I Can't Hear You

Life is different with retirement. Today we went grocery shopping. Together. This is usually a one-person event for me. I like to take my time and meander through the aisles, never knowing when I might see something I want to consider. You can also run into some bargains this way. I talk to myself, and answer questions other shoppers pose when looking for a specific item. I can usually direct them.

I do not mind the intrusion of others so much, it's not like I will become their best friend and confidante and I can collect fodder for my blog. I enjoy my solitary task. HeWho wanted to push the cart. I like to push the cart. We ended up with two carts. Then he rushed me. I do not like being rushed when I am shopping. Does he suddenly think me incapable of doing this task alone? 

I have a painful abscess on my gum next to the lasted root canal and crowned tooth. Since the root canal eliminated the nerves in the tooth, I knew it wasn't the tooth itself. I am blessed with an exemplary power of reasoning. I think it comes with insomnia and having so much time to ponder the mysteries of the universe. Last night was particularly bad. I was up at 3 am searching for Ambesol, or clove oil or anything to bring relief so I could sleep.

We do have those items .... somewhere. Probably in an unlikely box packed by HeWho abhors labels. I took some Tylenol and lay down again, but it hurt less with me in an upright position. I can see the big lump on my gum, and I pressed it as hard as I could stand with my finger, hoping the relief that came with me removing my finger would last long enough to get to sleep. I do not recommend this.

Finally, I made some salt water with boiling water and held it by my gum as long as I could stand. It helped. I don't know what time I finally slept, but Bo got me up at 7, as usual. But I went back to bed until 9:30.

As Cujo may have mentioned, the $75 legs came to the bed. Fortunately, I found the legs in a plastic drawer with the underwear of HeWho. I don't know what made me look there. It was not a need for his underwear. We muscled the bed into our room after we muscled the queen mattress and box springs and frame to the spot I had allocated in a shed. The base of our bed is heavy. Determination helped me shoved that sucker down the short hallway and into the bedroom.

When we gained access to look at the interior of the house the first time, I measured the areas on either side of the queen bed. A king is only 6" wider, or so I thought. An adjustable bed is considerably wider than 6". This I now know. HeWho was not happy with me. He kept saying, "You said you measured!" I would apologize and he would say it again. We tried to make it work by removing the top of the built-in nightstand on one side, thinking the overhang on each side would allow enough room.

It didn't. He ended up taking the entire night stand out on his side. He was complaining about the loss of storage (they are not that big). On and on he complained until I finally said that we could just bring the queen bed back in and he could have his storage, or we could have a king bed and I would come up with a solution for the storage, that we should just remove both night tables and put floating shelves in.

Ever the martyr, he insisted on leaving my nightstand and did without on his side. If he thinks I feel bad for him, he is wrong. There is a cabinet above the nightstands on either side and this is where he was supposed to put his hearing aids and their charger ..... on the shelf in the cabinet. He is not careful about, well, pretty much anything. This is how Bo was able to eat the ear bulbs to his hearing aids, they were in the floor.

I have no guilt feelings about that either. But we hired people to move so that we would not have to do the heavy lifting. They were in a hurry and would not have waited for the night table to be taken out for sure.

The bed leaves only enough room on each side to walk, more like slide against the wall sideways. It is worth it not to be crowded while I sleep!

Hopefully the hearing aid parts will be here soon. In the meantime, I am repeating EVERY word I say and not just every other word. It made shopping today extra stressful. Mostly I pretended I couldn't hear him, since that seems to work so well for him!