January 30, 2005

January 30, 2005

C.A.R.E Centre

Day 226

 

Today was cloudy and cool again. My normal morning routine has become ; get up about 7:30, when Teddy and Bo wake me, feed Teddy and Bo, walk Bo, shower, dress, and walk Ginger at 8:30. After walking Ginger this morning, I went into the Centre to have coffee with a bunch of the male participants ... "the boys". No staff around on the weekends, so no petty politics and power mongering. We sat around drinking coffee, talking "guy stuff". Guy talk at 86 years of age is surprisingly similar to guy talk at 16 years of age. Boys will be boys, I guess. I taught the group of them to say "Lard fookin' Jaysus, by" just like a Newfie ! Should be a barrel of laughs the next time any of them encounters a Canadian. HA HA HA !

I did a bit of touch up on the rubber roof of the trailer after sitting around having coffee. There were a few spots where the rubber roof top coating had flaked off. Yesterday I painted the spots with the correct rubber roof primer, and today I finished it up with the rubber roof top coating. After the roof painting, I went and dumped the sewage holding tanks of all the participants who need to have that done for them. It's a Monday task, but I wanted to get it done today. I don't want to have to do it tomorrow before we leave and I don't want to provide any opportunity for petty complaining that I left a job undone. We've already got so much to do tomorrow before we get back out on the road, we're probably going to end up hitting Houston right at afternoon rush hour. Oh, joy !

Just before lunch, we took Bo and walked with a load of laundry over to the laundry room, and from there, over to Phyllis Bridge's to check on how Rain is doing. Rain is now renamed Kitty Babe. Fine ... as long as she has a home, I don't care what she's called. She's doing alright, although Phyllis thinks it's a bit odd that Rain / Kitty Babe spends 99% of her time just lying around on Phyllis's bed. When Phyllis's toothless old Yorkshire Terrier Tooty approaches Kitty Babe, the cat hisses softly, and the old dog backs away. Unlike Bo who thought Rain's hissing was an invitation to bark in her face. It appears as if Kitty Babe has a new permanent home with Phyllis, Frank, and Tooty. YIPPEEE !

This afternoon, I did an obedience training session with Bo in the parking lot again. We're making some progress. Good dog. As we were returning to the trailer, we passed Joanne heading for the laundry room. When Bo and I got back to the trailer, I unhooked his leash as we entered the trailer door. SWOOSH ! He wheeled around, dashed through my legs, out the door, and was gone ! By the time I managed to turn around, get down the steps, around the trailer, and onto the road, Bo was 500 feet down the road and moving at warp speed. Man, he's fast. He was heading in the general direction of the laundry room, and I started off after him. The laundry room is about a ten minute walk from our trailer, maybe a half mile away, at Rainbow’s End . I jogged over there as quickly as I could ... I'm not that fast ... and there was Bo outside the laundry room, visiting with a man taking his garbage to the dumpster. Joanne was inside unaware that Bo was outside. BAD DOG ! ! !

Joanne and I did some more reprogramming of Arley's TV satellite channel selections. Then Joanne went over to Rodney's, and invited Rodney and Ginger over to meet and visit with Arley. WOW ... two birds with one stone ! She's arranged for Rodney and Ginger to visit Arley daily. Lonely, old Rodney and lonely, old Arley each have a new friend. Arley's trailer is two spaces over from Rodney's motorhome, so within Rodney's walking capabilities. Because of Rodney's heart condition, he's a bit lethargic, so walking over to Arley's on a daily basis with Ginger is good exercise for him. And due to his blindness, and perhaps some shyness, Arley keeps himself quite isolated from the social goings on in the Centre, so he can really use more social interaction. And he enjoys visits from dogs. Nice work, Joanne.

As I was walking back to our trailer from Arley's, Rudy came over and offered me a tennis ball for Bo to play with. It was a huge hit with Bo. Mind you, he's pretty easy to amuse. I suspect the tennis ball from Rudy was a bit of a peace offering for his fat, stupid dog Cody ripping Teddy’s tent.

At the Centre's dinner time, we went inside to say goodbye to the participants. From there we went over to Rainbow's End, to the Activity Centre, for the regular Sunday night ice cream social. We said our goodbyes there as well.

After the ice cream social, we returned to the trailer for a late supper. At 8:30 I walked Ginger for the last time, in the cold rain. That inspired me to bade a painful farewell to last night's Mexican restaurant dinner. I don't know how Mexicans with colitis can survive the cuisine.

DSK