Hang Time Day Four

I missed posting yesterday—things just got out of hand. The cold persists anf the snow fell most of the day yesterday but the snow was light and slick. I went out once to the store but that was enough. We had been out the day before and got the fixins for an egg foo yung dinner. It’s been months since I last attempted to cook the dinner and I really wanted to cook it again before the year is out. I was really expecting to cook this meal for Dianne and myself but later in the afternoon Aunakah called half out of her mind with bordem and she desperately wanted to come over. I did not have a problem with her coming over so when Dianne asked if I had an issue with her coming over I said no—have come over.

By the time I had got back to the house Anakah had heard we were fixing a Chinese dinner and somehow had been changed into a New Year’s celebration dinner and she was begging for her family to come over to join us. At first I was somewhat hesitant and a bit threatened thinking I did not have enough ingredients to feed the family but then I thought why not? We would just do the best we can and have fun.

I think the reason I felt threatened was due to never or seldom having to cook for a large family meal and I think I was a bit spooked that what I was going to prepare would not turn out. My fear of failure but I had Dianne’s support and help so I went to work doing the prep, getting the vegetables washed and chopped and got them all done by the time the kids arrived. When they came I put Ani to work breaking the eags and I fired up the wok and started sweating the vegetables while Dianne and Bridget set to work making the egg rolls—BGA and gave us a deep fat fryer for Christmas and we were anxious to break the fryer in. I had vegetables prepared and sweated and ready for the egg foo yung cooking to begin. To be honest I was a bit spooked to work around the amount of hot grease I would have to make the pancakes so I foisted the responsibility of cooking the egg foo yungs on to Gabe who did great. The egg foo yungs turned out great, a little greasy( we were using peanut oil) but they turned out great. I was pleased that I had prepared enough vegetables for about nine or ten cakes good size cakes, enough that we had leftovers. The same held true for the egg rolls Dianne made tons, huge egg rolls the size of junk yard rats. Dianne had also prepared a huge bowl of rice, and we had more then enough to please everyone and everyone seemed pleased.

The night and dinner was delightful, surprising so. The kids had to leave and prepare and for their trip up to the cabin early this morning, Dianne and I were exhausted so we left the dished for this morning, watched the news and basically went to bed.

So today I am just coasting enjoying the down time and the sunshine of today knowing more snow is coming and I will have to deal with the snow when I return to work on Monday. But today, I am enjoying this last day of the year and look forward to 2010. Happy New Year Everyone!!

Hang TIme: Day 2

The temperature did not get above freezing today and the day was dusted all day by a very light and fine snow. Anakah was over early, her dad dropped her off on his way to work. I had already made coffee and was on way to the shower when Gabe began beating on the front door. But the house was warm and toasty so I foisted Anakah off on Dian one and finished my morning process. Anakah scrambled eggs and helped Dianne fini9sh breakfast as I got dressed enough to be decent.

Today would have been a perfect day to stay warm and bundled in the house and watch the snow fall and cover everything. But that was not to be. Dianne had to go all the way downtown to drop off some paper work to the Medicare people which caused us to bundle up, dig out the van and head downtown. But new went, Dianne even drove the Interstate which totally surprised me—like many unpleasant plants like going in government offices on dismally cold days we chose to reward our selves by taking ourselves out to eat at one of our favorite joints the Shang Hi: Chinese and Thai cuisine.

We stopped at a little Asian market on the way to the restaurant. Dianne and I love this place. Very little English is spoken here which means the places is shopped by real Asians. This place has the freshest and largest shrimp I have seen in this city. The prices are great and everything to eat exotic from the fish to dried mushrooms of every kind and there one can get anykind of cooking utensils imaginable for Asian cooking. We got the shrimp and vegetables we needed for my egg foo young which I guess we well cook tomorrow.

We have been going to the Shang Hi all o our married life, the Shang Hi is the first restaurant which was ALL ours, one we found on our own. The Shang Hi is a weird place, as I guess all good places are. It seems they have had the same staff in place the entire time. There is one hostess who seems to have love hate relation with us. Some times she is all smiles and giggles to see us and at other times she is deadpan and cold as a fish in the freezer. Today she was the fish in the freeserer. Today she sat us all the way to the back of the restaurant, outer darkness—but regardless of Ms cold fish we had a great time: egg rolls, green tea and great dishes and good memories.

Hang TIme Day !

Hang time day one: waiting for lunch Dianne and I meeting Bridget and Anakah some where for lunch so we now have to make the decision of where to go: restaurant of fast food. We want to stay in the are which truly limits our options but we’ll probably default to Dennys, Village Inn or somewhere else just as un imaginative. Our favorite Mex, Morellia’s would be OK but way too much cheese and cholesterol; Red Lobster is over rated And too much grease and the mall food-court is just fast food in a mall but does offer some positives everyone can have what they want but the Mall is just so pedestrian. Anyway, I am sure after we make the decision the event will be fun with B and A and D. Maybe I’ll get some images.

Ho Ho Ho

Ho Ho Like a Rock Star

I was surprised to learn my friends at the local independent living center had been following my medical escapades closely the past couple of months. I had thought it odd that that my buddy Kim had not yet called as asked that I be the Santa at the annual Center Christmas party. I have been playing the Christmas gnome for the fifteen or so years. It’s a good gig, and even an interesting gig but maybe a gig, I thought which was getting a bit old. As the date for the event drew closer I started thinking that maybe they were not going to call on me this year—which was fine with me. I would have to disrupt my daily schedule take public transit over to the center dress up in the Santa suit and then have to sit with consumers for at last two hours as they march up and have their picture taken with Santa and then have to retrace my steps back to my office to return calls and play out the rest of my day. I thought I could use a break. So I waited for the call and I was really beginning to believe I had been replaced when I happened to sit next to the executive director of the independent living center and she asked if I was coming and I related I had not yet been contacted.

The director assured me, emphatically that she/they most definitely wanted me to show up and play the starring role of the afternoon. I sighed and let her know that I would be delighted and have my friend Kim call me and work out the details.

The day off the event was beautiful—a perfect day for public transit. Kim had offered to send the van to fetch m from the train station, which was alright by me.

Kim and I have done this operation so much we seem to dance through the dressing ceremony, after I had been fed pizza in back of the/center’s “Great Room”. I slip on the wig and the beard and Kim slides the Santa top over my shirt and this year we don’t is the bright red pants and plastic boots which always looked hokey anyway. Dressed we thread our way to the front of the room by going the back way. No one has seen us yet—The director is leading the congregation in Christmas carols and she sees that we…I am ready and does the signal song,”Jingle Bells” which is the sign for me to start ringing my bells and making the great elf laugh of “ HO HO Ho.” I rev up my power shower and bolt out of the shadows and out into the crowd amid thunderous applause and yelling. I know it sounds corny but for a small instant I know “it’s me they’re coming to see”. For a moment I am a ‘big man” I am bigger then life” for these folk…for a moment I am a super star, their super star, for a minute I AM Christmas.

A Miner Christmas Miracle

I figured I had better write something today and post o just forget bout writing anything about the whole Holiday season! I wish I could report that this season has been super busy with shopping, parties, dinners and fighting horrendous weather like 10 foot snow drifts and gale force winds but no. What snow we did have has long melted, inversions have set in the valley giving us lot of sunshine and dangerously polluted air. I cannot tell the air is polluted when I go outside but a I can see the dirt hanging in the air just looking at the mountains when you can see the mountains there is and ugly brown smudge hanging in the air and I suppose that ‘smudge’ IS the pollution.

Dianne and I have essentially finished our Christmas shopping—we sort of got the immediate family covered, nothing for office mates and very little for neighbors. I could blame the lack of gifting to the economy but I much more feel the poor gifting s just me being, cheap, or lazy or both. I could use the excuse of last month’s biopsy but I do think that would be wrong but who knows how disturbed the event made me. No it’s just me being me. But anyway—yesterday we did get the opportunity to watch Anakah.

We were fortunate to look after Anakah a few hours as her parents made ready for Christmas: doing the last of the shopping and what ever. One of Anakah’s school class mate had a party and on of Dianne’s and my chores was to run Ani over to the event which in this case was clear over to the other side of the valley—but the sun was out, and fairly warm and we had recently filled the van with gas so why not? Besides getting out of the house and socializing might be a good exercise for Dianne and myself.

It’s atleast a thirty minute from our home to where Ani needed to go for hr party. In the best of driving conditions and we did not wish to have to make the drive any more then we had to so we decided we would drop off the granddaughter then find something to keep us occupied for the four hours when were scheduled to retrieve the girl. We thought about taking a movie, I am sort of interested in Avatar but the thought of battling holiday movie crowds was a bit unnerving. So we decided to find a restaurant in the neighborhood. This we found to be extremely difficult. We did find this little Mexican place just in this side of the Twilight Zone-our waitress barely spoke English and the locals looked at us like foreigners—which we were—Gringo invaders from east side. But we ended up experiencing a good meal even if we were culturally challenged. We still had hours to kill before we could get Anakah. So we decided to stop in at a Deseret Industries(DI) a major, local religion based second hand store here in Utah.

Checking out this DI , in this par of town, was almost as challenging as the restaurant experience. Hordes of non-English speaking families wandering the store, throngs of kids encamped in the toy section playing, moms inspecting the dish and glass section and the men picking over computers and computer parts looking for a deal, a step up into local white culture. Donated Christmas music played over the speakers. I powered my chair over to the book section looking for something to keep me occupied on my rides to and from work on the train. I looked at the kids, and I was saddened knowing this was “their” Christmas. This was the best the holiday was going to get for them—no new toys wrapped in plastic new and shiny—their were getting toys with pieces gone, or a bike not shinny and new but new to you—and workable or would be workable after dad or brother put a couple of hours of work and parts into the project, maybe a stereo which worked even if the speakers did not match, a CD player and maybe even a computer with a real
CD burner which could be made to work. I FBed my thoughts and was starteled when I received an answer from my daughter, Michelle, reminding me that these kids don’t care come Christmas morning, what matters to these kids is, there is something there for them on Christmas morning. They were remembered and they had “new” things for them.
Shelly, knows this she lived this to some extent and her response made my Christmas a little brighter…Merry Christmas.

All You Can Do

It’s Christmas time, right smack dab in the middle of the Yuletide holidays! Slowly, I have noticed the ‘holiday silliness’ infection creep over the office—similar to the phenomenon which invades school classrooms this time of year as teacher just try to maintain some sort of order as each day brings the children closer to the holiday break. My boss started her career as a school teacher, in fact, a seventh grade teacher, so she at least knows how to identify the holiday chaos monster.

We had a staff meeting today—two hours right out of the middle of our morning where we discuss among other things, how we were going to cover the office and phones over Christmas week. State says we have to have some coverage: I plan to take off a day before the great holiday and every day following Christmas and coming back after New Years. I have to do this to some degree so I don’t have my ‘earned vacation hours’ taken away—I need to take a good whack at my hours to bring my stack of vacation hours back into safe compliance for the start of next year.

We talked about the next round of cuts the State will be implementing immediately a possible 3% or more in cuts. This may burn me or not after the first of the year—and see. I think I’ll survive . Everyone just sort of blew the news away and sort of goofed—it Christmas. The boss had to act like a 7th grade teacher once or twice but we got through with only one staff being sent to the “principals office”, she probably just needed that a good ‘talking to’ can bring. One of the out of office program people brought in Christmas treats, weird things made out of pretzels and the rest of the afternoon decayed into holiday anarchy with work being accomplished on a call by call fashion and visiting with staff and support folk as they drop by, righting the afternoon off to “outreach”.

The building management has been remodeling the bathrooms, which serve our floor all week which makes staff have to use the elevator to access the middle floor of our building which is deserted but has workable bathrooms—its kinda scary to beam up there to take a wiz or in my case a tap. So down stairs there is major hammering, sawing and yelling as the labors labor. More chaos to the Holiday chaos.

I am trying to be a good little focused worker—I m going to play Santa tomorrow at he local independent living center—for video go to last year’s entry for December—or search the blog by “Santa” and you should b able to see the video of me being Santa—but I am getting excited as tomorrow approaches and I have been faithfully working at my desk but I noticed the boss bugged out early. I think in an effort to save her sanity. Sometimes leaving is all one can do with 7th graders.

Never on a Sunday

My new life of cathing and being involved with the medical industrial complex is beginning to take on some routine which, I am not is sure a good thing or not but I am doing it. And I am finding out the medical industrial complex (MIC) never sleeps.

This weekend was Dianne’s birthday and Bridget and Gabe wanted to prepare a dinner of Dianne’s choice which was a shrimp fest. Dianne figures she can spend the cost of one nice dinner at an upscale restaurant and feed four or five people nicely. Dianne has found this great Asian market where they sell huge shrimp fresh from the sea. Head in place along with flipper and slime, Of course, there has been little to no “processing” to the little scavengers but if a person is welling to “pinch a head” and “pull a tails” or two or more—like five pounds a great and exotic meal can be had—I guess this how folk from Louisiana eat their crustaceans. Luckily this is more hand dexterity then I have access to and luckily Anakah came over early to help us get ready for dinner and was dieing for something to do. So, Dianne and Anakah were busy doing the shrimp and I was stuck dicing and mincing garlic, onions, and celery. This was a real “Waltons/Norman Rockwell” moment—the whole day was, I spent hours with Ani teaching her some cord to play on the piano. The afternoon was kind of nice. We had turned NPR over when ‘Car Talk” had erupted out of the radio to “ classical Christmas, the other University affiliated public radio station—out side there was a winter storm which was supposed to have pounded the neighborhood with inches and inches of snow but did not . choosing to spit snowflakes intermittently round the yard mixed in a kind of grayish slush which fell from the sky like a biblical plague. The ground and atmosphere was to warm for any snow to lay down—but if one imagined a real snow fall while listening to the Christmas music coming from public radio, one could feel the Christmas spirit seeping in round the front door contaminating the whole house—this was when the see interrupted by the phone ringing.

Some weird sound duck was calling and asking for me by name. Who ever was on the phone a European accent so think—I thought the guy was drunk so did not pay much attention to the call at the onset. We tend to get these kind of calls from time to time, our phone number is one digit off a local car dealer ship and we have gotten all kinds of strange calls. It was only after the caller identified as a physician associated with my primary doc that I began to take notice of what he seemed laboring inform me that he had done another culture on my urine sample and he RX I had gotten earlier in the week would not work and he was letting me know that he had called a prescription on the new Rx which would work and that script was at my l\ocal pharmacy and I could pick it up at any time.

This was all happening on the speaker phone so I had witnesses. This doc was working and calling me on a Sunday—I was confused but in the end happy—I think this could have been another Christmas miracle.

Benign!

Dianne and I met with my doc today to discuss the multitude of medical issues I seem to be having with my life these days; particularly all the questions we have had around the “cathing experience.” Dianne had developed a list of great questions as well as data we have generated keeping all the information about times of cathng, amount of urine drained and description of the produced urine.

My appointment was for 0915 so I decided to take the morning off of work do my appointment then have Dianne drop me off at the office when we finished. We got to the university good time and checked into medical clinic I was going and soon enough we met with Katia who is my doc, really she is not a physician, but one of the PRNs who works with the “big” doc and she acts like a doc , does the doc talk and walk so she is my doc and she is as good a doc as I have every had. Katia, listens, really listens and spends huge amounts of time with Dianne ad myself, being patient and allowing Dianne and me discuss a question Katia might have asked until we can come some kind of conclusion. Katia make suggestions and allows me enough psychological to wrap my head around a concept to at least try what she has asked and report back the results.

Today was great Katia reported back on the conclusion of the bladder biopsy, which I had last week—she beamed as she reported that the results of the pathology report was I was just fine—no probably anything that was anything was benign: I was OK. What a relief one thing behind us we closed the door on tat discussion and began the next. It is time for my colonoscopy –its been ten quick years since my last one and she feels I need another—plus I have been having some issues with indigestion the past couple months and could she also do an upper G.I. rest called a GRD? She could and well and set up an appointment for sometime in the latter part of January which to me is all the way into the next year. I am going to take it easy. Tomorrow I have a dental appointment—I need to trade out the temporary crown I had put on a molar last month for the final crown. The appointment is in the morning and hopefully I should have all day and weekend to enjoy my new status of being what ever bladder problem free that it is I am now.

So now, I will start fretting the colonoscopy but not too much since I have already had one ten years ago and I am feeling pretty good. Katia and Dianne has some ideas for me o begin considering and trying out and even though some of the ideas are repulsive I believe the ideas are worth consideration…I am going to be fine…for now.

Hey Buddy Can I Get a Push ?!

The “up note” I left you all on last night as I began my homeward trek in the snow was quickly dashed. As I had predicted the snow which had been plowed had been dumped into curb cuts the cross walks and sure enough I plowed up to the tops of my casters, the first curb cut I tried to go down. I was a little started when red and blue emergency lights started flashing. There was police cruiser right there behind me and witnessed me plant myself in the snow. I was relieved when both officers exited their cruiser and pushed me free. I barley made it down the length of the block but was again snow trapped when I tried to cross the intersection to the train station. I actually remained there a couple of minutes until called someone to help me push me out.

I was concerned that making it home by my usual path might prove a bit hazardous-since I knew most of the sidewalks would not be cleaned. Etc and to remain in the street would be spooky with al of the traffic that venue seems to pull these evenings. My plan was to catch a bus which leaves the station and goes somewhat close to my house. I still think this was a good plan had I not gotten stuck in a snow bank. I missed my usual train being stuck and the next train seemed to take for ever to come and that train was late enough, that by the time I did get to the train station the bus I wanted was just taking off and I was stuck in the cold a half hour waiting for the next bus. The plan was OK, I got home later then much later then I would have liked but I DID get home.

Today, the snow has moved on and though the temps are cold the sun has been, shining and acting all hot and aggressive. I had my Assistive Technology Fund meeting across town and I planned to bus over to the meeting. I have found one route which goes right by the building I have my meeting. The best part is this particular route is right across the street from my office! As I said earlier, the sun was shining making slush and puddles but still there was piles of snow right where I needed to go and sure enough coming down the crown of the street into the cur cut I buried my front end in went slushy snow and again I just had to wait till some one actually parked and got out of their car actually two people did and pushed and rocked me until I was free.

We are currently in between storms, I think the next is day after tomorrow, which will be into my weekend which is good for me. I don’t think I have ever been stuck this many times from one snow fall. I Am just going to have to keep my cool and my cell phone handy and my pride buried as deep as I can because I have a feeling I am going to be asking a lot more people for help before this Winter is through.

Journey Home

The sun has just started to set in the cold, western winter’s sky. A think shroud of snow blankets the ground menacingly as I ponder my return trip to the house this evening, after 5:30,long after the sun has set and the super cold air settled in for the night. I cruised my chair to the train station this morning. The snow was falling, already deep falling during the night. I had to break new snow all the way to the station. Only once did I become concerned, when I was mounting the over pass, my foot had slipped from the power chair’s foot plate and I was bout half way up the arch and stopped my chair, aftyer I had replaced my foot back on the foot plate and I engaged my chair all I did was slip, skid and fish tail as I tried to progress up the over pass. I finally got back on track of backing up in my own tracks and slowly moving forward—I was able to catch enough grasp to continue my journey.

Ten hours have passed the snow fell and the sun did come out for a couple of hours but the temps never rose above 27 degrees! I am getting chilled just watching the daylight slip away. I know there will have been nothing done as far as any real snow removal for my journey home and what makes matter a bit worse light fluff snow which was plow-able early on will now have crusted over. If streets have been plowed I know the plows will have piled snow in drive ways and into curb cuts making it almost impossible to access sidewalks—as if sidewalks will have been scraped. I could try to make home, the back way, up over the overpass, but I am frightened I will have to be in the street most of the way and that is way too dangerous even for me.
So myplan is to take the train to my regular stop and there get on the State Street South coach which will drop me off just a couple of blocks from my house. This will take me longer to get home, but, I can stay in the coach and be warm. Plus I just got the all from home, the grandaughter is over tonight and since I am taking this approach to come home why don’t I stop by the KFC and grab some dinner . Why not.?

Life is choices and I am so pleased to be living in a place where I have so many choices for me. So now the setting sun is dropping behind buildings in the West and I am bout ready to start getting ready for my trip home. I’ll be OK. I’ll just dress warm and wonder into the cold, dark night.

This is a view of the sink in the men’s bathroom, I found on my return to work this morning and normally this blockage under the sink would not be an issue worth blogging about except that the blockage happened today and actually any day now would be a problem since I have started using the bathroom as my cathing suite at least once a day and since this weekend will most likely be twice a day.

Since I have started cathing in the bathroom I feel I need to have as much room as I can get to prep for each characterization. I have be able to get under the sink, have a fairly clean surface space to lay out the items I will be using, wash my hands and when I can get under the sink the layout as it stands seems to work fairly well. But today with new mess under the sink, I could not get close enough to lay things out without jumbling things and dropping stuff, in fact I lost one complete catheter this morning, and I am pretty certain I may have contaminated the second catheter so badly that I may have given myself an infection of one type or another.

This weekend, since Friday’s biopsy I have been more challenged then usual trying to cath myself. I have been draining blood, and clots of blood when just tapping myself for my usual void. To my dismay, as I tried to drain once the catheter would become clogged with this partially solidified blood and or other body fluids that would be the end of the drain and then I would have to wait another four to six hours when I could attempt to drain again. What really spooks me is that by not being able to drain my bladder completely I am leaving way too much urine in the bladder where infections and other nasty baddies might breed. I made calls this morning to my Uro and primary medical practitioner, one returned my call and I was able to get my main medico and have set up an appointment for this Thursday( more time off work-- missed work) I am figuring a lot of the blood and stuff is natural following an event like last weeks but I just have to be sure—but, in the meantime I have to continue own with my life and part of that is being able to cath in as clean an environment possible and being able to reach the things I need to. The office manager has already contacted the building owner who, we hope, will convey to the tile person of the need to reload his stuff, at least to the back wall of the bathroom giving me the room I need under the sink to do what I need to do.

Snow fell early this morning, dusting my path to the train. I was late getting off due to the issues from the weekend. The wind was cold and the day dark as I got to my train station, more snow is forecast for this evening and my return trip and tomorrow more of the same. This week will truly be challenging

Hoping For the Best!!

All things being equal Fridays surgical adventure turned out pretty good—well, I still have to get the results from pathology but short of a flat out cancer call, I think every thing went OK. I was up at 0430—pretty much as usual except I was NPO but that was not too bad coffee would have been nice. The drive up to the University Hospital was cold but without incident.

My surgery was scheduled for 0730 which meant I had to be at the medical center at 0600. I kind of liked being the first surgery of the day, I don’t have to get in the “wait” which happens when you are behind other folks. We got checked in did he paperwork and we were let to a changing room. I was amused to see my room was #13. Dianne had be wear sweats and a sweatshirt so changing was easy, I got into my gown and hung out a few minutes when things began to happen. A resident popped in, a nice kid from the area. He brought in some solution of some sort and got my IV catheter inserted and this is when I sort of started to get nervous but things were happening way fast by this point in time. My surgeon popped in and said hello and did the general check out and said he would see me on the inside and that was about it. Dianne left me at this point which was unnerving for me since Dianne IS my rock in these type of situations.

The anesthesiologist resident got me going and I don’t remember much after that point except the anesthesiologist attending stopped by and checked me out, seemed to approve and that was about it, I was gone.. I climbed back to conscience about n hour later and I was done. I cooled my heals in “Recovery” for another sixty minutes and Dianne came in and helped me get dressed and we headed for home. I was groggy but not bad, I was exhausted not getting much sleep the night before and my throat hurt where the medical folks had intubated me, my throat hurt like snot but I could swallow enough to eat something. I really wanted an egg mc muffin or something off the MickD’s breakfast menue but by the time we got to the restaurant they were finished serving breakfast—all I was able to get was some fried potato stick which had been cooked for quite some time.
I thought about staying up after I got home but just could not and went down—I napped listened to NPR and enjoyed just being in bed and having the biopsy behind me. Bridget and Anakah came over and spent time with me bringing over KFC, which was greatly appreciated but may have me more harm then good as far as heartburn and indigestion. I finally got up round 1830 and watched TV with Dianne for the remainder of the night.

Saturday I felt good enough to be up and do the grocery shopping, I am having some issues as far as empty my bladder goes, a lot of blood and clotting and I am thinking this is to be expected but sure is frustrating and if we had to pay for the catheters I am using, expensive. I am forcing liquids and trying to remain positive. I can do this. The doc indicated that things looked pretty good and we would just have to wait to see what the path results revealed, but he was pleased to see a better looking bladder the he had seen a couple of weeks before. So it just waiting now and hoping for the best!

Cold Heat

I am sitting here, in my office with the regular heat on and the space heater cranked up to “Hi” with my black watch cap on and a hot cup of coffee at hand and I just cannot get to a comfortable warm. Granted my office has a window which opens to the outside ( I call my window, my window on the West) and I am sure that has an impact on the temperature of my office and just how willing I am to remove my self from the proximity of my window on the West.

Last week Dianne picked up a case of “Hotties”, those chemical hand warmers which used to be sold ,only in Army Navy stores and then in sportsman stores but now has crossed the street to the big box stores, at our local Costco. I of course balked thinking of the process necessary to open up these small packets of chemical heat. Not this morning, however, I think the temperature was about 11 or 12 degrees as I launched out the door to begin my journey up to the station to catch my train to work. I had Dianne open one of the packets and mix it up and I was off. I kept the packet of warmth in my left hand which rides in my left packet of my jacket. I have just one “right hand “ ski glove I wear on my right hand which I use to steer my chair. At this point the temperature is not bitter cold, the kind of cold which freezes the nasal hairs when you breath through the nose making those marvelous jets of air like a snorting bull or better yet a locomotive or the cold which seems to cauterize your lungs with each intake of air forcing you to breath some sort of protection like pulling my head inside my jacket as much as possible letting me breath warmed air from my body heat or pull air through cloth like a muffler.

The “Hotties” actually worked—sorta. The packet releases a heat which warms what ever is near by. I suppose the heat/warmth it renders is a radiant heat but I don’t seem to get the benefit from the packet unless I have the packet touching someplace on me. I have found the maximum comfort I got from the small packet was when I placed directly on my cheek or forehead—that felt good as I plowed along through the frigid morning’s air. I have to admit when I had the packet clutched inside my hand in my pocket that my hand stayed warm, warmer then I I had not had the packet but I also found tat when I took returned my hand to my pocket after I placed the packet on my forehead, the region inside side the pocket was still warm. The “Hottie” gave off heat or warmth for a good thirty minutes—because the one used today Dianne gave me when I left the house and it was warm enough for Frank still feel the heat by the time I arrived at the office and that I a good forty-five minutes. I wonder if you had hundreds of packets and you were in the woods and it was truly cold could you like open up a bunch of packets, dump them in your sleeping bag zip it up would the heat transfer into the sleeping bag for a more comfortable freezing experience?

I wonder all this stuff as I watch a Mexican street vendor which has set up his operation outside my window—steam has bellowed out of his cart and people have lined up to purchase hot items, like coffee, tacos or what ever. I know even if I start out cold in my office, the space heater and office hear and the fact I wear my hat all day in the office, I know by 2:00 o clock or so my office will be somewhat toasty. Not so for Pablo, outside my window, I think Pablo is going to be cold until he shuts down his operation at 3:00 pm today and drives away inside his pick up.

Blog VS Social Network

This is my blog, Meadowlarksmind, which is different, way different, then my Face book account or Twitter—both of which I use on a daily, sometimes hourly bases. These are social networks, where a blog is something different—the blog is where I get to expand my thoughts and perhaps write to a deeper and more meaningful level. Unlike FB or Twitter where I am limited a specific number of letters I can write indefinitely on the blog though I try to write a minimum of 500 words—though I have noted recently I am not writing as many words as I did or so many years.

What I sort of think is sad though is not a whole lot of folk ever make I over to my blog. I have direct links on both FB and Twitter but, rarely has any made the journey from there to here. I follow four or five blogs and that is about all I am able to read with the amount of time I am conscience in a days time. When I think of how many blogs which are out there and how many of these blogs are well written and are most likely immensely interesting I also get a little sad thinking of the thoughts I am missing but hopefully someone is reading—and to you—who has stopped by my blog today I thank you for stopping by and ask that you stop by again and hopefully you will find a posting much more interesting then today’s