Titles, Inc.

The Hospital Part 2

In the ambulance the medic was very kind.  “There are some bumps on the way to the hospital. But I will let you know when they are coming.”  It’s only a 10 minute ride to the hospital with the siren blaring at the street corners so I couldn’t see the problem. “Here comes a bump.”  He was right – when alerted of danger, the jostled body doesn’t howl as loud.  After a few bumps, I suggested they get the shocks treated.  He said the car is on the road all day, it doesn’t hold up.

In the emergency room, as I remember, the first question is, “Are you allergic to any drugs?”  “No,” I answer.  Second question, “Date of birth.”  It becomes your ID. You are asked it throughout your hospital stay.  Another verification of your identity is this small electronic gun (like the one on the checkout line when you buy something too large for the counter scanner) aimed at your plastic wristlet. 

I had been dressed ready for work, and now being undressed for the gown.  Sliding off easily was my brand new vest (animal print with soft leather lapels, brown, a color I don’t like at all, but it was so reduced in price how can one walk away?)  The tight long sleeve rose color silky tee was a problem removing from the arm clutched to my side with the forearm folded at the elbow in a tight embrace across my belly.  “Cut it, cut it!” I roared, but they lovingly slid it out. 

Very shortly after, they asked, “How do you feel?”  And surprisingly, I felt Very OK. “You’re getting morphine.”  “Ah,” I said, “Now I understand Michael Jackson.”

I don't remember the Xrays.  The diagnosis was a jagged break near the top of the humerus bone.  Not a good one to break, I soon learn.

Up in the room, I was asked whether I would like to continue with morphine, or to take pain killers by mouth.  Primly I decided to forgo the morphine in favor of pills.  “Don’t be heroic,” they told me, “don’t wait for the pain.  You can have a pill every four hours.”  Later whenever the nurse asked, “On a scale from 1-10, with 10 being the most pain, how do you grade yourself,” I cautiously guarded my pain-free existence, and hedged, “Oh, 2 or 3.”  When was it that I connected my breaking out in a sweat and severe weakness with the Vicodin?  Yep, no good.  We changed to Darvocet.  (At home, I was fading away instead of getting stronger, so I stopped taking even that pill.  It took about 24 hours until I woke up with everything looking vivid again.  Maybe I am allergic to some medication after all, but, ah, not the morphine.)  Over-the-counter drugs don’t do it.

Hey, the food was great!  Here comes a server in a black suit like a bridegroom or a Maitre’d, complete with the white pleated shirt and a cute black bow tie, handing you a leather bound four page menu with listings to rival any fine restaurant.  During my four day stay I had tilapia, salmon, shrimp, strip steak, assorted veggies.  I allowed myself the double brownie cake drizzled with chocolate sauce only once a day.

Now I’m home and I peer hopefully in the refrigerator but it’s still only filled with packaged frozen foods. 

The pain is subsiding, finally.  I’m healing. 

----Florence

The Hospital Part 1

It was a small hand-vac on the bedroom floor that I walked into (what was it doing there?) that sent me hurtling through space only to come crashing down against the edge of the recliner seat before rolling to the floor.  Bundled in pain, I thought This is no good.  I thought Let’s wait for the pain to subside and think this out.

 

The left shoulder was immobile.  I could wiggle my fingers and knew that was a good sign – I had read that somewhere.  The shoulder was broken or dislocated, and locked.  There was no getting up.  I considered.  How long until someone finds me?  It was about 8AM.  Art would remain in the hospital for at least five days after his successful reversal colostomy surgery.  If I didn’t show up to visit he would think I was busy at the bookshop.  If  I didn’t show up at the store they would think I was visiting at the hospital.  If anyone phoned I couldn’t answer.

 

I had to save myself.  I had to get to a phone.  I couldn’t get to any of the phones resting up on  tables or desks.  Yes, there was a phone on the floor next to the bed in the bedroom at the far end of hallway.

 

I was lying on my side.  What part of me still worked?  I wiggled my left foot and my right hand and elbow.  I dug in with my heel, pushing with my hand and advanced myself about an inch, moving backwards.  Was I in pain?  Probably, because I stopped to rest now and then.  After about a half hour of inching along, I reached the end of the hall, navigated into the room, crossing the length of it and finally to the phone.  911.

 

The emergency operator was wonderful.  She kept talking and told me to hold the phone until I heard someone walk in.  The police would be there any moment, and the firemen were on their way.  I heard a man’s voice holler Hello!  I hollered back, Up here!  They came into the room and asked, “Can you stand up?”  I said, “Would I be lying here in a heap if I could stand up?” 

 

They sized it up quickly and wrapped and wrapped tape around my shoulders.  The firemen were on scene too.  I kept my eyes closed all the time.   They lifted me to my feet holding me, one on each side, one behind me, the one in front of me walking backwards.  He asked, “Do you always take tiny steps?”  “No, I walk good.”  I am maneuvered slowly out of the room.  “Can I rest my head against your chest?” I ask.  “Sure.”  With relief I dropped my head against him.   Finally I peeped up at him.  “Oh,” I said, “You are so handsome!”  They laughed, and a medic said, “That’s the first time anyone said that to him.”  I said, “You have to realize I am only half conscious!”  So we all laughed, they lifted me into a chair, carried it down, got me onto the stretcher, slid me into the ambulance, and off we went.

 

End of Part One.  Writ with one hand, phew!

 

----

Florence

It's Not Just the Turkey

Of course Thanksgiving is everybody’s favorite (eating) holiday.  The results of my anecdotal survey show it an absolutely leading holiday.  Although the traditional food can be made any day of the year, everyone reserves it for the gluttony of Thanksgiving.  As a family get-together event it is a treasured day.

Well.  Maybe not for all. We had a late visitor at Lauren and Carl’s table, just in time for dessert.  No, she already had dessert.  She was fleeing her own family reunion.  She joined us for some respite from the turmoil at her own Thanksgiving day.  Okay, I will acknowledge this single one person is keeping it from being a unanimous favorite holiday.

The young people had computers on their laps, playing games.  And word games – Boggle boggled my mind as I watched the speed with which they were scribbling their words down, long lists, while I was still baffled by the rules.  Well, it was my first time.   I did come up with “prey.”  See, I remember with pride that I came up with one good word because they heartily congratulated me.

Jane in the kitchen was baking gourmet accents.  I loved the braised onions folded into a tiny bit of pastry.  Oh yum.  I hate the kitchen.  She thinks it great fun. 

Or is Thanksgiving colored by my own delight?  As a distant mother/grandma it is a happily anticipated annual event.  Just eating and hugging and kissing.  And oh yes, Celeste tightened all the dangling buttons on my coat.  Lauren, a quilter, brought down a huge bag with spools of every color of thread – with enough purples for choosing the right shade. 

Now every time I button my coat, twice a day at least, I think of Celeste, and Thanksgiving.

---Florence

 

All For Eve's Fruit

The physical therapist replied, “I have an excellent doctor for you” when I complained, between counting my pelvic arches (2, 3, 4…), that I think I have TMJ. 

So I made an appointment for 10AM, and actually got there early.  He was not yet open.  No neighborhood stores were open at 9:30 either,  but I peered through the boutique windows, and then came upon the open Post Office.  So I got on line.  I can always use more stamps, and I killed some time choosing among the commemoratives offered.  And I got more of the flat rate boxes the PO has been pushing in all their entertaining TV commercials.  The boxes were cumbersome carrying back to the car, but at 10AM exactly I was at the door again.

I am lying back in the baby-blue upholstered dental chair, and I explain to the doctor, “I can’t open my mouth wide enough to bite into an apple.”  He says, “So why don’t you just cut it up?”  At that point I should have said, “Oh thank you,” and walked away to find someone who would give me the answer I wanted, “Let’s see whether I can help you with that.”  Or maybe they can’t. 

I continued to list my symptoms, “At night sometimes my ear aches, my jaw hurts, my tooth aches all here on the right.”  He says, “Stop telling me all that and let me focus.”

My physical therapist, Dr. David, always asks for details: when did you notice it, how long did it last, what were you doing when the pain started - so much minutia, that I assumed his referral would have the same pattern of query and I was at the ready.

I tried once more.  In a little voice I said, “I noticed that I have been clenching my teeth while I sleep.”  “Ah hah!”  Now he is ecstatic.  “You need a Mouth Guard.”  And the nurse rolls up this formidable machine, and in goes the wad of clay in the mouth, "Pull your lower teeth back, bite down," and then, “Come back in a week.”

A week later I am fitted with this ridiculous upper teeth device which is attached with two hooks.  “Too tight, too tight.”   He removes it, does some grinding.  Again.  “Too tight, too tight.”   He says, “You’ll get used to it.  Here let me show you how to get it out.  Use this finger nail and pull.”  “I can’t get it off!  I can’t.”  Disgusted he pulls at it with his nail, and it takes some effort for him to remove it.  He works on it some more.  It’s still too tight.  “I won’t wear it.  I don’t want it.” 

“It will loosen up as you wear it.”  “So make it loose right now.”  “If I make it loose, it will fall off.”  “I hate it.”  If I were not reclining, I do believe this is where I would stamp my foot.  He works a bit on the metal clips.  Snaps it back in.  “You will get used to it,” he says adamantly.  Shoves a hand mirror into my fist and says, “Look while you take it out.” 

With the mirror in hand, I see a protruding pink plastic on this devices sticking out in front of my teeth.  “Look,” I howled, “I can’t close my mouth over this!”  He insists I can, so I pull my lips over it, and he concedes that it does, indeed, protrude.   He grinds it back.  In the mouth again.  “It’s got a big lump at the roof of my mouth.”  “It’s supposed to.”  This I don’t believe, but I do believe I’ve exhausted his patience.  I make an exaggerated show of pulling hard at the device to remove it, and he says, “Come back in a month for a check-up.”

That night, I do indeed get used to it.  I will let you know whether all these peripheral symptoms go away.  And I will give it the apple test.

But the only apple I want to eat is wrapped in caramel and studded with nuts, and with a wooden spike jutting up out of it.  If I have to, I will cut it in pieces, as directed.

---Florence

 

 

She's In The Navy

It didn’t exactly look like a uniform, but there is her name on a tag at her right shoulder, and two ribbons on the left.  She said with a smile, “I’m just looking.  Is that all right?  I love book stores.”  I assured her it was fine.

After restraining myself a few long minutes I asked her whether she was Military.  She said she was Navy, going to school at Great Lakes.  (That’s Great Lakes Naval Station in North Chicago, IL, the Navy’s headquarters for training.) 

We discussed her chic suit (well of course you talk about clothes first).  She said the uniform was a rather new style.  I told her I was jealous at how well the beige jacket and black pants fit.  She said they measure you every which way, so it had better fit well, and the white tee was also worn with the more familiar fatigues.  The flat little hat that looks so rakish when she modeled it for me is called a cover.  Cover 1 on the head, Cover 2 folded and down.  Also known as garrison cap.  A black coat folded over her arm.

And the ribbons?  One was for marksmanship with the 9mm, the other was National Defense ribbon issued during wartime.

The important things having been established, I asked casually, and what will you be doing in the service?

“I am a mortician,” she said happily.  She’s seen my astonishment on many faces before, so she elaborated.  “I always wanted to be a mortician.  I felt it as a “calling.”  Even as a young person, I knew the way I wanted to be helpful was to be a mortician.  “Your mother…?” I asked.  “Oh, she wanted me to be a pharmacist like she is, but how boring is that?”  (I forgot what her father does.) 

I couldn’t recognize any regional accent so I asked where she grew up.  “Los Angeles.  I will be going home for Thanksgiving then coming back to finish school here.”  There are 38 students in the class, five of them female.  Our young lady is Valedictorian, graduating at the head of her class at mortuary school.

I asked, not knowing quite how to put it, “Is there a common trait in the group, something you share?”  She said, “We all share a great sense of humor!”  That seemed a joke, right there.  She went on, “We are in it like any career.  Some, like me, want to be doing something to help people, some do it for the money, and some because they don’t want a job dealing with a lot of people.”

Christina had gone from high school into a two year program of Mortuary Science, in LA, that further required two years of internship with funeral homes.  She studied anatomy, embalming science, chemistry.  She has an Embalmer’s license and a Funeral Director license. 

The funeral home where she held a job was owned by a Navy veteran who urged her to join the Corps and serve as a mortician.  She didn’t think of it seriously until he died.  She acted as one of his pall bearers, and as she was walking with him, she thought, “Yes, I will.  I will join the Navy.”  And she did. 

In the Corps school she has now trained as a medic, and on graduation she will be qualified to work in a Navy hospital to attend patients when she is not needed as a mortician.

We talked about the dead soldiers returned from overseas.  She told me a minimum of embalming is done overseas, and it is the family’s choice how to take care of the body after he/she is returned.  “Some choose closed casket.  Others ask that we prepare the body for viewing.  I can do extensive repair, I have had that kind of experience working at the funeral home even before this.”  She doesn’t know which military hospital she will be assigned to after graduation.

She mentioned a serious boyfriend, a longshoreman back in LA.  I asked how that works long distance. She said they visit each other.  She is obligated to serve for five years.  She expects she might move up in rank and make the Navy her career.  The alternative is to become a civilian again and own a funeral home, or she can do that after a long service in the Navy.  Even at 29, she is very young in appearance and enthusiasm.  She has pride and dignity.

She said, “I feel so lucky.”

---Florence

 

Everybody Does it Differently

The orthopedic doctor recommended an epidural injection and physical therapy.  I canceled the epidural because it was scheduled the day the library counts on me to help price its thousands of books for the big Book Sale.  I wore my weight-lifter belt and I was quite comfortable.  But I did go to the physical therapist the next day.

The physical therapist is diagnosing my major back/hip/thigh discomfort. I tell him, “When it doesn’t hurt, I am fine.’’  That doesn’t help him.  I say, “When it hurts, I list to the left side, like this,” assuming a drunken posture.  “Sometimes I can straighten up by climbing up a wall.” and going to a wall, I let my fingers creep up until I’m in a long stretch.  “Very good clue, that tells me a lot,” and he makes marks on his pad.  “Lean forward.”  I hang down, “How far forward?” I ask   He says as far as you can go, so I touch the floor.  Why did that surprise him?  He said, “Lean back.”  I arch my back and lean way back.  “Does that hurt?” he asks worried.  “No.”  

These are Tai Chi movements.  Pick up the Ocean, Show it to Heaven.  Then I realize it has been too long since I met with a group to do Tai Chi.  Our wonderful teacher and guru, Frank, whom we followed to the many facilities as each closed,  left the area and for a long time four of us continued to meet at the Mall to go through the form together.  One after the other, they broke a hip, a shoulder, an arm, a whatever, until there was no more group. 

I sporadically visited other classes, but I was looking for a teacher who approximated the forms I had already learned.  This visit to PT prompted me to find Frank’s phone number. It was good to hear his voice again.  He is now teaching at a health facility helping cancer patients.  He referred me to a young man who had worked with him, and who teaches in the neighborhood.  I phoned the teacher, and he had a class that very night.  Excited, I called Joan and she’s ready too.  She has a major size van – they camp out, even sleeping in it – so I suggest she pick me up.

Surprisingly, Joan drives cautiously.  She and her husband drive distances, Arizona, Wyoming, so I assumed she’d zip down the road at a clip.  It reminded me of my driving in the city.  I drive as if each intersection is a hazard.  Janey, along in the car with me many years ago, complained, “Ma, you drive like an old lady.”  Shortly after that remark, I got a speeding ticket locally.  I was thrilled.  “Officer,” I said, “I can hardly wait to tell my daughter!”

We got to the Tai Chi class.  The teacher was sweet.  He had had surgery for a brain tumor, he had had epilepsy, he was given five years to live ten years ago.  “Tai Chi saved me.  Tai Chi made me well.”  I asked to see his brain surgery scar.  He wears his hair short and I see it didn’t grow back around the very long crease in his dome.  Joan hung back.  Then he asked what we have done, and I performed Pick up the Ocean, Show it to Heaven, exaggerating because I am such a show-off.  He thought it well done.

Then we started with the class - he had said it was a small group, five at most - but there was just one man there.   The movements were recognizable.  But different.  More limited, more confined.  Smaller.   We followed along through the hour.  It was pleasant.  It was not enough. 

I may have to go to China.

--- Florence

 

China - No, Not Dishes

An alumnus of Gettysburg College in PA is helping his college library establish a formidable collection on all things China.  Last week the head librarian joined him here in Chicago where they visited all the book dealers they expected might have books to enhance this new intellectual passion.

They got to my store just before closing.  “I am so glad we caught you while you are still here.  I was so afraid we would miss you.”  (It would have been rude of me to say, “Why didn’t you phone? I would have waited.”)  They took all the books relating to China off the shelf where I cleverly keep them together, and played the computer to see whether these titles were already in the library.  They weren’t!

Getting into it, I suggested the young man hit the art section while I checked the childrens books.  The librarian drifted around looking at the fiction for Chinese authors.  This was fun.  As the books stacked up, I had another thought and pulled the lightweight ladder to the medical books way up high.  Yes, one more: The Opium Trade as Carried on in India and China, published in 1853.  Why was that shelved in Medical?  Why not?

The best part was putting them in bags to be carried away that night.  No, the best part was the librarian signing her name to the check at that moment.

The next morning a Chinese man and his wife walked into the shop. 

I couldn’t understand his question because I was so dismayed that I had not one book to show them.  He repeated what I finally understood to be, Medical?   Oh, no, not opium, my mind gasped. I pointed to the top shelves, and he asked another question.  One word, but again incomprehensible. I looked hopefully at his wife.  Ah, psychiatry.

Here, across the room at eye level is psychiatry.  Only at that moment did I realize those books should, indeed, have been in the medical category.  Will I re-shelve them?  No.  I find whenever I move something (anything at all) to a more logical place, I only remember where it used to be. 

“Ah!” he said, and the wife left for a moment to return with three other members of the family.  While the man examined the books, the wife sat in a chair, and the others roamed and looked. 

He brought two books to the desk, and in perfect English, pronounced the first words we are all taught before visiting a foreign country, “How much?”

I said, “$125 for this” and opened the second one, “$8 for this.”  What?  “Eight dollars?  Eight dollars?” I heard myself questioning.  I flipped the pages and saw the underlining.  I pointed at it explaining, "That’s why $8."   He nodded, took out his credit card, indicating both books. 

While I was bagging the books, I said to the woman while nodding at the young girl, “Beautiful girl.”  She beamed.  “Granddaughter.”  And she looked at the young man, proudly, “Son.”

We bid each other Goodbye, smiling. 

I enjoyed the juxtaposition of the China connection.  While we do get customers of all nationalities, including several Americans of Chinese heritage among them, these two back-to-back visits were so intensely Chinese that it was again a playful coincidence that makes life entertaining.

--- Florence

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Sunday Visit

Who has a moustache and beard,  twinkly eyes, dimpled smile?  Fooled ya?  It’s Billy Corgan (Smashing Pumpkins) when he’s on his own time.  No razor, no shiny pate, no silky smooth skin.   Didn’t fool me for a minute.  Of course being skinny and 6’3” helps identify him.  I’m startled every time I see him towering.  “You’re still growing!” I accuse him.

Billy had been in LA writing music all summer and is back here now to produce the music. He’s been trying to drop into my bookstore to say Hello, but he’s been too busy, so, spontaneously, we made it a Sunday house visit.  Art’s been home recovering from surgery so the visit was a pick-me-up for him especially since Billy appreciates good photography and enjoyed looking at Art’s photos. 

I had told Billy that Art’s recovery diet seems to consist of chicken soup.  The refrigerator was full of gift containers of soup, the freezer too.  Since I hate cooking, I was delighted with this easy way of feeding the getting-better patient. 

Suddenly I realized that with all our easy conversation, some time had passed, so I asked, “Billy, you want a cup of tea? Or coffee?”  He said, “I’d like some soup.”  How can you not love a guest like that?  We sat at the dining room table slurping chicken soup with toasted English muffins.

We all had tea.  I accumulate mugs by their entertaining designs.  Here’s one with a music staff circling it, and tiny birds perched for the notes.  How appropriate.  I handed that one to Billy, and asked, “Is that a real song?”  He looked at it and said, “I think so.”  I said, “How does it go?”

He said – get ready for this, folks – he said, “I don’t know.  I don’t read music.”

WHAT?  

I said, “What do you mean, you don’t read music?  How do you write your songs?”  He pointed to his head.  “It’s in here.  I hear it in my head.”  I said, “I thought you wrote the music for all the other instruments?”  “I do.”

Wow.  He just finished writing, or more appropriately, composing 44 songs.  And he’s giving them away free.  On the Internet.  I have no idea how the music business works, but I didn’t think Free was a business word.   The part of the music business Billy likes best is performing on stage.

I don’t know the Billy Corgan persona on stage.  I do know that in personal life, he’s adorable.

--- Florence

 

 

 

Party and Sirens

What an adorable birthday party for a 10 year old.  The large front yard was full of barnyard animals –a sheep, a goat, a truly fat hog, ducks and geese and turkeys, a crate of furry yellow chicks with lavender beaks, tiny rabbits and bigger ones of exotic breeding. And a pony for pony rides in a tight circle. 

The most fun was when the tiny fluffy yellow chicks pressed through the small opening in the pen.  Oh the screeching of the crowd of little party people as they chased after the very elusive puff of yellow.  Incredibly no chick was hurt in this pursuit.  Many of the children walked around with a bunny cradled in an arm until each found out that bunny scratches.  Chicks were cupped in palms.  One of the dads, on all fours, butted heads with a small ram who clearly did not understand its role in the game.  Cute, though.

Unfortunately, a little girl got a severe allergic reaction to these creatures.  I heard that she was inside gasping for breath.  The mother was phoned to come with the inhalator, and caution advised to phone 911 also. 

Sirens announced the huge fire truck, and two men carrying equipment made for the house.  An ambulance followed a few minutes later, again with men carrying in equipment.  Then along came a police car with a lady cop.  She didn’t carry anything. 

I thought the children might clamor around these fascinating vehicles, but the pull of the animals was stronger.  Soon the gurney was rolled out of the ambulance and into the house. The mother arrived, bewildered.  The gurney, now with its teary passenger, wheeled past again.  We urged the mother to ride in the ambulance, assuring her we would bring her car to the hospital, and keep her very little boy at the house until things were settled.

The kids soon tumbled into the house to continue with indoor games led by big sister Natalie, then the traditional candle blowing, the singing Happy Birthday Dear Gabi, and the party goodies.

Outside, the “farmers” were breaking up the petting zoo, and putting the animals back into the trailer.  Jami got into the mother’s car to drive it to the hospital, while Dick followed behind to take Jami home.  The very little boy had an unexpected party cupcake and candy.

We hear the little girl has returned home, recovered.  The little boy was reunited with his family.  Gabi does not realize that she will have a story to tell when remembering her 10^th birthday party.

--- Florence

PS  I just heard that Gebi's birthday wish was, "I wish Marilyn gets better," and then she blew out the candles.

Surgery, and Back Home Again

Art has been out of the hospital for 3 days now and we are fast approaching normalcy.  He had diverticulitis which turned out nastier than anticipated.  And without warning. 

He made his Slide Show presentation to a large and enthusiastic audience at the Rainbow Club (a bar in Chicago) on a Sunday night, after which we went with friends (including a delightful couple from Italy) to a very late dinner.  When Art complained of a bellyache the next day, he assumed it was the salmon he ate.  I was dubious.  I ate the same meal and was feeling fine. When he phoned me at my shop the following afternoon, he said it felt worse than just a bad dinner. My call to the gastroenterologist got him an immediate appointment and sent him to our local hospital for tests. 

 A phone call at 1:30 AM sounded the alert – go immediately to the emergency room at Evanston Hospital, about 45 minutes away. In the black middle of the night, I followed some signs with a big H, leading me directly to the wrong hospital.  Rerouting ourselves we finally found the hospital where they were expecting him in Emergency. 

 He’s recovering very well and refused Rehab (which is a greater necessity for the partner than for the patient.) 

 An excellent friend showed up with a tub of chicken soup, and huge bowls of rice and chicken.  She thoughtfully brought two baked apples which happily Art doesn’t like and I love.  So we have enough essentials for days.  Another friend called to say she was bringing chicken broth, but I refused, saying we were all souped up.

 Hospital anecdotes:

1. Small world department.  Art’s nurse asked him whether he knew photographer, Steve?  Well, yes, he’s our son.  She was delighted.  She said she put one of the pictures he took of her on YouTube, and it got her a husband.  She wants him to take her wedding pictures, but he’s in Seattle.  She was especially attentive to Steve’s dad.
2. You gotta be kidding department.  The Physical Therapist cautioned me that because she was concerned for Art’s balance, that when Art walks up the stairs, I (little me) should walk behind him (to break his fall).  I had visions of me squashed under him.  I said, politely, “OK” while thinking, “Not very likely!”  But I find I am walking behind him as a precaution.  He is, thankfully, sturdy in his ascension.

 The Sunday Trib just ran a terrific article about Art’s photo presentation.  They did not know of the tribulation between then and now.

 ---Florence