Tuesday, July 15, 2014

A Bullet Through His Hat

Burma Vita’s little rhymes used exaggeration in search of humor:

She put
A bullet
Thru his hat
But he’s had
Closer shaves than that
Burma Shave

We had our own humorous adventure, Ellen and I, this past weekend.  She came home for a visit, just to see how she’d get along.  Because we are in a senior complex, the doorways are wider than the standard, so her wheelchair fit nicely.  She wanted to do some work in her office, but the wheelchair’s arms were too high to fit under her desk.  She transferred to her office chair with no problem but when it came time to transfer back, she found the chair was so low she could not rise out of it.  She did manage to transfer to a dining room chair, which is slightly higher, but still could not stand up from it.  She is not to put any kind of pressure on her arms greater than ten pounds, so could not use her arms to lift herself, and I couldn’t figure out how to help raise her without lifting her under her shoulders.  Then she had an idea:  I went to a bookshelf and pulled out six copies of Sew Far So Good, a collection of three Betsy Devonshire novels.  She rocked onto one buttock and I pushed a book under it, then onto the other and I put a book under that, and so on and so on, until she was raised high enough to stand and take two steps and sit down in her wheelchair.  It is thought by some that a similar method was used by the Ancient Egyptians to lift huge blocks of stone, and certainly I was proud as an Ancient Egyptian foreman at our solution!

And a great piece of good news!  She may come home permanently later this week.  She is making such great progress that both her physical and occupational therapists say it could be so.  We have an appointment with her surgeon tomorrow, to see if he approves – and get a more detailed report on her surgery.

I do have a pattern for Ebenezer’s Christmas Yarn after all: It was sent to me some while back by Alix Jordan, my Canadian friend.  It’s a Christmas tree done in a collection of different-colored stitches that look like asterisks.  Strikingly pretty and not all that difficult.  She reminded me of it and I swooped down on it like a falcon on a hapless pigeon.  Solved!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

So happy to hear you and Ellen are forging through! Hope she comes home soon!

Betty Hechtman said...

I admire your resourcefulness with the book. Great that Ellen is doing so well.

Christine Thresh said...

You can't have too many Monica Ferris books! They may come in handy someday, and they are fun to read.
I am glad Ellen is doing well.

Linda O. Johnston said...

Glad to hear that things are progressing well with Ellen, Monica!

Anonymous said...

So glad your friend is better.

The new pattern is an ornament, right?