I’m definitely off schedule. Forgive me.

Hello, shalom and how’s-the-family from the best little hospital bed in Texas! Our busy Monday afternoon finally calmed down into a lazy, quiet evening after visits from: 1) my hospice C.N.A. for Monday bathing and hygiene; 2) my hospice R.N. for a weekly checkup; and 3) our hospice social worker, Theresa the Bubbling Chatterbox, a woman who’s so perfectly suited to her profession it could make your brain explode.

That’s a lot of activity for us in one day!

It’s already 11:19 p.m. as I begin this post, Sam is asleep on the sofa and we’re watching one of my favorite screwball musical comedies, A Damsel in Distress (1937) starring Fred Astaire, Joan Fontaine, George Burns and Gracie Allen. Yes, Joan Fontaine actually made a musical with Fred Astaire. She couldn’t sing — and thank God nobody asked her to — but she did try to dance and looked like a Clydesdale in pumps. (No grace, no rhythm, no nothing.)

Joan Fontaine and Fred Astaire in “A Damsel in Distress.”

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I should mention that I’m sick tonight. For most of the evening I felt needy, achy, sad, emotional, lousy and not really “myself.” Sam could tell. He can always tell. I described my symptoms as “crabby, clammy and blecch,” and when we took my temperature we discovered that I had a fever of 100.9°. For me, that’s awfully high. My normal body temperature is about 96°, so 100.9° is equivalent to five degrees of fever (i.e., 103°). I asked Sam to please take away my cover sheet so I could cool off, but that didn’t really help much, so he gave me a pair of tropical Popsicles and two 10mg Hydrocodone tablets, because they each contain 325mg of Tylenol. (The Hydrocodone tablets, not the Popsicles.)

Sam is spending the night out here in the family room with me just in case I need him. I love when he does this!

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I think I’d better shut this down for the night and post my blog … even though it’s grievously brief. I’ll do better next time. You can count on it.

Thank you for reading this and you have my persmission to do whatever you want with the Alamo.