A LUCKY STROKE!!

On Thursday, November 12, I (Jim) was at a luncheon meeting at the American Legion. When I got the soup I ordered, I had trouble holding and opening the package of crackers. My left arm felt numb and heavy. My speech got mumbled and I realized I was having something going wrong.
I knew it was bad enough that I left the meeting to call 911 on my cell phone but was not able to manipulate it properly so I asked the waitress to call 911.
When the fire department EMS got there they agreed I was having a STROKE!! It took a while but they finally took me to the Venice hospital. While waiting to go I had a call placed to Carol to let her know what was going on and also so she could get our car which would be left at the Legion.
The ER staff went into fast action and I got a CAT scan and then they shot an anti-coagulant to dissolve the clot that was the problem. Within 15 minutes of the shot, I began to have improved use of my left arm and the numbness in my tongue was leaving and I could speak more clearly.
I did have to stay on ICU for 24 hours so they could monitor me. They said I had a stroke that was larger than a TIA (mini-stroke) but much less than one where a blood vessel breaks. So I spent Thursday and Friday nights in the hospital and came home on early Saturday evening,
I have been having in-home therapy since then and everything is improving but typing is still a problem because my fingers don't seem to go where I tell them to go!!
I was very lucky that the stroke was small and that I got treatment for it quickly enough. Full recovery is expected.

LEHIGH RESORT VACATION

Carol and I have owned 2 timeshares at Lehigh Resort, near Ft Myers, for many years. We usually bank them with RCI and then use them to go to St Thomas each year. This year we decided to stay at Lehigh since we are not going to St Thomas.  Instead we are flying to Hawaii, staying in a hotel a couple of nights and then cruising the islands on a Norwegian Cruise ship.
Since the unit we have in the Fall is a one bedroom with an adjoining Studio we invited Lori, our son's widow, to visit with us.

Carol and Lori (that is her just behind Carol) go to do water aerobics in the mornings. but most of the time we were trying to put together jigsaw puzzles!!

Since there is a very large and good flea market at Ft Myers we made a stop there for shopping.

One of the mornings the resort had a pancake breakfast so we breakfast there.

One of favorite restaurants is the Hut. They have very good food and our favorite musician plays there, Jerry Dycke. He plays very good dance music and we first saw him there over 20 years ago. We even took Rob and Lori there to hear him once when they came to the resort with us. This time we had our granddaughter, Dawn, along with us.

You can see Jerry Dycke with Carol in a following post!!

LANAI REMODELING

This summer was very hot and our lanai seemed extra hot. When we bought this house we had insulation put on the roof over the lanai and also have a 12,000 BTU air conditioner but its is not keeping the lanai comfortable enough. The other problem we have noticed is the noise from rainfall on the roof. It is quite difficult to listen to the TV when it is raining hard.
So we contracted to have a false ceiling installed on the inside of the roof, plus insulation.  We may even get a new air conditioning unit of a much larger size.
Of course the first part of the renovation was the removal of most of our "stuff" from the lanai.

You will notice that we removed the vinyl siding from the walls. Since we are having the ceiling dry-walled we wanted to have the walls done also. This will make the room look more like the other parts of the house. The contractor taped paper on the beams to protect them during his work.

Here you can see the ceiling 2 x 4's installed in one area and the others awaiting installation. Insulation follows the grid work. As the insulation was being completed, it began raining hard and it was amazing how much the sound of the rain was reduced.

We moved the TV from one wall to the other and had it hung on the wall. Also got a credenza cabinet to store th electronic stuff, cd's, dvd's and other things.  After the painting was done we had split air conditioner installed that is 24,000 BTU's. I wanted to be sure we had enough cooling power. The unit is aso a heat pump so we will have heating in cool weather.

DANCING AGAIN

This past week we went out dancing again. This time we drove to Buckingham and went to the hut Restaurant to have dinner and dance to the music of Jerry Dycke. Carol and first saw Jerry at the Hut about 25 years ago when we vacationed at the Lehigh resort nearby.

This time we had a group of eight attending. Here are four of our group.

That's Don & Joyce Murphey, Peg Anslo and Bob Dudley at our table after dinner enjoying the dancing. Of course Carol and I as well as Gus and Marily Lopes were also at the Hut.

Jerry Dycke is a versatile performer and even gets costumed for the numbers he does from Phantom of the Opera. You know we must enjoy his music to drive and hour just to have dinner and dance to his music.

BIRTHDAYS AND DANCING

Carol and I go dancing nearly every week with our friends. We usually go to the Elks or the American Legion and follow one of our favorite musicians, Jay Smith.
Last week when we went to the Elks there were three of us in our group that had recent birthdays, so Carol arranged for a cake large enough to serve about 50. Not enough for all of those attending the dance but most everyone got a piece of cake.

 

Here is the birthday group, Carol, Jim and Bob Dudley. Naturally Jay Smith played Happy Birthday for the group also.

CAROL'S BIRTHDAY DINNER/TRIP (PART 1)

When we were travelling in the motor home one of the places that Carol really enjoyed was San Diego and especially the Hotel Dell Coronado ("The Del"). So to really surprise her and make it a very special birthday I planned a weekend in San Diego with us staying at the Del.

We flew to LA and drove to San Diego arriving the day before her birthday. We got there early enough to do some touring and just enjoying the local area.

Here we are en route to LA.

Here is Carol in front of the Del and on Orange Avenue.






















Since Carol's \birthday was not until the next day, we planned to go to nice restaurant then rather than today. For dinner we had a light dinner at a Burger joint that must have been very popular based on the line at the place for  dinner. The burgers were really good.

Of course we had to have a glass of wine at pool side during the afternoon also. The entire place is great to just sit around a people watch!!

The hotel was built in 1888 and one of the items that caught Carol's eye was the Otis elevator. I was over 100 years old and was even operated by an elevator operator. You don't see that anymore. It has been upgraded and they do not have the operating handle anymore but use buttons. However the doors are still of the old variety and opened and closed by the operator.

 







The hotel's main restaurant was not open on Carol's birthday so I researched the area and picked Vigilucci's because it had 4 veal dishes on the menu and Carol loves veal!! Here we are out in front of the restaurant. We had dinner on the patio and listened to the piano player serenading us!!

CAROL'S BIRTHDAY DINNER/TRIP (PART 2)

Since it was Carol's birthday dinner the restaurant even provided a birthday "cake". It was really a creme boules!! That is a whole lot better than plain ole' birthday cake!!

Prior to Carol's dinner,after having breakfast on the patio of the Del, facing the Pacific Ocean, we went for a short stroll on Orange Avenue. Weather here was really nice as the early morning temperatures were about 66 F and very dry. We even slept with the window open at night! Since we had the day to tour, we took a trolley tour but only got off at one stop, Old Town. This is where San Diego actually began. There were plenty of Mexican places so we had to stop and have a margarita and some chips and salsa!! We didn't want to spoil dinner.

The next day, Tuesday, we drove to LA, had lunch at a hole-in-the-wall Mexican place that had really good Mexican food. Since we were departing the area early in the morning we stayed close to the airport.
Now I am trying to think of how I can top this birthday for Carol. It will be a challenge!!

JIM'S BIG EIGHT O BIRTHDAY

Holly Smokes, it has been over a year since I posted anything on this site. Shame in me!!

But since I celebrated my EIGHTIETH birthday this weekend, I felt I should get back posting some our activities, and we really do have a lot of them!! I do not post what we are going to do but rather what we have DONE. (Too many crazies out there)

To celebrate my birthday we took the motor home and went to Tampa area and camped at Lazy Days for the weekend.  Got there on Thursday and that evening went to one our favorites, Happy Hour at  Fleming's Steak House. Good prices and and a very nice hamburger at half the cost as in the dining room. We usually go to the Fleming's in Sarasota but Tampa was closer of course.

Rain was coming down all weekend so we had to stay in a lot. As of Monday Tampa is having significant flooding in the area but we were lucky and did not have any problems with it.

Friday night we went to the local Brandon Elks thinking we were going to get to do some dining and dancing. We got the dining, but the music was not appropriate for dancing. We also found it strange that no one was even trying to dance. We left early and commented on the lack of dancers and the gal we talked to said they don't dance much there!!

I think that Carol's highlight of the weekend was finding an HSN outlet store in Brandon!!! We did find a great deal there for those thin style hangers and I needed a lot of them.

Saturday was Jim's birthday and we had reservations to go to the Columbia restaurant in Ybor City. It is a Spanish/Cuban restaurant and highly reputed. We have been to one of their "branches" in Sarasota's St. Armand's Circle but this location has been here since 1905. The tile work outside and inside the restaurant is quite beautiful. In addition to dinner we arranged to watch the Flamenco show. Our seats were right on edge of the stage floor so we had no trouble seeing the show!! We had to wait a while to get seated and here is a picture of Carol patiently waiting. Notice the tile work!

The show and the meals were both excellent. Carol had a veal entree and I had a bacon wrapped filet and naturally we brought some of each home,

We left Lazy Days on Sunday morning, in the rain naturally, and drove to Gibsontown, on the way home,  to get a fill up of diesel in the mnotorhome at $2.429 per gallon. That is a real bargain and since I had to put 90 gallons in, I saved a lot from normal prices. A full tank of diesel is my "hurricane Insurance". If a hurricane comes our way, I can go 1200 miles on a tank of fuel to get out of it's way!!!

So, smooth sailing to all of our friends. Jim and Carol