Boots’ Eye Infection Recovery - Oceano, CA

Finally, Boots can move on. The infection is completely healed, not repaired but healed. Boots has had her lower left eye lid corrected to prevent the “rolling in” and irritation of the eye ball. She will need to get a new prescription check and possibly new lens for the left. While vision is expected to improve it will never be corrected to 20:20 in the left.

It has been a hard 5 months for Boots to have limited vision, pain, discomfort and needing only time to heal. Both of the ophthalmologists (regular cornea exams and plastic surgeon for the repair) were very good and provided good health care.

Tail Light Out – Oceano, CA

Someone pointed out to us that our right rear taillight was burned out. So, we made an appointment to have that fixed and scheduled an oil change too. So, we dropped the truck off for a half-day at the local Ford dealer. Well, 4 hours later, they called to tell us that there had been a slight accident. While pulling our truck into the bay to work on it, they hit the wall and damaged the passenger side of the truck bed.

They said they would need the rest of the week to do the body work and would provide us with a rental until the truck was fixed. We were not very angry about it – a small car meant we could go to the city (San Luis Obispo) and have no problem finding parking. I think they were surprised by our calm response. Also, we are staying here in Oceano until the end of October so we weren’t negatively impacted by the schedule.

So, we got a Mazda and were off. We have found renting cars a fun way to check out the different manufacturers/models. The only thing we liked about this Mazda was the emergency brake mechanism. You push down to engage the emergency brake and then you push down again to disengage – very clever and easy to work. Otherwise the model was very poorly designed – mirrors didn’t really show enough to be helpful backing up, the seats did not lower so you hit your head upon entering the car and have to stretch out to reach the ground when exiting, gas mileage was worse than the truck’s (12 MPG), etc.

Nature’s Pumice – Oceano, CA

Walking Karma at least twice a day on the dunes has really smoothed out Ruthi’s feet. The sand is so deep and soft that she rarely wears her flip flops out on the dunes. The very fine particles have rubbed her calluses off. What a much easier remedy than sitting in the shower/tub rubbing away.

Finally Relief - Oceano, CA

Boots is finally moving out of her siege of pain and discomfort. Since her cataract surgery in early May, she has been bearing her headaches, eye infection, lack of clear vision, etc. etc. etc. She still isn’t driving but she does have a new eye glass prescription and has finally been able to walk out to see the Dunes with Ruthi and Karma. Over 3 months of recovery has really taken the toll on her and Ruthi.

Coastal Confusion - Pismo Beach, CA

The incident about to be described has happened twice in the past week. We have never had this happen before. Really amazing that in our combined 130+ years this hasn’t happened before let alone twice in a week. Boots is still dealing with the infection from the cataract surgery in early May. She is having follow-up appointments here and is scheduling surgery to correct the entropion of the left lower lid that seems to have results from the infection solution.

So, Boots has second appointments with each of these ophthalmologists. Their staff doesn’t seem to call the day before to remind patients of appointments. But we have the ultra anal-retentive (Ruthi), so there is little chance we’d miss an appointment. Especially, now that Ruthi has no one else to herd but Boots and Karma. When Boots walked up to the check-in desk (at each location), she was informed that she didn’t have an appointment. The check-in clerk asked if she had a card confirming the appointment. In the first incidence, Boots did have a card with the date/time of the appointment. At the second occurrence, she did not have a card. Luckily, at both places Boots ended up having the appointments but we have learned is to get cards every time we set up a follow-up appointment.

Movie Theater Visit After Aurora, CO Shooting - Oceano, CA

We go to the movies a lot. Between the two of us, we have a broad spread of interests and usually see just about every film we can. Though we do draw the line at most overly violent, overly sophomoric or vampire genre. Following the massacre in the Aurora theater, our visits have been impacted. We still go but have moved our seat choices depending upon where the Exit door is, what might be useful to hide behind, etc, etc, etc.

We have noticed that the theater does send in the ushers to walk through the theater just as the movie starts and at least once during the showing. We are wondering how many others are impacted by this invasion of our everyday lives by another’s act of senseless violence against a crowd of unknowns.

Haircuts – Oceano, CA

One of the challenges while being from “nowhere” and “everywhere” is getting your hair cut by a capable stylist. Boots has thick curly grey/white hair. She has been cutting her own hair very nicely for decades. Ruthi, on the other hand, has brown (only a few grey hairs – eat your heart out!) baby-fine thin hair. She has tried to emulate Boots and using an outside window, as a mirror, cut her own hair. That has been less than successful and usually requires a quick run to any hair dresser for “repair”.

Finding someone to fulfill this need is tricky. First, not everyone knows how to cut baby-fine hair. Then not every hair dresser/stylist is any more competent than Ruthi. So, she has decided to just bite the bullet and try any “Super Cuts” type of establishment and live with the results. Honestly, it can’t be much worse than her chopping at the few hairs she has. Going to a high-end salon is not any guarantee either, just higher prices for the hack job, no pun intended.

So, imagine our surprise that here in the 5 Cities area (Grover Beach to be exact), there is a stylist that immediately understood the hair was baby-fine. He cut Ruthi’s hair beautifully. So, that means we need to come back here often to ensure Ruthi has a attractive coiffure. Because we all know how important looks are to Ruthi!