1973 / 42 / 15

Finished the ninth Maisie Dobbs mystery. Then spent an enjoyable evening with the unexpected John Grisham baseball novel Calico Joe. Mrs. Dr. Phil said it wouldn't take me long. It didn't.

Kids dream about being the player who has the most amazing, if impossibly improbable, career. That's what happens when Joe gets called up to the Chicago Cubs from AA Midland Texas. Also, it partly takes place in 1973 White Plains NY, the year after we left White Plains. Tons of name dropping.

I figured out where it was going pretty early, but that didn't detract from the story. It'd be poignant for most readers, for a baseball fan it's a thrill ride and for the Cubs fan -- it's heartbreak. (grin)

The book is even shorter than it looks, since it includes a chunk of another novel. But all in all...

RECOMMENDED

Dr. Phil

T-8 Days

Vindicated! I was right about the various actual stairwells having different pitch stairs and hence different numbers of stairs between the floors. Therapists have worked here for years and argued about it. I was adamant and made them get a tape measure.

On the other hand, I was given wrong information. The stairs in the gym, I had thought were 7-11 stairs and someone on staff agreed. But turns out they are 6" rise -- 3" rise for the shallow half stairs. No wonder the 8" stairs at home were tough, they were 2" higher than the gym, not 1".

So today we started in the steeper stairwell and I walked twice up and down to the first landing. While I was sitting on the seat to the walker, I said that I ought to be able to sit down on the stairs -- and with two solid metal railings, I had a better chance of getting up from there than pushing up off a mat table. Even though two stairs were about 15" whereas the lowest mat table is 17".

I was right.

I was only going to do it once, but the supervisor who had come on the home visit some two weeks ago happened to be coming up the stairs -- one of the elevators was down. We had not even tried the 15.25" high toilet at home and I told him what I had just done, and did he want to see me do it again. So I did.

Then I used my own cane to walk to the elevator, and then with a couple of breaks, I walked three-quarters of the way around One, before switching to the walker. Whew.

In OT, we did a beach ball game with one of the weighted sticks held in both hands. I played around with hitting it high and low, then one time hit it too vertical and bounced it off the rod a couple of times before passing it back. Not bad for a total klutz.

Another tiring but completely successful day here on Five.

Dr. Phil