New Roads . . .

Home again. We drove over to New Roads, taking it easy this time. Drove at a more modest pace trying to get in a little late so that we could enjoy a leisurely Thanksgiving dinner at the Casino in Marksville. We arrived there a little after three and went ahead and dined. The food was the same except over in the "Italian Section" they had turkey and dressing. All the other food stations were the same.

So I tanked up on Catfish and boiled shrimp. I discovered some of the shrimp had been boiled in more seasoning than the others. Used a lot of Tabasco to dress up the ketchup to make like cocktail sauce (yes, they did have cocktail sauce). I like to spice up the ketchup to dip cat fish in and snack a way.

But since we were there at an off hour we found the seafood gumbo was devoid of seafood, the customers had fished all the good stuff out. Same was true of the crawfish etoufee, lots of etoufee and no crawfish. But a small chuck of roast beef was good, passed on the ham, no sausage or chicken. Ate some butter beans, sort of ala Ernestine butter beans, they were pretty good.

The I had some sugar free lemon meringue pie, and yes, it was sugar free. Tasted like paste, lemon flavored paste at that. That is the life of a diabetic.

I think Judie got to the etoufee before the crawfish all crawled out of it (Humm, I wonder, oh well best not to go there). And she had some of the gumbo too (Humm, more puzzlement). She finished up with some bread pudding and pronounced it as good.

No we did not gamble, just ate and ran. Drove on into New Roads. Noted the Winn-Dixie was closed and the town look shut down. Note lots of cars at different houses, gathering of the clans so to speak. Later that evening Joan came over with some boiled crabs. They were super but we did not have a place to eat them or necessary newspapers etc to contain the mess. So I restrained myself to eat just two of them!

When to Baton Rouge Friday and looked up Herrise. She took us to lunch over my objections but she was feeling rich since she had sold her house to her granddaughter. And she could now collect on Nickie's social security. It seems his third wife, married in Italy at the Vatican, is not a recognized marriage in the US, so with Betty's demise she becomes the eligible widow. Now she has her bit from teaching, a few dollars from the plantation, and a few dollars from the log house. She is worried about a bit tax bite this year. Anyway she feels flush for once.

We went over to Mark and Richards place, Richards sister was there. And while we were their Joan and Dale and their family showed up. Later we went to the Piccadilly for dinner.

Saturday night we watched the LSU Arkansas game. Good game, LSU won. But they should have stomped Arkansas into the ground. Crappy offensive calls. I'm hoping Gary Crowton is gone next year. He is sort of worthless. LSU showed great character in a comeback in minute and 8 seconds to tie the game. Then beat them in the overtime.

Enough . . .

The Eye . . .

The eye. Judie has had cataract surgery replacing the lens in the left eye. She suffers from dry eye syndrome and that has complicated things very badly. Normally one recovers in a day or two from the surgery, in her case she is still on the mend.

After the surgery, she blinked her left eye so much she had a surface abrasion. That was painful and irritating at best. Back to the eye doctor the next day, a Saturday, and they put on a "band aid contact" lens to protect the eye. She then started a treatment of eye drops, three different kinds, one a steroid to enhance healing. She was taking drops 8 times a day. We were back at the eye doctor on Monday to remove the "band aid."

Things have settled out a bit, not as much pain if any now. Still quite sensitive to light and she wears these wrap around sun glasses outside and in the car. She says instead of looking through Vaseline, its like looking through a veil of water now. So it is getting better.

She will have a Lasik tune up later next year. That will fine tune the vision. Hopefully she can fore go using glasses at all, of may be just use "readers." Time will tell.

She will not have the right eye done until next year. Good that she is waiting or she would have been literally blind. As it is now she is having trouble reading, she likes to read a lot and this is hampering her style so to speak. Watching TV is okay but can get boring to her.

Progress is slow but sure at this point. She is a bit disheartened by the whole thing. Others seem to recover in one day, and here she is still suffering along. The "dry eye" thing really cause a problem.