10:06 – Barbara’s dad was released from the hospital yesterday afternoon. Barbara picked him up and took him home, where they met the guy who was delivering and installing the oxygen concentrator. Meanwhile, Barbara’s sister, Frances, was taking their mom to a doctor’s appointment. Fortunately, it turned out there’s nothing seriously wrong with their mom, other than just age.
Dutch, on the other hand, isn’t in good shape. He’s still too weak to walk more than a few steps or to use the bathroom. So Barbara and Frances are covering it in shifts for now. Frances covered last night and this morning. Barbara is heading over there after lunch to relieve Frances. Barbara will probably stay overnight tonight and then through lunch time tomorrow.
The oxygen concentrator is pretty cool. In addition to providing oxygen directly, it can also fill two small oxygen cylinders that are used on a portable oxygen mask for when Dutch needs to leave the apartment. Finally, as backup in case of power failure, Dutch has a large oxygen tank.
Dutch won’t be on oxygen all the time, just most of the time. And I suggested to Barbara that when Dutch isn’t using the oxygen concentrator, they should have their mom use it. She’s had lung/breathing issues since Barbara was a baby and is currently borderline COPD, so a bit of supplemental oxygen won’t hurt her a bit and may help a lot.
Work on building a new batch of science kits continues, now with some urgency. We’re down to two or three CK01A chemistry kits and maybe four biology kits. Today, we’re assembling batches of small parts bags for both of those so that we can build another batch of each. Forensic kit inventory is now critical. As of now, we actually have four FK01 forensic kits ready to ship, but all four of those are spoken for. I got email yesterday saying that the check was in the mail for those four kits, and this morning we got another order for a forensic kit.
Chemistry kits outsell biology kits maybe 2:1 and forensic kits maybe 6:1. Other than small parts bags, we have everything needed to build another 15 each of the kits. So this weekend I’ll build 15 each of the chemistry kits and maybe half a dozen forensics kits. Once that’s done, I’ll get started on bottling chemicals for another 60 each of the chemistry and biology kits.
11:59 – Barbara just headed over to her parents’ place, where she’ll spend the next 24 hours or so. She ran a few errands this morning, including buying groceries. She picked up a box of powdered and cinnamon doughnuts for me, 1.5 pounds (two-thirds of a kilo). I plan to have them for dinner and an evening snack. Looking at the nutrition label, it appears that they provide a fully-balanced meal.
Colin has no idea what’s going on, except that Barbara isn’t home as much as he thinks she should be. I’ll try to take him on more walks, play more ball with him, and give him more treats to make up for that, but it’ll go only so far in soothing his offended Border Collie sensibilities. BC’s have a strong sense of order, and they don’t like it when things change. This evening, I’ll just read and watch Heartland reruns. Right now, I need to get to work on kit stuff.