Month: April 2019

I am usually up, showered, out to Mass and back, have the kitchen cleaned up, and ready for the next move…. but in hotels we are like a herd of turtles…. Chuck just got up from hogging this computer to start packing…. so in a few we will stuff all our stuff into my car and head south on A1A to Cape Canaveral for a week. There are actually 2 submarine events at the same hotel so… like the Asterbilts, we will be hotel guests for a week. Home in Miami on next Sunday when we will seriously start adding up all our coins… literally, I’ll take coins to the bank, so we can close on new house in early September. Beach here in Daytona is gorgeous. We have walked daily and it is cool in the morning and at night. During the day, like Miami and rest of south Fla it can be blistering hot in the sunshine. OH no, Chuck is making more coffee. The turtles have come to a dead stop!. ….. When we drove back from friend Edith’s yesterday afternoon we stopped in Ormond Beach at a bar called Dimitris on A1A. Climbed to the 3rd floor to the outside deck and ate great food, and drank a bucket of beer while looking out at the Atlantic Ocean. Oh my gosh. It is green and gorgeous. For northerners, this might be news, for the rest of us, we know it; cars can pay a parking fee and drive and park on the beach. Saturday the beach was full of jeeps!!! I saw 2 cars stuck in the sand, but friendly folks pushed them out. Amazing. We pulled into the parking lot here at the hotel and I plucked a beautiful orange red hibiscus off a bush and painted it in our room. I can’t capture the amazing contours and beauty, but I showed God how much I appreciate his work!!!! Having a great vacation and … like a herd of turtles, we will be off to new venue and old sailors soon. God bless you. Sue.

After a beautiful and lively Sunday Mass at Daytona Beach Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church, Chuck picked me up and we drove up to Palm Coast to visit friend Edith Campins who lost her husband of 45 years Karl…. 2 weeks ago. We talked long about all the things Karl did that Edith "took for granted," "Karl, how does this fan work?"… for example, the spouse who knows stuff does it and we depend on that….. I told her, I have trouble getting the tops off water bottles… "Chuck!!! can you open this please????" It’s sad. Karl was only 72, and so are we. Heart gave out. Amen. After we left Edith we headed south on A1A and enjoyed the beach road and found a 3 story restaurant called Dimitris and drank too much beer and ate bad stuff like french fries with feta cheese and olive oil, lick your fingers good, onions rings, ditto on licking fingers, and I could not take a bite from my pizza which we will heat up about 6pm. Chuck ate 1/2 his sandwich. So feast at 6pm, comin’ up. I am going to try to paint a glorious orange hibiscus and then…. a walk on the beach is in order. Tomorrow, Cape Canaveral for USSVI (submarine) conference at Cape Canaveral. Don’t forget space X lift off at 420am April 30. What a lovely vacation!!!! God bless us all. Bless friend Joe in Big Pine Key whose been having trouble with lingering sinus infection. Bless people hit by violence in California. Bless us all.

Chuck and I are in the Daytona Beach Resort Hotel on the beach for a retired Florida Troopers association meeting. We enjoyed dinner last night with troopers from Lake City, Fl (near I-10 and I-75) who NEVER come to Miami!!!! And we met one retired Captain who lives blocks from us in Lake Placid. Small world. I dreamed of a wonderful painting so I’ll hit the beach after one more cup of coffee and paint my idea!!! Chuck has a meeting later in the day then we have another dinner. The meeting ends tonight after dinner, but we are staying one more night (Sunday night) because our meeting with USSVI (submarine group) in Cape Canaveral doesn’t start until Monday evening. Beach front there too. And on April 30 at 420am there will be a Space X flight from Cape Canaveral. They send the booster rocket back to land on the beach so that will be very exciting! I’m going to set an alarm and get out there!!! God bless you and send angels to keep us safe!

Chuck and I spent a very quiet Easter with me watching Triduum (last 3 days of Lent Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday) services on EWTN as I have felt vulnerable to germs and coughers. I got up early for Easter Sunday Mass and spent the day quietly healing. The pneumonia coughing seems to be gone. What has settled in is maybe my allergies….. I’ll see the pulmonologist on May 8 and he will have the results of the CT scan I’ll get on May 7. So we move forward in hope that my pneumonia is gone! Now it’s just exercise to get back into shape so onto how is Susie going to get exercise…
We traveled to Lake Placid to stay with friend Glenda at hers and Milton’s "weekend cottage" on Lake Placid (actually on a Lake June canal) and she introduced us to her friend Lorrine who showed us houses all day Wednesday. Nothing was exactly to our liking (on the water and not horribly expensive) we want to buy cash as at our age, a mortgage isn’t something we want. So, we debated buying a few houses at Glenda’s that night. The next morning (Thursday) after coffee, Glenda wanted to take us into town for lunch and we drove by a For Sale by Owner that we all yelled: "Stop the car, what’s that???" It was a house with lot on a canal. House has new metal roof. Glenda says it is a rust colored red, it is beautifully landscaped, 2 car garage with 5 beautiful dogs all wanting to stick their noses through the fence and get petted and lick us to death!!!!! I called the number and woke the owner who called me back as we turned around on the street. "Go back! Go back!" I yelled to Glenda!!!! "Can we come in?" I yelled at the sleepy owner….. "Are you the owner?" "Yes and…….. I…. guess…. so", he said sleepily. So we barged in. I was sold at the front door. It was like walking into the lake house. Front door to the water. Boom. bright, clean, windows and shades up and clean. New tile floors, nice if smaller kitchen… amazing. We walked out into the yard with pups now licking us and us petting them 2 at a time and finally someone asked "how much?" And I put pen to paper and tried to add up our cash… made several mistakes and didn’t have enough… But Chuck showed me my error, meanwhile the seller knocked it down $10,000 feeling sorry for us. Chuck stuck out his hand and said, "Sold". Glenda meanwhile was exstatic! "Yes", she said when I looked at her… "What do you think?" "It’s worth it!" She and Milton shopped for houses and found their dream home and this was like that. We were then led back in and met "the wife" who has had health problems for a year that require multitudinous trips to hospitals… She is returning to family and care centers. It’s sad for them, as they really fixed the house up beautifully and have special cleaning people who "sanitize the place." Not a speck of dust or doggy smell…. Meanwhile… Miami neighbor Kathie has reminded me that I love the lake… and I do. Many of us have spent many hours out on the dock and running up to the house to turn on the oven and turn down the potatoes and get more wine or beer… and Kathie reminds me of that. But this house is on a water way with many boaters and we can dock our pontoon at a new dock with lift and go into Lake June at will. The lawn is beautiful and we have the name of our landscaper. All services will be turned over to us the date of closing without fail. We will close in 4 to 5 months. and will be gathering funds as soon as we get home… Lots of math and sweating. But for now. We are in Daytona Beach on the ocean! and Dinner with retired troopers awaits. So, God bless us!!! Ta Ta for now! Thank God!!!

When I referred to Cathedral building and rebuilding Notre Dame, I mentioned Ken Follett’s book and called it Master Builder… That was the title of the person who had the skills and smarts to build Gothic Cathedrals in 1100s. The name of the very human story is Pillars of the Earth. It helps us see a time when magnificent structures were built "by hand". God bless us.

There’s an article on the internet about the Queen attending Maundy Thursday service to give little money bags to 93 pensioners… Catholics celebrate today in 2 solemn ceremonies. One is Chrism Mass where the priests repeat their vows and oils will be blessed for the sick and dying, those being confirmed and entering the church, and for the anointing of priests and churches and altars. The oils are blessed in the Cathedral and distributed to parish churches. I think I wrote about this in reference to Notre Dame that is not available for worship. I suppose another church will be appointed Cathedral (the seat of the Bishop). Later in the early evening, churches will celebrate the Mass of the Last Supper and the Institution of the Eucharist. I will watch on TV as I don’t want to be in the church in crowds just yet with some coughing still going on in my healing chest! These are Holy Days for the Christian Church as we remember the death and Resurrection of Jesus. God bless us all with peace of heart. Have a Holy Thursday.

Hi dear readers. Yesterday many of us found out at various times in the afternoon and we watched Notre Dame burn on the cable news networks. It was awful. I remember our visit in 1972 and my sister reminded me of the Stations of the Cross… As Notre Dame burned, people all over the Christian world must have been having the same thoughts. As I fell asleep I imagined before the ceiling collapsed people saving vestments, chalices, relics, the Crown of Thorns… This Holy place built in 1100s was a storehouse of treasures collected in very early times… a safe house. People experimented with flying buttresses and with bare hands and rope raised the amazing structure. Read Ken Follett’s The Master Builder for a look at cathedral building and early failures! This week in Cathedrals all over the world Bishops will be celebrating Mass in Cathedrals and priests will be renewing their priestly vows. Oils that will be used all year to anoint babies in Baptism, the sick and dying, and Confirmandi will be blessed at the Cathedral Mass. Notre Dame is gone for a while so some other amazing French Parisian church will host Holy Week and Easter celebrations. Let us pray for a quick restoration of this historic and sacred house of God.

Good morning dear gentle readers. My sister reminded me I hadn’t written lately and that she and others are following my musings through "recovery." That’s a funny word I use as I don’t look like I was sick, I didn’t have an addiction to recover from… I’m just healing on the inside in my lungs. Which are sneaky creatures. You can’t see lungs, and we don’t know sometimes that they are not "absorbing" oxygen… until maybe we pass out from coughing and the nurse puts a little pincher on your finger and everybody hops around getting you the little oxygen tube for your nose. … Suck it in and hack it out becomes the rhythm and routine. Fortunately I can breathe deeply and am only coughing occasionally as I recover from "double pneumonia", but I’ve heard tales this week of friends and my niece in Jacksonville Erin, and George my first brother in law, who are suffering in much the same way. Let us pray for lungs and their hardiness this Palm Sunday. At this time in the Lentan liturgy we are reading the Gospel of John chapter 8, and all the places where "the Jews, or the Pharisees" said to Jesus… "Who are you? and how do you dare to call God your Father… We have only one Father, and that is Abraham."… It comes to my mind… We have only one Father in heaven… in eternity. Who grants eternal life. The Jews just couldn’t get past earthly death vs eternal life. They didn’t understand, "before Abraham came to be, I AM." We all struggle with these sayings of Jesus as we live through horrific illnesses of loved ones, we cannot see eternity. As we sit along at the bediside of the dying… we think we are alone with death, but we are not. Entertaining angels unawares wrote St Paul… Why not believe at that time that we are surrounded by angels who are sent to heal or take home… Home. I think I might not want to float around on a cloud singing, as I’m a doer… I want to work and help people… I forget I am part of a large church, established by Christ. I am not alone! "Go out and help… I will call you when it is the Father’s time." Yes sir. I will go; but when it is my time, let me get a big hug from our Blessed Mother who will lead me to you! God bless us this day when we remember Jesus being triumphantly greeted at the gates of Jerusalem…. only to be rejected a short few days later. Let us pray for the healing of our divided world, and our own divided souls. Thank God!

Sometimes I think I must be the most blessed of patients! I love my doctors. When my Mother died, I got chest pain with grief, and I called my family doctor who recommended Juan Garcia a cardiologist "just to check things out." Dr Garcia’s wife, Pat, was my student at Assumption Academy and she recognized me immediately! It was like old home week at the doctor’s office, talking about how the boys from Belen would hang out under the senior class window and the girls would crowd around the window (was it the third floor?) and giggle at the boys!!!! Well here they are, running a cardiology practice. At that time, my heart was tested and came up A+ and this time, with the secret silent aneurism "found on the CT for pneumonia," my heart came up A+ again. He listened a lot… checked my blood pressure, recommended I stay on blood pressure med given me by the hospital…. need to keep the pressure down as it pushes against the artery walls… He recommended a great new doctor for me… a cardio thoracic surgeon to measure and evaluate the aneurism… Oh don’t you think that didn’t send me into sleepless nights. I think one of the reasons I was a good project manager was that I can think of all the possible outcomes, the best and the worst…. I’ve had some worst like the time we installed the new automatic call distributer at the Miami call center for Eastern Air Lines and the lines weren’t up at 5am… as dawn rose over the building I was at the point of shutting it all down and falling back to the old system when the phones started ringing!!!! But I had to build worst case scenarios like falling back at 5am…. Well this time i spent nights worrying with myself in surgery for this aneurism. It’s close to the heart… so you can imagine the scary issues. So… I met the new cardio surgeon (Niberto Moreno) who looked at the CT scan from Kingman Arizona and showed me my bulgy aorta. It looks like a fat belly sticking out from around the heart… … he said I can wait to clear up the pneumonia and then get a "real" CT in the Miami Cardiac and Vascular Institute… He’s very proud of his machinery (he is the Chief of Cardiothoracic surgery… so it’s good that he is personable and proud of his team and his machinery!). He treated me well; he and his PA spent a lot of time with me and Chuck assuring us that this is not a touch and go, gonna blow any second kind of situation… but we will follow up after we get the next CT. So… I’m to eat well, keep pressure down with medicine, walk and lift no weights… and heal and go back for CT May 7. Thank God for good doctors and thank you for prayers!!!! As an update cousin Laura is OK after shoulder surgery, went to first therapy… I’ll bet that hurt. And continue to pray for sick and suffering. God bless us. Thank God!

Yesterday I saw the cardiologist who said once again (I saw him 4 years ago) my heart is fine. Even lungs doing well, but "a lot of noise in bronchial area"… After reviewing CT scan and listening a lot he said we need better views of the aorta after the pneumonia is all cleared up. It actually is fuzzing up the image and they need the chest clear for MRA and ultra sound. He gave me name of surgeon he wants me to consult with to trace the size of aneuriem. With fuzziness it might be 4.6 or 4.7 probably will be OK to wait until pneumonia cleared up. I made appointment and it is next Monday. Oh goody. Tests. So today is pulmonologist… and he says"yes it was clearly pneumonia" probably should have gone into hospital sooner, and good thing I decided to go. All the antibiotics I took were enough, now it’s just waiting to heal. He wants to do follow up CT scan May 3 when I should be clear. So now a month of recovery drinking water eating well… Then we can get to the " tests". I just sat outside on the dock. Beautiful day!!! God bless us!