Update and "you're never too old to publish a book"

Waiting for surgery

I’m slowly coming to grips with the understanding that I can’t bend my knee for the next six weeks…  Post about sailing or kayaking or hiking will have to be drawn from past adventures….  I feel as if I have a peg leg and am not very mobile.  Thankfully, the pain has subsided and I am taking about a 1/3 of the pain medicine as I was before.  Because of drug allergies with many traditional pain killers, I was given a morphine product which might explain some weird dreams that I had (it also might explain why I have been sleeping 10-12 hours a day).  But I am doing well and life is getting to be somewhat normal.  

I hope I don't gross you out with the photos!  I am going to end up with a zipper look on the front of my leg with the staples that have been put into the wound.  Also, for the first time in my life, part of that leg was shaved!  I didn't finish the job.

my wound

I have been watching a lot of movies as I sit around with my leg up: Cider House Rules, The Way, The Quiet American, Safelight, Night Train to Lisbon, Female Agents, Jackie & Ryan, Mansfield Park, World of Tomorrow, NLL: Yeonpyeong Haejeon, Chocolat.  Netflix streaming has been good!  

Last summer I was given a book by a ninety year old friend and I finally got around to reading it.  This isn’t normally the type of reading I do, but I the Maritime history of the world (which I was reading pre-surgery, is just too complicated).  I found the book delightful.  My review is below. 

Lucy Barrett, Salad Days in the Golden Years: Introducing Virginia and Matilda (Cleveland TN: Penman Publishing, 2015), 182 page 

This is a delightful novel written by a friend on the island.  This past year, she turned 90 and celebrated by publishing her first book.  Salad Days in the Golden Years is a delightful book about Virginia, who decides she is not going to live with her only child, but is going to move to a Continuing Care Retirement Community (CCRC).  There, she meets Matilda and the two of them become a dynamic duo—catching criminals, planning weddings, and seeking their own late-life lovers.  Virginia is a bit naïve, having moved to the facility as a widow, having been married to the same man for over fifty years.  She was used to having people (her husband, then her son) make decisions for her.  But she wants to be independent and slowly learns how to accomplish this.  Matilda tests her, as she is the type that likes to run the lives of others, but Virginia learns how they might be friends but without Matilda’s control.  Barrett weaves in a number of other characters including a young waitress at the CCRC whose boyfriend is shot.  This sets the scene for Virginia and Matilda to catch a fugitive.  In the background, with connections primarily through letters and voice mail, is her son’s family along with the trust fund manager.  As a mother-in-law, Virginia she has questions about her daughter-in-law who doesn’t like to cook, but is able to keep them to herself by moving to Magnolia Village.  Yet, Virginia is fearful of what would happen to her grandchildren if Pot Tarts were no longer manufactured.  By the end of the story, Virginia is content with her new life and even has a new boyfriend.  Another couple there is married and he has discovered he has a grandson.  Virginia’s own son has accepted that his mother can care for herself, while Virginia understands more about how his family is a bit different, but also works.  Although there are no “happy ever-after” stories in life, at last those at Magnolia Village will make the most of the journey.  This is a well-told story and I recommend it.