Lunch with Esther

Today, the 21st of October would have been Mark’s 66th birthday. Anniversaries can be difficult, especially the anniversary of his birth, the anniversary of his death and our wedding anniversary. As I have been going through all of the stuff we accumulated over the years, I’ve laughed and cried. We had a great marriage. Can’t wait to see him again the other side of the veil.

Today, I went to Mimi’s Cafe and had a great lunch with Esther.  I had a seared steak sandwich; Esther had crab cakes with broccoli and cheese soup. We also ordered fried dill pickles – they brought us enough for the entire restaurant. I ate more of these than Esther, but she ate the coleslaw that came with them.

We spent the time catching up. You’d think we’d see each other more often since we only live about a half-hour apart, but she’s busy and I’m busy even though both of us are retired. How did I ever get anything done when I was working?

I’ve spent the day copying VHS tapes to DVDs. It’s kind of a bittersweet process. For example, the tape I’m working on now contained a lot of footage of the family, Mom and Mark and my brother Jeff’s kids when they were little and a bunch of shows taped off the TV including:

• Waterways of NY
• Norm Abrams woodworking show
• Roy Underhill’s show
• a tape of an old Rosanne show

Who knows what else is on the tape since it isn’t very well labeled.

I still have 30 tapes like this to do. Fortunately or unfortunately, they are all 6-9 hours long, but I put one on before I go to bed so I can do this for almost 24 hours a day.

And you’ll never believe it! I found more cassette tapes – I told those devilish little rascals were reproducing. There were 36 more of these in one of the boxes the VHS tapes were in. At least I can do them both at one time and a bunch of other stuff at the same time.

I set up my Infrared Sauna so I can start using it. I’m hoping it will help with the hip and knee and leg pain. It sure makes you perspire. I’m thinking I’ll take it with me in the camper. It folds up into a case for easy storage.

Tomorrow it’s back to the chiropractor. I’ve been pretty good all day today even though I went for a fifteen-minute walk this morning. About three this morning I woke up with my leg hurting. I went into the shower and ran warm water over it. It made all the difference in the world.

Until next time…