18:02 PM 8/17/99
I got up fairly early, and I was working on my second pot of coffee when Debbie called from Wichita. She gave me directions and suggestions for places to eat lunch in the neighborhood of the rest home where Betty resides.
Before the conversation was over, Karen got up and talked to Deb for a while.
Since we weren't really in much of a hurry, we goofed around quite a bit before hitting the road about 11:30. It was already starting to get hot, but the AC in the Subaru worked well...
I may have mentioned this before, but I love driving with Karen. Usually we talk, but even when we don't we have this very comfortable feeling between us, unlike anyone else that I've ever travelled with.
We were talking about death and wills and that sort of stuff, and I realized that I have lost much of the fatalism that I've carried since my first heart attack, almost ten years ago. This might not be a good thing, however... I might start expecting to live forever, and then I'd be in trouble, wouldn't I?
Another thing that we talked about was food, and we decided that we would start eating healthier... no, this isn't the first time... Karen was telling me all about some diet that was heavy on the vegetables... anyway, each food item was worth a certain amount of points, and it seems that raw vegetables were zero points... not as in worthless, though.
I'm not nearly ready to become a vegetarian by any means... the smell of a good steak would knock me off of that wagon in a wink. But I do like the idea of raw vegetables... carrots, cali flower, broccoli, stuff like that... instead of a peanut-butter sandwich as a meal.
Anyway, we made it to Wichita and Karen called Debbie and we arranged to meet at a deli near the rest home. We had a good meal there, then Karen and I and Jeff, Debbie's 11-year-old son, went over to see Betty (Karen's mother).
I was not impressed with the progress of her disease... she did seem a little slower than she was last time, but not much... and she is still a thoroughly pleasant person. There were, though, according to Karen, inconsistencies in what she was telling us that I didn't notice but that Karen did.
We left the nursing home at about the same time that the rush hour started, but there really wasn't much of a delay. We spent the evening pleasantly... Debbie and Ric had prepared a splendid meal, as usual.
More tomorrow...