When we left our plucky heroine yesterday, she was still waiting for a callback from the consulting nurse hotline......
It has been a day. Starting at a quarter to 2AM when the phone ringing jolted me out of the sleep I had finally found. I leapt awake as always fearing that middle of the night call meant some dire family emergency. Instead, it was the nurseline calling me back, fourteen hours after I joined the queue. Since I had already made an appointment to see a practitioner at the closest micro-clinic at their earliest morning time slot, the callback was actually not necessary. There was no way I could have contacted them to cancel my request, and quite frankly, I had given up on hearing from them, and never occurred to me that I would get a call in the wee small hours of the morning.
So, after only a few additional hours of sleep I ready to ride my bike to one of the local Express Care to see a doctor (well actually a nurse-practitioner)... Since it was forecast to be another excessively hot day, my plan was to get my oddly reactive bug bite examined, and go hide at home away from the hot yellow daystar. It turns out that the little storefront almost but not quite Urgent Care clinics are just the right sort of thing. I was mightily impressed with the option of making an appointment online for that day/next day, and certainly the care was good. Being able to walk in with no waiting for hours in a room full of people, being seen quickly and then on my way (to the pharmacy) This seemed a good model for things not overly complex, of a level of care just below the big urgent care or ER, but quicker than getting an appointment several months later at primary care. Would that all neighborhoods had something similar. (This is part of the Providence system, so ties in directly with my other medical care)
Tomorrow I will put together a bid for Vasalisa, who would like me to create an enamel medallion for her husband Bjorn, who recently was awarded membership in the Order of the Grey Goose Shaft, in recognition of his activity in the archery community. I have never made that regalia, so it will be a challenge. I have also had a few other contacts today, one about an unusual sewing job, and one about helping a friend repair a particularly significant ring. Never dull here at Acorn Cottage!
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time in the tinyworld:
I ran across a British TV series that may be of interest to folks here... "The Great Big Tiny Design Challenge"... teams of miniaturists compete to create rooms, it is fun to watch in the same overall style as Great British Baking shows. Access online is difficult but I have found a few full episodes here and there. Here is a preview:
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The worst part of the day was that several hours after a perfectly calm phone conversation* with my mom, I was almost asleep for a very needed nap when the phone rang again and it was Mom calling me again, agitated, angry and threatening self-harm. (Mom has dementia and is in a care facility thousands of miles from where I live) While this is the first time she has called me in the middle of one of these "storms" apparently this has been a daily occurrence for both my sister and my sister-in-law. It was awful, because since she is no longer rational, there is no way to calm her, especially over the phone. Eventually the nurse arrived on the scene there, called by Mom's caregiver, and I was able to hang up. Later messages let us know that situation had been defused. This is heartbreaking. Dementia is an evil set of diseases that steals those we love.
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~ creativity challenge ~
Sewed small snaps onto squares of muslin, and then sewed the squares on the tent canvas in a way that allowed the cloth to anchor around the dowels that form part of the tent frame. Trying to decide if my tent also needs tiny toggles and loops to hold the doors closed... I found some thin silk ribbon that could become loops. Maybe attempting to make tiny toggles would be a start? but what to try and make them from?? Three more days until the end of the Tiny Pennsic Shelter Challenge.
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June SMART goals (x=extra)
| # | THINGS MADE | THINGS FIXED | THINGS GONE |
| 1 | Kestrel's friends clothes | replace clothesline
| yard waste bin
|
| 2 | tiny green flannel dress
| repair Nandina overalls
| recycle bin
|
| 3 | individual cheesecake
| sew buttons on blouse
| yard waste bin
|
| 4 | shirt for Kestrel
| old mattress off bed
| recycle bin
|
| 5 | Kenya tiedye top
| bed slats shorter
| yard waste bin
|
| 6 | baked custard
| Nandina overall pockets
| yard waste bin
|
| 7 | tiny giraffe
| move towel holder
| recycle bin
|
| 8 | three tiny mattresses
| bedrails attached
| x |
| 9 | x | slat mat completed
| x |
| 10 | x | pinafore front pocket
| x |
| 11 | x | x | x |
| 12 | x | x | x |
| 13 | x | x | x |
| 14 | x | x | x |
| 15 | x | x | x |
today's gratitude - dear M had the time to listen to me for a good long time and help me come back to myself after the awful phone call. And sister is going to send me a whole packet of Mom's writings (poetry and essays) that I will be archivist for. Over time I will sort them out both chronologically and by topics, in the hope of printing out some small pamphlets of her work to share with siblings and their children. My hope is that in reading through these I will be able to remember Former Mom, before dementia stole her away. I miss her dreadfully, her sense of whimsy and the absurd, and her kind and thoughtful interest in all of us.
Time of Isolation - Day 830
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