62°f/about 17°C, mostly clear but clouding up now. Slight chance of showers later, and rain likely tonight 84°f right now.
I have been hearing about the heat wave in Europe, and it must be so difficult for people, considering that many places and homes do not have air conditioning. I remember my last time in England, when it got over 80° when we were clear up at the Scottish border. No place we stayed had AC, and most had no fans. Pretty uncomfortable. Feeling for all of you affected!
I made dinner early today. I worked out in my gardens this morning, pulling up the spent Mexican primroses and yarrow, cutting back coreopsis, etc, and then checked the vegetable garden, where i found our first cucumber and yellow squash of this year, and more zucchini. They've just started and already we are overrun with zukes! I had thawed some of the rabbit we put up a couple weeks ago, so I browsed online for a recipe. I found this recipe, which was delicious. A bit spicier than we like so next time I will cut back on the pepper and paprika.
I made roasted zucchini too, one of our favorite ways to fix it. It's so simple: I slice the zukes about 1/4" thick, mix salt, pepper, and avocado oil, and toss with the zucchini. Place on a preheated cookie sheet in a preheated 450° oven. Cook for about 6 minutes, flip over, top with parmesan cheese, and broil for about 2 minutes. Should be nicely browned. Served up with red beans and rice, and sliced cucumber.
Yesterday we met up with my friend Donna Wilson for breakfast. Donna lives west of Columbus, Ohio, but has family just across the Ohio River, so if she's in the area, or if we are near Columbus, we try to get together. She used to live about 40 minutes away, and we did a lot of storytelling together. I miss her. At 83, she is going strong, thank goodness.
Here in West Virginia there have been 3 missing older people lately, which is very concerning. Two had Alzheimers or dementia, I forget which. One gentleman was found deceased, sadly; he had wrecked his car over a hill. Search parties are still looking for a 62 year old lady in the remote, mountainous region around Richwood, and the third man was just reported missing in Braxton County, also a fairly rural, remote area. I feel so badly for these families. All three did their best to care for these elders, and are devastated at what has happened. With West Virginia having the oldest per capital population in the US, I expect we will see more and more of these Silver Alerts.
This happened to a friend of mine about 6 years ago. Her husband was in the beginning stages of Alzheimers, as I recall. He walked out to get the mail one winter day, and didn't return. It was just a short distance to their mailbox, so how could he have disappeared? And yet, it was a few days before he was found. I don't recall the specifics of exactly what happened, if he had a stroke and got confused, or what, but my friend has dealt with the guilt and pain of feeling like she should have known something was wrong, should have looked sooner (and yet it was less than 30 minutes when she realized he hadn't come back in! She had been busy with housework).
I wonder, how long would it be for someone to come looking for me? Larry would assume I had gone for a walk, probably, and wouldn't be concerned for a good while. If he wasn't home for a few days, I doubt anyone would think it odd not to hear from me. And often I don't hear my phone when someone calls, anyway, because I'm outside.
With Larry, I am always on the watch for him because of his health issues. If I don't hear him doing stuff outside, I call for him. Just checking. But if I was away, I doubt very much anyone would think to check on him. His phone is often lost or turned off, and he never calls anyone. I do call a couple times a day when I am away, but again, it is not unusual for him not to answer. Once I put it on Facebook for someone to check on him when he didnt answer for almost 2 days! Well, he'd lost his phone, again. He was amused that 2 or 3 people showed up that day, just to be sure he was still kickin'. Now we have a Life360 with our son Derek so he at least has some idea where the old folks are.
How about you? Do you have people that check in regularly? I think it's time we made a better plan ourselves. Never thought about it until these recent Silver Alerts.
