W is for Wild, Wierd, Washington Weather

ABC Wednesday round 3. Go here for links to other participating blogs.

ABC Wednesday Anthology for non-comment posts.


This is a late ABC entry due to unexpected circumstances. Otto (husband) was transported to the local hospital here in Port Townsend early Monday morning with abdominal pains. We had to go by emergency fire dept. ambulance since there wasn't a single surface anywhere outside that wasn't covered with snow or ice after a heavy overnight snowfall on top of the one I posted about on Sunday. He is fine now (although a little tired) and we arrived back at Kristin's and Otto's (son) about a half hour ago.

Kristin took all of the following pictures except for the ones below of the glamorous view from our hospital window. ("Our" because I stayed with husband Otto at the hospital).

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View from hospital window (most snow had melted from trees).

View from hospital window

of downtown Port Townsend

And Joy oh Joy! Anna just arrived 5 days late from London via New York and storms! We're all together for Christmas Eve. Merry Christmas!

Elnor

Elnor Ragan, 1914-2007
(This photo was at her 90th birthday celebration in 2004)

My beautiful sister-in-law died early this morning. Until a little over a year ago, when she fell and broke her hip, Elnor was super active. She taught violin, trained trios for competition, repaired stringed instruments for orchestras and schools, planted extensive gardens around her self-designed earth-sheltered house, went on Elder Hostel trips that involved long hikes, cared for her latest well-trained dog, etc.etc. I will miss her, although we didn't see each other often. She lived in Stillwater, Oklahoma, a long way from Berkeley, California. She was a lifelong peace activist and, as older sister, introduced Otto to her ideals, now his - and mine.

This week's Sunday Scribblings has the word "hospital" for its prompt. I don't need to stray from the subject of Elnor to find an amusing story. While Elnor was still in the hospital with her broken hip, her daughter Lenore asked her what she might want that would make her happier. What she wanted was her violin! Not flowers or pretty nightgowns or goodies to eat. She couldn't play it, but having it nearby gave her a sense of well-being.

Yes, that's the whole of my Sunday Scribbling. Do I get an award for brevity?

The best laid plans...

I had such wonderful plans for this week... To be sure, I started out fairly tired after cooking a birthday dinner for Joni (whose birthday it was) and Sterling and Roxanne. It was fun, though, and we had a good visit. Then on Monday I went to a meeting of the Writers' workshop, which lasted much of the afternoon. (good meeting, too).

But so what? I had two days to rest up before the BIG event. On Thursday I planned to attend, for the first time since high school graduation, a reunion of the class of 1948. I had recently renewed correspondence with two of my high school friends who urged me to be there. So I sent the money for very expensive dinners for Otto and me, planned what to wear, rubbed on lots of lotion to try to get rid of wrinkles, etc. etc.

Then guess what happened? I got out of bed Tuesday morning, called Otto because I was feeling weak, then, when I tried to walk, my knees suddenly turned to water and I slithered to the floor (slithered because Otto moderated my fall although he couldn't stop it. For the very first time in my life I was taken to Kaiser hospital by ambulance, where I was kept until yesterday (Thursday) afternoon.
I also had a meeting of my Book Discussion Group scheduled for Friday (today) for which I had hurried to read Inheritance of Loss which I had been slow to acquire. But we had to go to Kaiser for another test, so I missed that one too. At least Kaiser and I know that I wasn't having a heart attack (determined after every sort of test they could think of)!