Thursday, the church had an ice cream social for over-the-hill types.  Every church tries to come up with a cute name for us.  The names aren't cute.  We're old.  You can't make that very cute.

I don't like ice cream--I know, everybody likes ice cream.  But I don't like milk, yogurt, etc.  So I need a bottle of hot fudge to pour over it to kill the taste of the milk-cream flavor.

I always re-read what I am writing and what I've said so far sounds like I'm a grouchy old coot.  Maybe I am?

What I should have said was, "Isn't it nice that the church plans something special for the old-timers!!  Even the grumpy don't-like-ice-cream ones.

I think I just have a case of "I'm tired of doctor's appointments."  Yesterday they wired me up with a cardio-halter.  I had to try and find a position to sleep last night that I wasn't lying on wires.  These tests are coming to an end soon.

Surgeon called yesterday.  Said they put a stent in my neck.  I thought they ballooned it.  Oh, well.  It's done.

I'm thankful they have tests to discover stuff.

I'm just tired of it.

I'll start next Monday being cheerful.

Promise.

I hate asking for help.  I've always managed.  But the release orders from the hospital said no driving a car for a few days.

I was 99% sure I could make it down the turnpike without using my right arm--which they didn't want me to use.  But I knew my friend Jeanette might ask me if I was following the doctor's orders.  I doubt she would have asked me that, but there was always a chance.  The worst possibility was that one of my daughters would have asked me if I was following directions.

And since I am known for always telling the truth, I knew I would have to admit that, "No."  That I wasn't following the doctor's orders.  I doubt that there was a 1% chance of something going wrong, but just in case I got caught being bad--by my daughters--I asked Jeanette to drive me for a return appointment.

My daughters are my problem.  They expect me to follow doctor's orders!!

I knew she would be happy to do that.  But I still hate to ask for help.  I'm not a very compliant patient when I know I can do something myself without asking for help.

But lately, I'm trying to be good.

Instead of so independent.

And headstrong.

And stubborn.

It's hard.

Ken and Pete were best friends from the time they went through flight school together, served the next year at El Toro together, left to fly together in the Korean War and bonded as brothers.  They shared everything and the only argument they ever had was an ongoing one.  Which of them was the greatest fighter pilot in the Marine Corps.  Both of them claimed that title.

When they left Korea, probably 1952, Pete went to Washington as an aide for some General, Ken went to Pensacola to qualify cadets on the carrier.  But they stayed close.  I have pictures of Ken walking down a street in Washington D.C where Pete was stationed.  I have a letter Pete wrote Ken saying he was coming to Pensacola. The two of them came from similar religious backgrounds.

Pete left Washington to go to the Blue Angels.  I just couldn't find the records.  Ken told me Pete rolled his plane into the ground practicing for a show in Corpus Christy.  But the official Blue Angels site only listed those killed in shows.  Scott found the records.  Pete died on March 24, 1955.  I'm sure Ken was devastated.  Ken was Pete's body escort to take him home to Oregon where his parents lived.   A couple of months later,  Ken flew to Pryor to to visit people who had been close to him growing up. My parents and his were close friends. Grief moves us back to familiar things. 

I didn't know until today that Pete died just five months before I met Ken.  Somewhere in that time frame, Ken began to think about marriage.  He was 26 years old.  Perhaps when Pete died, Ken was ready to settle down and find a wife.  I met him in September, thought nothing about it, because he was so much older.  But he thought on it, because the next March on my eighteenth birthday, he called my dad and asked if he could pursue that thought.  I knew nothing about his interest in me.  Dad said if you can catch her, go for it.

It took awhile, but he caught me.  I'm glad he did.
  

Home from the hospital.  Veins in the neck were very narrow.  Had to be ballooned.  But it is fixed for now...doctor said it would probably have to be done again--which is fine.  I can do that.  Just thankful somebody figured out what to do.  And it was something that could be fixed.

Worst part was I couldn't eat before hand.  Not eating is traumatic.  I live to eat.  And eat.  And eat.  Luckily, I don't gain weight very easily.

Joe Bacon, Becky's hubby, (who is my Pryor RN friend) is helping me research airplanes for the book I'm writing.  He has come up with a lot of relevant stuff.

Scott, (son) also found something I had spent weeks looking for and couldn't find anything.  

Ken had told me that his best friend, Pete Olsen had been killed while he was with the Blue Angels.  Everyone called Pete and Ken "The Gold-dust Twins."  I had searched the official Blue's site and couldn't find anything about it.  Turns out the only deaths the Blues recorded were the ones that occurred in shows.

Scott finally found it through old newspapers.  And validated the exact story Ken had told me.  Once again, I should have written the story down back then--but didn't.  

No way I could know back then that someday, I would want to write a book about my husband's life.  We were young--I wasn't thinking about such stuff.  Certainly not about Ken no longer being here with me.

I have a million questions now.  Joe and Scott are helping.  If anyone out there has something to add, mail it to me!  Joe had stories that Ken had told him that I had forgotten about.

Tomorrow, I am going to get a procedure on my neck vein.  Finally!  It has taken forever to get to this point.  Trying to get someone to listen to what you are telling them is impossible when you are an 81 year old female.

If you are a woman, they look at your age, categorize you as senile, stupid and over-reacting and hysterical.   Even though I am calm, knowledgable, verbally clear and precise.   

I would tell them that my blood pressure was always, always low, and the reaction I would get was:  "It's high because you are frightened.  (Which I wasn't)  Thank God there are doctors out there who listen or I'd still not know what was wrong.  Seven male physicians before my female GP sent me to the right specialist.  Not that I have anything against men--just saying....

So.  If you know something strange is going on with your body, don't give up.  Change doctors.  Find one who listens to you.

The hail storm in March ruined my roof, gutters, shed and fence.  They are finally going to re-roof this week.  I told them to put me last on the list because I figured we'd get hail again.  I'm dreading the hammering.

I just finished reading Proverbs again.  I call it the Book of Buts.  Starting in Chapter 10, almost every verse says something like, "If you do this, something good will be the result; BUT....if you do that something bad will happen."  Sometimes, instead of 'but' the writer uses 'and.'

It continues through chapter 15.  The book is a manual for what to do and what not to do.  Problem is, people don't listen to good advice.

It would save the world a lot of misery if they listened.

Well, I went to see "Hamilton" last night.  There have been so many rave reviews, that my exceptions were high.  People are asking how I liked it.

So I'm going to tell you.  If I had been by myself, I would have left after twenty minutes.  I stayed for the whole thing, and it was the most disappointing drama I have ever been to.

First it was horrendously loud.  Every minute.  No variation.  Ear-drum pounding loud.  I had my fingers in my ears for almost the entire thing it was so painful.  There was never any relief from it.

Second, the choreography was ho-hum.  Too many people on stage with very mediocre dancing.  Nothing but a lot of moving around.  Poorly done.

Third, all but two or three of the characters  including Arron Burr and Thomas Jefferson were black.  There was such discontinuity between the race of the main characters at a time when slavery was rampant that it was hard to keep track in your mind who was who.  I'm all in favor of more representation of black people.  But playing the role of white historical figures at the time Alexander Hamilton lived was poor role casting.  Just as bad as white people playing the part Negros back in the 30's an 40's by painting their faces black.   I find both instances unsettling.

And finally, the entire musical was done in rap.  Which is a difficult medium in which to tell a story.  And the lines were so "fast-rap," you couldn't understand most of what they said.  Too many adjectives with no nouns.

Three of us went together.  All of us agreed it was a horrible production that should have been an uplifting story of a truly honorable patriot of the Continental Congress and Revolutionary war.  Read the book and save your money.  The actors did a good job was the only high point.

I'm going to see "Hamilton" this week.  I want to find out what all the ta-da is about.  The only memorable stage production I've seen was "The Jersey Boys."  I think I'm not very "artsy."

"Cats" was strange.  But it has the "Memorable memory" song:  Memories. 

I loved the music of the Jersey Boys.  Later I found a rendition on facebook of the Navy ensemble singing the songs.   With a band.  In uniform.  I think they were better than the on-stage production. 

Today, they are ripping off shingles on my house.  The hail damage from the freak storm in March destroyed shingles, decking, storm drains, leaf guards, shed roof and decking and the wood fence.  It got it all.

There were so many damaged houses in Edmond that insurance companies sent reps in from all over the US to get the claims done.

And there were so many houses to repair that roofing crews have been working night and day all over town to get it done.  And still aren't finished.

Edmond has a permanent pinging sound now.  We've had it since March.  Day and nights, hammers pounding nails into shingles with nail-guns.  It's worse at night.  And they start at five in the mornings.

I had them wait till now because I wanted to be sure we didn't have another hail storm and have to do it all over again.

Stacy, Scott's wife is a State Farm Agent.  She said that Edmond is dead center of hail-storm-Oklahoma.  We're special.  I'd rather be special some other way.