City’s sewer department, or whatever it is called here, had declared any toilet issues resolved and said we could resume using this essential infrastructure.
The toilet adjoining the master bedroom flushed properly through the night, giving us confidence it had truly been fixed. It was a huge relief after a day of an
Then it was back to high anxiety!
Early Friday morning, BAM! The toilet suddenly overflowed again, again spreading an inch of water across most of the bathroom.
This was obviously a huge bummer!
We now realized that if the toilets couldn’t be used, we would have to move elsewhere until there was a successful plumbing fix, or until our medical sojourn in California is over.
But moving to a hotel would make it challenging, at best, to find ways to sustain the puree diet that I’m sentenced to at least until early next week.
While we were trying to figure out how we could maneuver my diet if we moved to a hotel, Meda’s sister was trying to track down another plumber able to respond on short notice on Friday before the holiday weekend. When she found a company able to show up within an hour or so, hope returned, only to be dashed later when the plumber had to defer most of the work until a bigger crew could appear on Saturday to dig up a section of the drain line.
By about 4:30, we were checked into a Residece Inn a few miles away in Menlo Park. We’re booked initially for just 2 nights.
It’s nice room, with full size refrigerator, a 2-burner cooktop, separate bedroom, and the biggest bathroom I’ve ever seen in a hotel.
If Sunday dawns and the plumbing situation is still “iffy,” we’ll hunker down here for another week or so. By then I should have a better idea of when we’ll be ready to fly home.
So there’s still a lot of uncertainty. But the toilets at the Residence Inn work as designed. And with so many things to worry about over the past two days, any anxieties about upcoming cancer treatments have been pushed from my mind.
Okay, it really wasn’t all that cold. It was 52 (but “feels like” 50) when we woke up Sunday morning.
But coming from Honolulu, it felt very, very cold.
People here just wear more in the way of clothes! Layers. I’m trying to get with the program.
After a delicious salmon dinner last night with Meda’s sister, Mae, and her husband, today is my long day without food. Clear liquid diet only pre-surgery. Clear soup. Juice. Water. Gatorade. Yum!
And this was the view this morning. It’s foggy out there!
And don’t worry. Assuming that I do wake up after tomorrow’s surgery, I expect to be back sharing the experience while recovering. My trusty iPad is ready.
I was still at home in the midst of last-minute packing for this extended post-surgery stay in California when I made an unwelcome discovery.
It was a surprise to find that my weight loss over the previous two months has rendered by belt ineffective in holding up my pants! I guess that I’ve been compensating by constantly hitching my pants up to avoid losing them.
What to do? It was too late to buy another belt. If necessary, I was sure that I could make it to SF where the search for a new belt could begin.
But at some point I opened a drawer to grab a few pairs of socks.
Surprise! There was a mold-covered length of brown leather that I recognized as a well-worn belt I had “outgrown” quite a number of years ago. Exactly what I needed, a belt that previously fit a less robust Ian.
So I slowly wiped off the mold. Then I applied two different leather cleaner/conditioners found stuck away in a couple of those “toss everything in” drawers. Let the conditioner soak in, then polished a couple of times. The leather slowly began to recover from the years of neglect up on a high shelf in our closet where the mold had found it.
And, bingo! A belt that fits. A bit worse for wear, as I am, but rescued from somewhere deep in my past and ready to resume its duties!