The Sandcastle

Not the sentimental kind. The physical kind.

I don’t know how long it has been there.

What I do know is that yesterday Dave said he has a doctor appointment today. He just made the appointment.

No I didn’t need to worry about them getting him in so soon. It’s a new doctor.

Well, not really new. The doctor has been practicing for 30 years. He’s just new to Dave’s clinic so he hasn’t yet built up a large following here. He’s Ukrarian.

No, I don’t know if here just means this clinic or in the USA. We have a large Ukranian population here in the Twin Cities. In fact, back in high school I dated a Ukranian. So the doctor could have lived here as long as I have.

So Dave is in the clinic and I am in the waiting room.

Waiting.

TTYL,

Linda

Update: The doctor could not feel the lump Dave feels. He ordered an ultrasound to be done later at a different facility. He also referred Dave to an ENT for the voice weakness Dave has been having for several months. So it goes on.

Today is the day it begins. Tomorrow my van will no longer look like this:

It will be the end of October before it’s ready for me to pick it up, though.

(Ignore those things in the back of it. That’s my iPad and GPS we sat down to take the picture when we were in Texas.)

TTYL,

Linda

Some things I find myself thinking about.

I’m glad we have bug-out bags. It was easy to grab them, throw my computer in one, and head out the door knowing we had all the important papers and data we would need if we had to start over. I was surprised at how many people left without a purse or phone or anything.

It’s good to have a plan. We know where our fire extinguisher is and how to use it. We know where our stairs are and where they exit the building. We know to test the apartment door for heat before opening it and, if it is hot, to go to plan #2. Plan #2 is to head out onto the balcony. With wet blankets if we think we have time to get them. There is a water hydrant below the master bedroom window so we are confident we would be found quickly if there was a big fire even though we would be on the back side of the building. We live on the top floor but we chose a building that is only three stores high so the fire rescue ladders would reach us. We have a good fire department that wins awards so we trust them to serve us well. We are as prepared as it is possible to be.

The thing I worried most about was the car. We park in the underground garage. It did not feel like a good idea to go down there to retrieve it since we didn’t know where the fire was and we were not sure the automatic garage door opener would work; it’s one of the old gas station cable type things you drive across and the door opens.

While I like having new things, I would not like having to buy absolutely everything all over again. Most of our things are relatively new anyway since we bought all our furniture less than a year ago and I’ve had to buy new clothes as I lose weight.

I’m glad my new van will not fit in the garage. In the future we will have an escape vehicle with the basic necessities of life on board if we should need it.

How prepared are you?

TTYL,

Linda

We got to spend some time outside today meeting some neighbors.

It sure was a noisy experience, though.

The building fire alarms went off, all the fire doors closed, and I got to prove I can walk down two flights of stairs. Carrying our bug-out bags just in case this was real. And worrying about our car being parked in the underground garage.

Then a fire truck showed up. Only one, though, and they didn’t seem to be in a hurry so we thought it was probably a false alarm.

Not.

It seems someone near the center of our building had a small kitchen fire.

Made me glad we have fire extinguishers in case that ever happens to us.

And that I can still walk down the stairs.

Sorry about no photos. That was not what was on my mind until we got safely back inside.

TTYL,

Linda

 

Being under the impression that I am sleeping better I decided to use my FitBit to check it out.

Time it took me to go to sleep: 6 minutes. Times I woke during the night: 10.

Those feel like good numbers for me.

So, imagine my surprise when I went back and looked at my weeky averages for those weeks I measured my sleep and found those number to be typical.

It’s all perception, people.

All of life is just perception and interpretation.

TTYL,

Linda