All the plants were hanging dejectedly over the railing, whispering death rattles of "Water Me!" when I arrived home. I complied. One particularly nice Brandywine tomato was ripe, but I decided I was too tired for harvesting, and left it until the morning. In the night, some critter ate half of it. There must be some proverb to address this situation, some didactic lesson about sloth perhaps?
There was laundry, of course. And much unloading of the car. With factory tours of Snyder's Pretzels and Utz Potato Chips, visits to the farm market at the Big Round Barn (which uncannily resembled my house), and my purchases at Ron's Barrels, there was an astonishing amount of stuff to lug up the stairs.
I went out to pick beans and found that fully half of my bean patch had been nipped to the ground by another (or perhaps the same?) critter. Even so, I got a half-bucket of beans to process for the freezer.
And then there's the American Red Cross debacle. Bill asked me in an email to contact them to send a message to the ship that he needs to get home to his dad. I got all the information when I was in Pennsylvania, and when I got home, I started the process of an "Emergency Military Message."
I ran into problems immediately. Bill's dad couldn't tell me the names and contact numbers for his doctors (to verify his illness). It was 4 pm on a Friday, and no one was answering the phone at the VA hospital in St. Louis. When I finally got the hospital's social worker on the line, he wouldn't give me any information because of HIPPA privacy regulations.
Is there anything more annoying about today's medical climate than HIPPA laws? I think not. Privacy is a good thing, but when it gets in the way of common sense, I get cranky.
Cousin Alice saved the day by getting out her file on Dad, and giving me the information I needed to share with the Red Cross. By this time though, all those contacts were gone for the weekend. And, without a signed release from Bill's dad, they probably wouldn't talk to the ARC anyway. Sigh.
Alice typed up a release for Dad to give all his people on Monday, when he goes for his chemo. Hopefully, the ARC will get through and people will start talking to each other tomorrow. And then, the ARC will send a message to Bill's ship via the Pentagon, requesting his presence at home. Even though Bill is due off and his company has his replacement ready to go, this will hopefully spur some activity on board towards shore and Bill's timely relief. We don't want them to go off on a lengthy mission at this point, and forget about changing out the crew.
Echo continues to recover from her ordeal in Dog Jail, spending most of her time sleeping on the couch. I think she's almost forgiven me.
Despite the massive pigging-out of travel and extravagant dinners with friends, I only gained five pounds back. And now it's time to go downstairs and do something about that sin of gluttony.
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