Takin' the Blog for a Walk

Today was a record nice 79 degrees and we may see another record fall tomorrow.

Talk about record nice. One thing I didn't want to miss Saturday was the tour of the converted water tower house next to Waukesha Memorial Hospital. Five dollars for charity was a reasonable fee for the curious and there were a lot of us. The line to get in was a block long and took about an hour and a half but the weather was great so no complaints.

There's a lot to love in this home. The outside, landscaped with huge limestone slabs and colored gravel perfectly compliments the deep yellow with gray accents of the cylindrical art deco building. The interior is light and warm and huge. The white stucco ceiling is 40 feet high and the white walls are broken up with plenty of paintings, framed photographs and huge windows. Besides the basement garage there's three other floors connected by curving white stairways.

All the appliances and fixtures are modern and trendy and the wooden cabinetry is really soft and beautiful. The bathrooms are roomy, storage is plentiful and all bedrooms come with a view to die for. I would love to wake up to a sunrise in one of the top floor bedrooms.

This is the second weekend in a row I climbed the old flowering crabs in the front yard. Not the safest thing to do. I could have removed the lights while the weather was still nice after Christmas, but I was just too proud of the decorating job I did to take them down early.

It's nice to see Milwaukee got in the spirit of St. Patrick's Day by dying the Menomonee River green. I don't get it though. Where was the parade and green clothing and hawkers selling stuff?

I almost hate to admit it, but this year I was tempted enough to finally visit the Town of Erin's St. Patrick's Day Parade for the first time. I may have made a mistake by going with my mom and sister and not a group of drinking buddies. Drinking buddies would have fit in better.

The first clue we were in the wrong place was the guy so falling-down drunk he couldn't even walk with help. The next clue could have been the person urinating behind the pickup or the f'n language heard often. After walking, I kid you not, a mile from the car, we marvelled at a parade of animals dyed green and local bar- sponsored trailers full of drunk people! We even saw some party animals tossing full cans of beer to the crowd. My mother is so impressionable at her age. We won't be returning. Too far to walk.

On the other hand, my youngest and I did enjoy an Irish breakfast organized by House of Guinness and cooked up by the wonderful Rochester Deli. I certainly didn't expect to see much of a crowd, nine dollars a plate, but the heated tent was packed and everyone seemed to be enjoying it.

I showed up to chaperone an overnight at the Tyme Out Youth Center in Stone Bank in my PJs, slippers and Teddy Bear. I wasn't the only one. By coincidence, the gal shortening my hair Saturday was also chaperoning that night. She thought it would be fun if we showed up in our jammies, and it was.

There were 20 tenth grade boys in one room for me to help with. Many of the boys continued to talk and make noise up to an hour after the lights went out at 12:30. I felt sorry for the kids having to get up so early on a Sunday morning, (asleep by 1:30, lose and hour to daylight and up by 7:30=5 hours of sleep), but I really felt bad for Michael. Michael is the gifted musician I wrote about in a July 10th blog who's organ playing is in such high demand that he sometimes plays several churches a weekend. Today he was playing all three masses at an Elm Grove parish so he was up before 6:00 - less than four hours of sleep for him.

Because it's close-by, I visited my dad after breakfast. He's in a quiet and beautiful area. Overlooks a lake with lots of mature trees around. It was a nice morning and I noticed many deer prints in the snow and couldn't ignore the birds, especially the geese who seemed to enjoy the echo of their own honks. The only other people around were dog walkers trying to keep their balance on the icy roadway. Before saying goodbye I brushed the snow off his gravestone and said a prayer.

Because there's a chance that more people would donate blood if only they knew the good it does, I've copied one of Tim's journal entries from the CaringBridge website. His mom does a great job keeping us updated. Tim, as you'll recall, is the 17 year old athlete I know who developed leukemia a short while ago.

 FRIDAY, MARCH 02, 2007 07:00 PM, CST

I finally have a minute to update everyone on Tim. It has been a crazy two days. I woke up Wednesday evening every four hours to give him morphine to control his pain from a headache. Then at 5:00am, Tim said his joints were hurting. This was the pain he had coming off the dexomethazone the last time he took it. Tim remembered how bad the pain was the last time and wanted me to call the HOT unit. (Later he told me that he was saying he wanted to go to the emergency room but I didn't understand that) (Mom screwed up). I called the HOT Unit at Children's to ask if there was anything else we could do to relieve his pain. They called Dr. Browning who was on call and she said to give him more morphine. At 8:00am he was still in excruciating pain in all his joints. I called the HOT clinic because it was now open. They asked if he wanted to continue to try morphine at home or come in to the clinic. Tim wanted to go into the clinic.

Of course we were having a terrible storm. It had been raining and freezing at 5:00 and then it turned to snow about 6:30am. So now I would be driving in very bad conditions. The first step was to get Tim from the couch to his bedroom so he could get dressed. When he finally got to his room, he layed on the bed and cried. His knees and feet were screaming in pain. I stayed with him for awhile rubbing his knees and feet. Then I got the jeep out and left it running to get warm. Brad shoveled a path from the deck, around the front of the jeep, and down the passenger side of the car. I went back in to see if Tim was dressed yet or not. He was laying on the bed in his shorts. It had hurt too much and he had to lay back down. I helped him get dressed while he layed on the bed. Then I asked him if he wanted Brad and I to take him to the jeep in a wheelchair. In typical Tim fashion he said, "No, I'll just run to the jeep and scream in pain when I get there." That's exactly what he did.

A trip that normally takes us 15 to 20 minutes ended up taking us 45 minutes. We decided to take the highway and it was only moving 30 miles an hour. I was glad though that I had decided on the highway. The sides streets weren't plowed and there was a lot of traffic on them. When I parked in the parking structure, I left Tim in the jeep and got a wheelchair. It had been sitting outside so I used Tim's blanket to cover the seat and back. I pushed Tim into the hospital to the HOT clinic. By the time he was checked in, his head was drooping. They wanted to weigh him, take his temperature, and get a blood pressure. I asked them to skip the weighing because standing for any length of time was excruciating. Since he had just been here the day before they agreed. The assistants took his blood pressure and his temp. Come to find out, Tim had a fever of 101.3. He wasn't hot to the touch and his face wasn't flushed.

They put him in a treatment room and accessed his port. Then Suzy came in and said that he didn't look like he had a fever and took his temperature again. Sure enough his temperature was 101.3. She began her examination and found that his pulse rate was up, he was breathing fast, his hands and feet were ice cold, and the color in his nails would not return fast enough when squeezed (I guess this is significant). They started fluids and gave him morphine. He was still in a lot of pain and his temperature had gone up a little. They decided to give him antibiotics because they felt he may have an infection or a virus. After they gave him the antibiotics, his blood pressure went down(110 over 41). Next they gave him three units of packed red blood cells(thank you donors). Oops I missed a step. Since his port had fluids and antibiotics running through it, they had to put another IV in his right arm for the blood. Tim was not happy about this. He hates needles. Lately they have hurt more than usual. Tim asked for some emla cream on his arm but they needed to get the IV in quick. The nurse offered him the spray that numbs your arm. When it was done, Tim said that the numbing spray worked very well. They used this IV for the red blood cells. Then the team of doctors, nurse practitioners, and nurses decided to give him another antibiotic (broad spectrum used for staff infections). By this time his fever was up to 102.6. Tim was exhausted from fighting the pain and infection and began to fall asleep. When he would dose off, his oxygen level would go down

Carroll College has been on my radar a lot more since I had the pleasure of experiencing "Christmas at Carroll," (see 12/3 blog) but their latest event almost went unnoticed by me. I have the Carroll Arts Calendar and it wasn't in there. I didn't see it in the paper. As a matter of fact it wasn't even listed on the Carroll website. The only way I found out about a joint choirs concert Sunday was by clicking on the Weekender on WaukeshaNOW. But they didn't have to advertise, First Presbyterian Church, where it was held, was packed.

It was appropriate to hold the joint efforts of the Concert Choir, Women's Ensemble, Vocal Collective and Chorale in an historic building. Not only did the music span the centuries from the Renaissance to present but just a couple hours earlier, in a Sunday homily at my church, I heard the pastor speak about feeling God in arts, architecture and music.

We knew we were in for quite a special afternoon when we noticed the usher wearing a tux. It turns out this busy fellow, Timothy C., also played piano and sang tenor in the Chorale, directed and sang in the Collective and directed the Concert Choir. The biggest applause of the day was for a song Tim harmonized in with the other men of the Vocal Collective, the 1950s song, Silhouettes.

The song I enjoyed most? Requiem, a song written to remember the thousands of lost lives after the 2004 tsunami. All the members of the Women's Ensemble stood in a single line across the front of the sanctuary and half way down each side. It's the most beautiful, meaningful song performed with such feeling that it momentarily took my breath away. A free will collection was taken at intermission in support of the choirs and if I could hear just that one song performed again I'd gladly give more than just another three dollars.

So, there's always something good to do in the area if you know where to look. And when it comes to Carroll College something to do is always exciting, professional... and inexpensive.

Just saw a five or six foot dreamcatcher blocking the front walk to a house. The TV imbedded in back gets me thinking that maybe they're trying to filter out the bad programming through the web.