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Praetorium Honoris

Monday, March 4, 2024

Un peu de ci, un peu de cela*


 So, a bit of good news this past week.  Mrs J has completed her last Chemo infusion in a series of 1 a month for the last 4, oops I stand corrected, 6 months.  As part of that procedure, the medicos draw blood and do a few tests on it.  One of those is to count the number of cancer cells in it.  So in addition to her last infusion, which knocks her on her butt for a day or two afterword, she's had 4 in a row with that number going down.  As I said, good news.  She has three weeks of Chemo pill taking which she tolerates pretty well, a week off then 5 weeks of being zapped with radiation.  

My two miracle ladies, the one on the left, Miss B, - 6 months in NICU, the one on the right, Mrs J,- 6 months of Chemo.  Both are doing well.  Thank You, Lord!

 Again, I thank all y'all saying prayers for her, they're obviously working.

As some of you might remember, a few weeks ago, I had an exciting experience in my wood shop.  I had seen a youtube video about "Inside Out" wood turning and thought I'd give it a try.  



 Those two pieces, a couple of minutes before this picture was taken, was one piece. They split in half and went sailing across the shop.  Fortunately, they missed me.  I resolved I would learn a bit more about how to do this before trying again.


This one turned out much better.  Still made a couple of procedural mistakes, but it'll be hanging from our tree this Christmas.  More, and better, to follow.

Also wood shop related, Mrs. J has gently persuaded me to undergo a project for our oldest granddaughter.  MG is about 2 and 1/2 and has taken to playing with dolls.  Mrs. J told me she thought MG needed a doll house.  I was a bit reticent until she presented her plan.  We are on the mailing list of Wall Street Journal Wines (I have no idea if they're a subset of WSJ, but they do have pretty good wine offerings) and last Christmas bought a sampling of wines.  It came packaged in a Christmas themed box shaped like a house..

So my task is to modify it into a doll house, sturdy enough to withstand a 2+YO girl.


Structures are going in, it will be two stories with an "Attic" for storage of stuff not being played with at any given time.  We'll see how it turns out.

We also solved a different problem.  As our regular readers are aware, Mrs J and I inherited my Sister's 3 Dogs on her passing, a Golden Retriever and 2 Great Pyrenees.  Yes, Beans, they are very LARGE dogs.  With our blind Transylvanian Wolf Hound, our very old Dachsund and a cranky Chihuahua, the GP's became outside dogs.  However, our original outside fencing had a major problem.  The driveway gate could be pushed open.  The GP's very quickly learned this and "The Great Escape" became a reality.  

The solution originally was to put a chain around the gate and the fence post.  That worked fine, but it's less than fun to try and open a metal chain when it's raining or cold or if the GP's are standing there in their sprinter starting block waiting for the thing to open.  Tolerated it for about 6 months and finally said enough.

I called a fencing dude.  

 

Source

(No Beans, Epee's were not involved.)

He showed up, on time, which given the construction going on around here was not expected, but deeply appreciated.  I explained what I wanted.  He said he'd put together a quote and get back to me.  He did, the next day, and after looking at the quote and discussing it with my financial officer (You Guys know who I'm talking about) told him OK.  He asked if starting the next day would be feasible.  

"Why, as a matter of fact it is!" said I.



The gate is the original, the addition is along either side of the driveway.  On the right side, you can see the two GP's looking forlorn.  Instead of 40 acres to roam in, they're confined to a little less than two.  Poor Dogs!   Bwahhh-Ha-Ha, I say as I twist my mustache.  It's so much easier to get in and out I should have done it long ago.

Finally, Mrs. J and I are sitting out front last evening when my phone dings.  It's MBD and she's sent me a photo.  I had given her a box of family photos and told her to take any she wanted.  She had sent the photo to get the back story.


Well...This was taken on my 12th Birthday.  My folks had given me a pair of binoculars as a present.  Our house was one of the original base housing when Webb AFB was built for WWII.  It wasn't very nice when we lived in it and isn't any better now.  (448 Armstrong St, Big Spring TX if you want to google earth it and take a look at it now.)

But you could see the runways and flight line from the top of the fence.  It was even better with binoculars.  Yes, I knew what I wanted to do when I "grew up", so I spent a lot of time there watching those flying thingies.

The picture brought back a lot of memories. Not the least of which is "Wish I was that thin and had that much hair again."

Peace out, y'all!

 * The Chant's French Professor, a couple of weeks ago, taught me that phrase translates to "a little of this, a little of that".  Thanks, Sarge!

32 comments:

  1. The news on Mrs. J is encouraging and prayers are still in the rotation for her and yours juvat. Oh my, those ARE large pups, $$ well spent. Twelve years old eh? Whoever thought that less hair on top of the head would be offset by increased hair in the nostrils and ear canals was a good thing.....harumph.......harumph I say!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Nylon,
      Thanks.
      Yeah, I wonder if a hair transplant is a possibility. Lord knows I have enough to spare.
      :-)
      juvat

      Delete
  2. Turned 12 in Texas and there you are still! Mrs J is still in our thoughts and prayers...

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    Replies
    1. Rob,
      Well, there was a 19 year period (after pilot training) when I was only in Texas long enough to refuel the jet.
      Thanks, prayers are appreciated.
      juvat

      Delete
  3. Glad to hear that Mrs. J is continuing to do well. Prayers still up!

    We have two dollhouses in the family. One was made for my father from a "kit" for my sister that I think is somewhere in the storage level of the "Agricultural Building" at The Ranch; the other - next to my bed as we had no other place to put it - is one made by The Ravishing Mrs. TB's paternal grandfather. It is a two story and completely hand built (including the furniture). Using that pre-made starter box looks great!

    The poor Great Pyrenees, bound to a mere two acres. How will they survive?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. THBB,
      Thanks,
      Man! That handmade dollhouse sounds fabulous. Talk about woodworking skills, your wife's grandfather musta had them in spades! I'd sure like to evolve to that skill level. I'm taking baby steps in that direction.
      juvat

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  4. Excellent news on the Mrs. J front, as has been said prayers will continue until she gets a clean bill of health!

    Looks like you have a lot to occupy your "spare" time. Actually, it looks as if you have no "spare" time, didn't realize that retirement could be so busy.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sarge,
      Thanks, much appreciated.
      The good news about retirement is you have scheduling flexibility. So, if my schedule dictates reading a book, so it shall be. If Mrs. J says "let's do this", my schedule gets altered to accommodate. You'll get used to it fairly quickly, I'm sure.
      juvat

      Delete
  5. A good report, Sir! Sometimes a little good news is the blessing.

    Thanks.

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    Replies
    1. Michael,
      Yeah definitely good news is the blessing. The Big Guy saying "Stop worrying, I got this"
      juvat

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    2. Took me a long to time realize that worrying does nothing, and praying is a far better use of my time.

      Delete
    3. Tuna,
      Agreed and I spend a lot of time on the latter. Unfortunately, the former pokes its nose around a bit also.
      juvat

      Delete
  6. Very interesting! I grew up in Garden City just south of Big Spring. T-37's and t-38's flew over our house all the time and until they stopped going supersonic all the time, sonic booms were happening all the time. When we wandered on my grandfather's ranch land, we would find quite a few of the concrete dummy bombs dropped by trainees during WW2. Granddaddy made a lot of ashtrays from them. and used the larger concrete pieces to provide weight on his plow toolbars.

    Good times!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anon,
      Howdy Neighbor! Lived in Big Spring from starting 6th Grade til HS Graduation. Dad had a 4 year tour as an IP, then went to Vietnam for a year. He then got transferred to Columbus MS my senior year in HS. I'd have had to delay HS Graduation if I moved there, so I stayed with my Guidance Counselor and his wife that year. (1973)
      There were a lot of military bases in Texas during WWII weren't there? And therefore probably a lot of unexploded ammunition. Still.
      All that having been said, I've got lots of happy memories about the town.
      juvat

      Delete
  7. Good news, is good! On all your woes, getting better. Keep it up.
    JB

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  8. You're not kidding about that neighborhood. I "drove" around a little on Google Maps and discovered something that looked like military buildings, yet were still behind a fence. Still military? Nope, these fences were wrapped in concertina- Some commercial-run prison outfit.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tuna,
      From what I've heard, there are multiple places of incarceration (from penitentiaries to jails to insane asylums) on the grounds. The three buildings (5 homes) on Armstrong St were the WWII quarters for the Wing Commander, Vice Commander, Dir of Ops, Director of Maintenance and Base Commander. That was the only non-barracks housing on base. Sometime in the late 50's, early 60's on the other side of the hill to the east and fairly large housing area was built. I don't know what disposition was made for those buildings when Webb was shut down.
      Might be worth a trip to see what's changed. Course if the panhandle fire isn't put out soon, there might not be much to see if it heads south. I know, it's about 150 miles north, but...
      juvat

      Delete
    2. Probably not the economic impact that one might hope for a former base, but jobs are jobs.

      Delete
    3. Big Spring has (had?) a very large oil refinery back when we lived there. That, Ranching and the Base was pretty much the economy. Be interesting to see what's what now. I don't even know if people are allowed on the old base property.
      juvat

      Delete
  9. Mumble, mumble, stupid pistol grip wire weenies aren't real fencing, mumble mumble... If it's not a schlager blade or a double-wide epee or a real saber, it ain't fencing, it's whacking and stabbing with an antenna. Though I can follow 'modern' fencing, it's... boring. And stupid. It's more about not real fighting than two kids with foam swords at a water park. Now if they were using, well, a double-wide epee or a schlager while holding the swords with a real hilt and doing that strip-dancing, might be more entertaining. Otherwise it's about as exciting as watching Olympic target pistol shooting (which has almost nothing in comparison with real target shooting. Maybe if the Olympics get 3-gun teams or go with some other 'Murican form of gun competition...)

    Nice fence, glad you found someone to actually do it and do it now rather than some nebulous time way down the road when the temps are approaching triple 'Freedom Unit' temperatures.

    Glad things are going well with the miracle ladies.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Beans,
      Thanks. I knew as soon as I wrote the "So I called the Fencing Guy" you would have commented. Now I've got a whole new list of terms to look up.
      juvat

      Delete
  10. So good to hear your family is doing well. Our grandson is an "Emergency, 10 week early" delivery. and he spent about 12 weeks in the NICU before he was allowed to go home with Mom and Dad.
    Prayers were sent, and will continue.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. DrJim,
      Yeah, having a preemie is very hard to swallow. Fortunately, we found the NICU staff tp be very compassionate and exceptionally well trained and capable. Our granddaughter is progressing well, but not completely out of trouble yet. Hope yours is doing well.
      juvat

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    2. Yes, it can be quite an ordeal. He's at 95% for his reading and math skills, but he's not going to be 6' tall like his Daddy. We had his 7th birthday party yesterday, and he's a healthy, happy kid, but he's just not going to be tall. The NICU staff here is equally as wonderful as yours. I don't know how they handle working with preemies all day long. It must be heartbreaking......

      Delete
    3. DrJim,
      Playing basketball isn’t all that important. I’m very glad both yours and ours are doing well in spite of there starting conditions. IMHO, it’s the mind and soul that determines success in life. Sounds like your grandson is doing well in that regard.
      Agree wholeheartedly about NICU staff. Angels sent from heaven.
      juvat

      Delete
  11. Great news on both the ladies, and be glad GPs aren't 'jumpers'... just sayin...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Old NFO, yeah, that would be…problematic!
      juvat

      Delete
  12. Juvat, late getting to this week's post as the vegetable garden is a priority right now as we approach the Ides of March. The 15th is the seed planting day with seedling plants due in the ground a week later with plastic milk jug protection.
    Happy to hear of Mrs. J's continued progress and you being able to avoid "identified" flying objects in the shop. Regarding the "fence guy". I'm amazed you were able to find someone in this area who could start the job immediately and complete it without delay. Normally it's I'll put you on the list and let you know the day before I'll be ready to start work.
    Regards,
    Cletus

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Cletus, JIC you need him I texted you his info.
      juvat

      Delete

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