Writing dilemma

 What a dilemma. I'm supposed to scratch together a couple stories for the next meeting of Them  Writers Guild and I just can't seem to get started that's been my problem really for the last couple of months if not years. To make matters worse there's all this stuff right now going on about Ai and how kids are using it too right there papers and stuff like that and the big controversy of well people ever be creative again or just turn everything over to artificial intelligence? There's a couple stories this week about how artificial intelligence is sort of taking over everyone's ability to write or more to the point people are using artificial intelligence to do writing which really isn't writing at all. I can't remember right now who I talk to this week who was telling me the problem with or how easy it is just to give the artificial intelligence engine the specifics is what you want to write about and then they are the official intelligence rights whatever you want to do whether it's a short story whether it's a news article or there's even a song. Not only is it frightening for the standpoint of artificial intelligence listening to you and Advising you it's also scary that is this even creative writing at all? Do you turn this in as your work when in fact your artificial intelligence did most of the labor. There's also comment made that the use of artificial intelligence for things like writing and stuff like that the relatively slow/fast elimination of the creative writer everything will be artificial intelligence written and that's really kind of weird. Now having said or dictated all this about artificial intelligence I'm becoming a little paranoid. Whether it's sari or Alexis or whatever the artificial intelligence name is that you have access to I sense the intelligences are always listening. A couple of years ago I realized that I could go to a certain piece of software open it up and then just dictate the phone number . 

I wanted to call and that software would do all the work and soon the phone was ringing and all I had to do was give the initial information for the machine to call. A couple of days ago a friend of mine wanted to write something but was actually frightened that artificial intelligence would somehow listen in and influence the work and it would not be his own. I know this sounds ludicrous but I do know people are getting really gun shy if not paranoid or both regarding this subject. I like to still fancy myself as a writer even though I haven't written hardly anything that's been published. This ongoing blogs one of my best attempts at consistent writing. I also keep a journal, electronically, usually updating it as soon as I finish the blog. I have a difficult time characterizing either of those volumes as real writing. When I think of writing I think of something that has a main character/plotline/ end a subject to around. Maybe tomorrow I can come up with something creative. I was going to cook a roast today never got around to it I may have to do it tomorrow even though I hate cooking big time on Sunday. Not that I don't like cooking I just don't like laboring on the Sabbath I am pretty weird

Fortunate Friday

 My power chair came back last night but I wasn't putting it till this morning when Melissa switched out the chairs as I was in the shower. Sitting in my regular chair with a blessing after surviving two days in the other chair. It's taking me a bit to get used to the new chair actually it's the same chair but it's just been worked on. The batteries were kind of low and I'm still worried about them because I charged up the chair before I sent it in and it sat for a day or so and that was all and then when I went to use it today I just went over across the street for the shopping and came back and soon I was extremely low on power and now I'm at 16% and I don't think I even went 3 miles today. So either the batteries are really weak or something weird it's happening I'll give it a good charge tonight maybe do some rolling around tomorrow to see how well it holds up.

Yesterday my buddy Kent called. Can't still works for the state of Utah and assistive technology and he's one of these senior type employees from the state that sort of work undercover behind the scenes to get a lot of stuff done anyway he brought over the new shower chair which is just like the old shower chair but new and pretty and very functional. I cannot believe I almost gave it away because I thought that I was serviced well with the device I had especially after I put money into getting a caster for the wheel that was froze up. He also brought two tablets with him for me. When was the Apple product and the other was Android like this system here that I'm writing on. I'm having a difficult time getting the new systems to turn on. These are two units that they had a pile of there at ucat or you tap and they're letting me use them which means they're giving them to me but I can't really figure out how to turn them on. The one I did the Android tablet but the Apple tablet is still non-functional to me anyway I'm making progress but I don't think I'm getting anything done to speak of. I might have to see if little Mark might be able to do some things hopefully. I get so frustrated because everything is done with passwords and I've gotten so confused with all the different chat passwords that I use or have to use that I don't remember the passwords for the older new stuff. Especially those things like options to use the cell phone. I'm just going to have to break down and go that whole route of getting a new password which is a lot of rigmarole and I hate to go through it and I know I'm going to lose my password again but I need to set up the Apple system for sure cuz I want to figure out how to use that and see if it is very good particularly in dictating letters and such. I currently have the Android working and if I can figure out how to store these passages on it I might go over to it full time. It still has quite a bit of storage space and that would be great. It's older the machines are older but they're still basically new so I think they'll be okay. Can't also brought the shower bench or chair that I had given to me from the Independent Living centers at program. Is is basically the chair that I've got now except for it's new it's wide it's clean and it's tighter than the other one. I can't believe I almost passed up on this one just because we fixed the casters on the other chair. This new chair will be so much better as far as rolling around and utilization. Kent and Company's going to fix up a lot of the problems with the backup chair but they're going to basically fix everything up maybe even make a bigger foot box, that would be totally cool. It was a pretty good day

Thursday's thoughts

 It has taking me a while to get into the whole mood but finally was able to start my kid letters today I actually got about half of the letters written today. Tomorrow I think I can finish and then just the process of printing and folding and mailing them remains. I should be able to get them out the door sometime Saturday worst case scenario Monday and doesn't really matter since it's a federal holiday the mail not going to move anyway till Tuesday so I think I have more than enough time. I didn't really go anywhere today particularly because I was in this backup chair and I don't trust it at all. Even though I have enough power or I should have enough power because I charged the chairs batteries all night I just don't feel comfortable heading out in the long journey on batteries I don't trust. I felt halfway accomplished however because not only did I participate in this morning's Thursday morning coffee group I also had lunch with my friend Duane. We usually go out to lunch but I think because of my power chair or more succinctly the backup chair we decided to eat in. He buys the lunch and brings it here usually sandwiches from some kind of Subway sandwich clone, a bag of chips usually barbecue and drinks and I usually get a drink the color red. It doesn't really matter what we eat or where we eat as long as we have space to eat and visit but more importantly to visit. Today we did a trip down memory lane trying to remember how long we've known each other and it comes out to about 30 years I guess. I think I have gone over this somewhere within this document about how Dwayne worked at Rehabilitation and I'm over at Independent Living and I want to keep tab on what we have had in mind for us. This all goes back to the old days and power struggles between IL and Rehabilitation especially on the national level. Dwayne would come to a lot of Independent Living staff meetings as well as just general meetings in the office. Like I said my first encounters with him or some what clandestine but soon I think we really begin to get to know each other and like each other and eventually started going out to lunch and now we're here like I said a good 30 years later.

We are old guys now thinking and talking around around old guy thoughts. Remembering things perhaps not exactly as they were but how we want to see them as they were. We talk about families particularly grandchildren and what we're doing with them and we talk about politics and about how dangerous the times have come politically as well as socially more specifically China and the other Asian threats to the West as well as the dire political situations that is happening in our culture right now. We talk about how bad it is and we act like there's something that can be done about it but really there isn't and we just have to sit down do our best but accept whatever comes our way I'd be ready to accept inevitable…

Hole

The gaping hole next to my arm bike is the place where my backup chair usually resides but now I'm sitting in my backup chair because my main ride was taking back into the shop this afternoon. The part came in that they needed to fix a particular problem my chair was having plus the number of other issues have come up since they assessed the problems of my chair a couple weeks ago. I'm hoping and praying that all the issues will be fixed and it will return tomorrow for the rest of the day week and who knows how much longer. The bottom line is I guess the writing's on the wall that I need to start pressing for a new chair. I guess the system has it set up so I can get a chair every 5 years and I think I'm due. I really hate to start this process because it just takes so long and there's so many disappointments along the way. I was just as soon have as few disappointments as possible for the remainder of my life. I know we hardly ever get what we want or wish for but you never know. That could also mean I can have no more disappointments for the rest of my life and my life will be over day after tomorrow. That really sounds like a short story from that guy named Henry somebody.

Don't get me wrong I don't hate this chair I'm in now it's just well it's just that it's old itself. I don't have a lot of confidence in the batteries I'm afraid to go anywhere for fear I'll run the juice out and the control box is a little squirrely and so when I'm driving the chair tends to wander all over the path that I'm driving on at times I can get a little spooky too. So luckily if I know that the chair will be gone for just 24 to 48 hours or so I can survive in this chair if I have to. It's a little rough and like I said spooky I don't like transferring from the bed to the chair but I have to get up. It's imperative that I lift the foot box up as high as I dare so when I transfer in the feet will stick in the foot box and give me something to push off against to get myself back in the chair as well as to get dressed. Dressing is a bit of a challenge but so far I've been able to get the job done okay. Getting dressed takes a little longer than it does in my other chair but if I'm just going to be hanging around the apartment complex then I should be okay.

I noticed my federal money came in today not that it's a big deal because I'm okay without it really if I had to but still when it shows up it means I am going to be okay for the next month. I still have one payment coming in for the state which will further allow me to have a breath of relief. I'm going to have a big money drain in the next couple of months if and when I get my teeth worked on and have that new tooth put in that we've already done the groundwork on. Even with the doc being good enough to work out payment schedule with me it's still going to be a hit to my basic security hopefully I'll get everything covered.. and I will one way or another.. 

Book titles

 I started a new Behavior which I've noticed of late and that is purposely getting to the library at least an hour ahead of my Tuesday assist meeting. Now we don't have meetings every week sometimes we skip a week or two but when I do go in I want to go a little bit early so I can just hang around the library for a little bit seeing what's new and now I'm interested in visiting more with that person I met last week it does the information referral thing. one one of the things I have been doing the past couple of weeks is actually looking through the new book section of the library. This section is on the first floor and part of the general first floor of the library it's just a portion for the put the new books out. Today I noticed a couple titles that looked pretty interesting to me. If you have to identify these books I think they would be I don't know what they would be actually what you technically call them. Maybe just chick lit would cover it. I worry about myself sometimes enjoying these particular books. It's just that the writing just seems to be so well done and the books themselves are usually paperbacks but fairly large sized volumes that look really pleasing and kind of fun. I noticed quite a while ago when in my first marriage my wife had a number of magazines- - you know, women's magazines and they all ended up in the back room or my office area. Sometimes I would go back there and just pick up volumes and read they were pretty good I was surprised. It's not fair that women get all the good books. So I know a lot of Classics have been written by the male gender but the run-of-the-mill, midlife crisis, late teen lit have really great story lines seem to have female authors and I'm okay with that. So what I've been doing at the library is taking out my camera and clicking images of these books otherwise I think I'm going to follow it up later and find them on the internet but I never can remember the titles. So hopefully the images that I take I'll be able to search them out better and maybe order a couple of the titles from Amazon or whatever. I wish I could check out books from the library, of course I can and I do have a current library card, it's just I never can finish the book in the allocated time usually 2 weeks and then get them back to the library without a fine. So I found if I'm going to do books I have to get them either from the library bin where they sell The Used Books or other Depots where they have used books. They're around you just have to find them. But it's kind of fun finding them and taking images of the new books then sending for them.

Political minefield

 It's Monday and my caregiver’s late today. No big deal but it's worth mentioning I think at least1for my standpoint just glad I'm living in a world where I have very few time commitments that I have to make at a certain exact time so if there's something happening in my caregiver's life that she has to attend to that's okay by me. My caregiver has two kids in school and the schools in this area have just started for the new year so I'm thinking there's some sort of trauma going on in that environment and as I mentioned I'll get Services one way or the other soon enough.

My caregiver / melissa, usually gets here right around 8:30ish and like I said she tends to be late sometimes especially if it's something like school. She finally did show up almost 10:00 a.m. and if I'd been checking my email she sent an email indicating that she was having issues with the new rental she's moved into and has to stick around until the maintenance guy shows up and fixes her locked door. Actually it's a door that would not fasten/lock. I was just pleased that she was able to make it at all and that I didn't have any place to go to /beat at. Fortunately today I did not have anything on my schedule. I was just glad to know that she was coming and that she was all right.    I spent the rest of the day just trying to pick up and clean up around the apartment a little bit. Made a pretty small lunch just snorking things out of the refrigerator. Even in the Sun things were a bit chilly today. The whole pressure system is persisting over the area. It's not really cold outside unless you have to be out there for any length of time and even then it just feels like a hint of chill or a hint of fall in the front area of our building. It's the kind of day where you wish you had a barrel that you have a fire in and just warm yourself enough to get the cool off. Speaking of cool we are still in the clutches of the low pressure system that moved in over the weekend. I should have worn long sleeves but I was really hoping for a warm up today. The local weather forecaster indicated that there might be such an event happening but it really didn't happen today.

What was really weird was that I was in the back right after my caregiver left, I was hoping to glean some heat from the Sun in the back parking lot. What are my friends I've had here for some time but barely know it all was back washing her car or rubbing it with a cloth or something. She's from Wyoming that should have said everything in motion but she's so fun to hang out with she's got a good sense of humor and stuff but in the conversation that we were beginning somehow wandered into political-ville. Actually it was religion first then politics and it comes out she's a Trumper I couldn't believe it. I should have thought as much with her being from Wyoming. We didn't realize how far we were apart in this area but in a few short minutes the separation between us became cavernous or huge as we realize how conservative she was and how liberal I am. We split not necessarily hating each other but they're certainly been a wedge driven between us that wasn't there when we started the conversation

Slow day Sunday

 I was almost in bed when I realized that I had not posted for the day unbelievable. There's nothing really to keep me from posting I was just preoccupied I guess and the day Slipped Away I thought about posting earlier this morning and maybe right after going to Coffee which I did after the breakfast with Mark and me. It was a good experience getting over to the coffee shop and hanging out on the Sunday morning. There was hardly anybody there which is a bit of a shame but hopefully it'll build up over the next couple months as long as he keeps doing it. But for the most part I just hung out here at the apartment as I've been doing of late. The best part about this morning was that Marc Anthony was able to fix my chair pretty well actually well anyway he didn't really fix it still has to go into the shop and get really fixed so the item that came unscrewed get screwed back in and they put in the the foot box regulator that rises it up and down that's been going out on me. Actually it froze up on me this morning and luckily Mark was able to just touch the wires and sure enough they started working again so I'm okay I think until Wednesday got the power chairs charged up so it's ready to go I'll have Melissa switch me over on Wednesday morning the pick up the chair and hopefully back by Friday morning I can get back into the old chair or the new chair I'll let you know we repair chair and I'll be set for the weekend- - the holiday weekend. That's been a pretty quiet day I haven't really done anything like I said watched too much TV visited with a couple of the folks here in the building and enjoyed the kitchen as well as the big screen. I wish I had more to report but Sundays are kind of slow and perhaps if I started earlier and wasn't rushing the clock. I should start my letters soon with the first of the month coming up again very shortly things just keep coming around. I got a text mail from Marty Blair today great I haven't heard from him for a long time. He seems to be okay I don't know where he's at all I got was a phone number in his message so I figured it was him I had the 406 so I think that's Montana's area code.

I forgot to post

I just realized I forgot to post this last night so I'm posted tonight and back dating it to Sunday I hope you're not offended

 I was almost in bed when I realized that I had not posted for the day unbelievable. There's nothing really to keep me from posting I was just preoccupied I guess and the day Slipped Away I thought about posting earlier this morning and maybe right after going to Coffee which I did after the breakfast with Mark and me. It was a good experience getting over to the coffee shop and hanging out on the Sunday morning. There was hardly anybody there which is a bit of a shame but hopefully it'll build up over the next couple months as long as he keeps doing it. But for the most part I just hung out here at the apartment as I've been doing of late. The best part about this morning was that Marc Anthony was able to fix my chair pretty well actually well anyway he didn't really fix it still has to go into the shop and get really fixed so the item that came unscrewed get screwed back in and they put in the the foot box regulator that rises it up and down that's been going out on me. Actually it froze up on me this morning and luckily Mark was able to just touch the wires and sure enough they started working again so I'm okay I think until Wednesday got the power chairs charged up so it's ready to go I'll have Melissa switch me over on Wednesday morning the pick up the chair and hopefully back by Friday morning I can get back into the old chair or the new chair I'll let you know we repair chair and I'll be set for the weekend- - the holiday weekend. That's been a pretty quiet day I haven't really done anything like I said watched too much TV visited with a couple of the folks here in the building and enjoyed the kitchen as well as the big screen. I wish I had more to report but Sundays are kind of slow and perhaps if I started earlier and wasn't rushing the clock. I should start my letters soon with the first of the month coming up again very shortly things just keep coming around. I got a text mail from Marty Blair today great I haven't heard from him for a long time. He seems to be okay I don't know where he's at all I got was a phone number in his message so I figured it was him I had the 406 so I think that's Montana's area code. 

Saturday's beginnings

 I woke almost discouraged as I transferred from my bed to my power chair knowing that the chair / platform that I sit on, would be still at a radical angle causing me to slide over to the left really throwing my whole body off Kildeer. I made the transfer without issue and righted myself in the chair as good as I could and sent a text to my brother to see if he had any time for me today. As I got used to being off-center happy getting to think it wouldn't be so bad if I had to use my backup chair until I can send this in to get serviced on Wednesday. This is something I did not want to do but desperate times call for desperate measures. Eventually, my brother responded with the text for me to call in which I did to find out that he's going in for shoulder surgery next week and that if I needed anything done this was the time to do it and he dropped by in a few minutes and began to work on the chair. The image of included in today's posting is the piece that had come unscrewed from the upper part of the chair which was causing me to list to the left. I know you can't hardly tell anything from this image but it's the best that I had. I took the image this morning early before I got up. Why this morning the Lurch to my chair when coming back down from a tilted back position was quite significant Jared me a little bit. As I thought my brother was able to spot the problem immediately and found the culprit which was that round tube that had come unfastened from a part of the chair that anchored the whole system down this anchoring my platform seat platform evenly. It took a few minutes and some searching around for my tools that I have scattered all over the apartment but eventually we found this pliers we needed to do the twisting back into compliance. Now I could lean back dress then sit back up without the chair violently jerking. My brother is a little concerned that he didn't have a lot of threads to work with on this project as far as turning one part of the screw into the other part. I feel comfortable now that we know what the problem is that I'll be able to use the chair without issue until we can send it in to the shop for repairs which again is going to be this coming Wednesday.

My partner that I've been going to coffee with on Saturday mornings for the last couple months did not make it to the coffee meeting place this morning. I was invited to sit at one of the tables for a group of people sit every week but all seem to know each other and gab quite a bit. In truth I've been somewhat jealous of the fact these guys have all the folks to visit with. This old guy who looks kind of gnarly super old and straggly Fu Manchu mustache he sits and does word puzzles are number puzzles invited me to sit at the table. Another one of the people who come regularly sat next to me and started yammering for some time and we had quite a discussion it was pretty cool. A lot of these people all went to the same church at one time a long time ago and I sort of gather all from the stop going but they kept coming to coffee and so it goes. I don't know if this is going to be an ongoing group that I sit with or if my companion will come back and we'll end up sitting by ourselves off to the corner as we usually do but either way I felt that I did some stretching this morning, socially that is and possibly even made a friend or two Saturdays at the coffee shop doesn't get better than that

Wheelchair Blues

 There's something definitely wrong with the seat base of my power chair. I have failed it coming on for the last number of weeks maybe even months I can't remember. I've tried to remember to bring it up to the attention of my wheelchair shop but I've never gotten to that point it tell now or until today. It manifested itself at first by just a slight Lurch to the right it was a little offsetting at first excuse the pun. Caused a bit of a fear of falling the first time it started happening but nothing happened to me so I pretty much got over it and learn to deal with it. And it's gotten my neatly worse over time so I haven't really noticed that much until the last couple of days. Where the Tilt to the right of the chairs gotten more significant. I have been somewhat fearful that the whole seat got to fall off at some point. Especially worry about this when I tilt back in my chair to do the things like getting my clothes out and off for instance. Today however it tells it back and tilted to the right to the point where it tore a piece of the chair off on the left hand side of the seat base. Now I know it's not supposed to do that and so I called the shop and added the exploration of the problem onto the small list of things that I've been working on. I should have told them all this information a month ago when I had to give up the chair for a couple of days and they went through and I thought looked at things like this but I guess not. I was having problems with my foot pedal extender and so that's all that they looked at. Conveniently, Wednesday next week I'm sending the chair in to have some pieces replaced that they found needed to. And hopefully I'll have to give the chair if only for a day or a night. But this also means that I'm sure the seat base will not be repairable and if it is I'll have to wait until they can schedule the parts in and repair the chair entirely. I don't know if this is actually going to happen like this they're very seldom goes as things I planned but I need to do something because chairs are coming more and more inoperable everyday.

The only place I went today was to the market just to do some recreational shopping. I did make a purchase that I've been meaning to for some time and that was for a couple steaks. I don't know why I have such a problem purchasing more expensive cuts of meat but I end up buying the least expensive pieces of meat that I can. I think I got the steaks I got two packages a steak for about $12. The pieces I really would have liked to have gotten and that I probably should have gotten we're like $17 a piece or maybe even 24 dollars for a thicker cut. I'm not sure yet how I plan to prepare this steak perhaps cut it in strips and then Deep Fat fry pieces after I've dredged them in crumbs. I could be trying to recreate the days of Hawkins dead steer. This of course is impossible I'm supposed to shortly great days coming home for the Saturday night dance and getting that box of dinner finger steaks nothing like it…. 

Park rebuild

 I wish I could say I was full of great thoughts tonight but the truth of the matter is I'm kind of vacant. It was a quiet day not a lot happening except for coffee was kind of good had much more conversation than usual but other than a busy coffee session I didn't do much else except basically enjoy the day. We did have a storm today which was okay rather short-lived but that tends to be how the storms are right now. We got a little bit of rain but not much the people across the street in the park are coming along the project might be finished by this fall. It's funny how even though you may not have liked something at the beginning now as we're going through the renovation of this Park it's almost getting a little exciting about what it's going to be like when it's finished. Nobody even considers the project an inconvenience anymore at least I do not. I figured a way to navigate around the physical problems whether it's catching the bus or going to the market watching the workers work. Yesterday I counted I think 18 people on this project. Tried to do some fast math to just see how much this must cost today and of course it's in the thousands cuz these guys are all real workers I'm sure belonging to some kind of a union or something making decent money per hour. Everyone seems to be focused on doing something. There's the backhoe guy and then there's the guy driving another vehicle like a backhoe seeming to be digging holes and moving the dirt to a pile where it's being taken by another guy with a tractor kind of a thing all the while this other guy is driving around this big machine with the big heavy roller on it packing down the dirt which I imagine is the preparation for pouring the concrete. I think there's going to be a lot of concrete poured on this project because they're having to replace the skateboard park. I assume the new skateboard park will be much larger and conveniently I think a lot farther from our back window than the other Park was. I am hoping I will not hear the skateboarders all night long. What's really been interesting to me is that when or before this project there was a large berm of dirt that separated our property from the park property. It really gave us or me the illusion that we are kind of Alone by ourselves here at the apartment complex at least we on the bottom floor now those on the second and third floors maybe something else but down here I didn't get the vision of all the cars driving up and down Redwood Road as well as 47th South. With all the dirt gone and stuff it tells you or reminds you how flat this whole place is and really kind of how small. You lose the coziness that you had when you had the feeling of being sucked in. I'm trusting that will come back when they finish the project. There's no way they're going to be able to replace the huge trees that were knocked down but I'm sure it will not take long for the whole religion to kick back in place. Maybe that's what old folks do watch the old fade away and watch the young people build anew…

A letter and lunch

 

I think I've written before about how little real mail that I get that I've stopped checking my mailbox every day. The mailboxes are at the other end of the building for my apartment and I hate having not only rolling my chair all the way up there, only to find trash mail in my box. Especially Wednesdays when we get the circulars from all the local businesses about trying to sell their stuff to the good folks of our apartment complex. So maybe I checked the mail once a week. Yesterday, I was pleased to find a letter from my granddaughter mixed in with all the items switch passes mail these days. My granddaughter Brisa has been the most regular writer of all folks are right to every month. She's getting pretty old I was kind of surprised to find that this school year she'll be a freshman. She's totally excited about being Olive Junior High. I'm totally blown away that she's even out of grade school. I sort of had this vision of her just barely be on five or six boy my off. Anyway, she writes a terribly good letter and she's focused this letter on how she needs to write more with her hands to increase her penmanship. I can certainly understand that since I've always been plagued with poor penmanship even before my accident. Now, my penmanship has gotten so bad that if I send out six letters that I've handwritten the addresses on five of them will come back as undeliverable because somebody couldn't read the writing. I'll take half the responsibility for that but I really think the other half is just lazy federal employees. Brisa actually does a great job typing which I'm also surprised at but she's taking on the challenge to write the letters long hand. Now, I will let the litter sit a day or so then write her back to continue our volley.

Today was another meeting of The Writers Guild which basically means lunch. We've had some pretty good discussions at these meetings the last couple of months. A lot of the discussion now is around how we're going to finish out this life. Like what we're going to do with all the letters in writings in general items that we have that have to be cleaned up and out once the person kicks off. I really don't have much I was totally surprised that the writer who is part of our group actually is sold a lot of his stuff the different colleges and libraries in the area that consider him a significant writer on the local plane. And he is that that's why we're so pleased to have him part of our little Guild. I have course made the mistake of suggesting that I might be feeling the urge to do some writing maybe a short story or two and of course immediately got challenged to produce something for our next meeting which is probably in a month. I have been thinking about doing some writing about some of my childhood experiences or adolescent experiences I don't know if that's going to be doable but I certainly been getting the urge especially in the early morning hours sometimes when I can't sleep and start ruminating on all the old days and the old ways. What I've been thinking about doing is going through the internet finding the old streets and using that as my stimulus. I think I kind of outlined this last week when I started on this idea. Don't hold your breath but who knows but I can do…

Info specialist

 Tuesday so it was an assist day. I was up by 6:30 and focus primarily I'm getting dressed and out the door the kitchen earlier bus than I usually do to get downtown. I was able to get to the downtown library, which is right across the street from assist. It would allow me to spend some time wandering around the stacks in the library in general. Makes me remember my days when I was in school and that makes me feel good. I was quite surprised however when I got there and started wandering around the main area of the library there was a lady sitting in this little Cove or whatever and she was the information person. This is a new position I guess they had just started there at the Salt Lake City Library. It's about time I just hope they can figure out how to seriously use an Information Specialist. I was so blown away with the whole concept that I immediately rolled up to her and engaged her in a conversation- - she seemed totally glad to find somebody who kind of knew what she was facing. I have course had to relate my whole story to her or part of it anyway you can't do much on the first time meeting and know that you're under some kind of a time procedure. But I went over the basics particularly how it needs to be some sort of portion of the information that they deliver needs to have some disability Focus. I told her that they totally really need to have a disability specialist but I doubt that that was going to happen. All the all the programs that I've been affiliated with that are information specialty in nature that said they wanted to do this very thing we're never able to really pull it off. For some reason those able-bodied folks just can't pull it together to have an able-bodied person understand and deliver information for folks with disabilities. I told her I'd be happy to assist her and not only in her owning her office or her job but to make sure there was a part of that information base that would have the folks with disabilities in mind. It would be hit and miss at best and again I told her they need to have an IL specialist who could actually inform them of what they need. She was overwhelmed and really quite excited that I would be willing to help her. I rolled out of the office and found a place where I could go to my backpack to make sure I had everything I needed for the upcoming meeting. Oddly I found this little stack of cards that identified me as a board member for the Independent Living Center which I no longer am. But I could scratch out that information and at least write down my phone number and name to give to her which I did. She said she will be in contact with me who knows?

The assist meeting itself was pretty involved and it came out that we probably going to meet for a while every other week unless some important stuff comes up. This will give the library person time to sink into her job and maybe have some questions for me at the next meeting at the assist group. I'll stop by and see if she's still around and see if she thought anymore about how she might be able to use any information I might be able to bestow. It felt good to me that I'd be able to assist her in her position and maybe just maybe there might be some kind of opportunity on a volunteer level that I might be able to assist in providing some information once again

Dr Ward

 I used to be a downright friendly fellow at least that's what doctor Phillips said when the head of the psych Department was telling me that maybe I should steer away from experimental psychology and focus on Counseling psychology. Basically saying that there's no way I could survive a Masters or even a doctoral program and have to shoulder the burden of the mathematics required for such a course of study, which again I think is kind of ridiculous because there isn't that much mathematics into the practice unless of course you're doing pure research then of course you need experimental and all the other math based psychologies. And probably in all reality maybe the counseling side needs it too but I guess I'm still in denial. As you may know mathematics is not one of my strong points even though I really wish it were. Somewhere along the line I may have spoken about the fact that it took me three years to finally pass out of my experimental psych program which I needed to graduate with a degree in psychology. My math professor, Fritz Ward was a pretty great Professor but I just couldn't score well enough on tests because I know it was test anxiety to get out of his classes. I finally took one of his class that I needed- the experimental class- interested in his office every single day getting the homework done the right way after totally suffering the night before trying to do the exercises. I totally knew the concept but I just couldn't produce the work under stress and pressure. Fritz finally passed the out of the course with a C because he knew I knew the material front and back. I've always appreciated that professor and counted him as one of the best that I had in my academic career.

Actually I think with all the exposure to the math in my college career I came away with a deep appreciation, respect and even love for the course of study many equate only second to Dental work. For a small shiny moment I was able to enter Dr Ward's mathemagic land and could almost see the same visions that he saw when he was doing math in the air above my desk moving his hands as if they were pens or pencils on some invisible notebook or tablet. He spoke to the numbers quite literally. I had been with him long enough not to see this as weird anymore but understanding that these mathematical beings were real to him and he was communicating with them. Dr Ward had the reputation of being one of the most difficult instructors on campus and I believe that and I still to this day don't understand why he slowed his Jets up long enough to instill with me a love for higher math and all it was capable of. I wish I was a math person and I do the magical things they do. I have a basic understanding of these Wizards but still I'm just a Mickey Mouse with a dunce cap sweeping at the floors in the math department

The gift

- I must have woken up around 3:00 a.m. or something like that close to other first couldn't get back to sleep of course that means it's going to be a long day. I'm riding this early in the morning just after I gotten up so I didn't forget it. But I got into one of those loops that won't let me get back to sleep so since then I've been thinking about the old neighborhood that I grew up in in Southeast Boise. The streets the communities the people really pretty interesting. I want to check to see if there's any histories to that area there's a number of different areas within the large area of course like many cities. Boise certainly has their number of small communities that I guess all grew together eventually but the southeast section of Ada County is pretty interesting to me. This is where I basically grew up. We had a small farm in that area I started first grade in that area so I got to know the kids and the buildings and the places around. Since we lived on a farm we are in the more rural area closer to the city limits they were places I think were built by money is available to soldiers after World War II in Korea similar to some of the places here in Salt Lake like in Murray where we lived. There were neighborhoods of brick houses he knew that they were all built at the same time pretty much. The house we are in and the house next door a good friend Al would tell me the stories about how he and his wife were one of the first families to move to the subdivision that we now lived in and you can see it in the structure of most of the houses. They were red brick two and three bedroom units some of basements I'm not probably just perfect for military guy coming back from the war and starting a family. So Boise I think had the same thing going on. In fact there's one section not far from our house on later Street that was a whole area that was referred to as sergeant city and that's where enlisted families who lived while there dads and husbands were away at War and whatever.

It's not much later on the same day they're the fervor that I had when I first woke up to start this project is not as significant now as it was this morning as I was laying in bed trying to wake up and make sure I got up and ready for the restaurant on time. I'm still somewhat interested in the project some degree but not with the intensity I had this morning and perhaps that's best. I don't know what I would write about maybe if I started out with short short stories and build up from there I don't know. It could be kind of a fun project I don't know what I would do with some of the material if I actually wrote something it's hard to say. The whole thought process was kind of a gift however…

Crock-Pot BBQ

 I did an experiment tonight just for the fun of it the other day I purchased a package of Frozen chicken legs or drumsticks. I think they were like eight or nine maybe 10 drumsticks and all my goal was to try to make some barbecue chicken legs without going through all the process of either having them on the grill or put them in the oven and covering them up I guess with barbecue sauce. I'm trying to remember how my mom used to do it she did something like that in the oven. Anyway I figured why not try using the crock pot our long-term cooker or whatever it's called? It certainly can't be that big a deal. That was a little intimidated after I got the chicken legs home so rather than doing it yesterday when I bought them I threw them in the refrigerator and today with a fairly decent night's sleep I thought I would check out the process this afternoon after I got back from hanging out the coffee shop this morning and then just messing around the apartment watching a movie or two. There is a great storm today much like we've had lately some significant lightning if you break pills of thunder and then the store moves on. I was going to buy coffee this morning when I was at the coffee shop with my friend from upstairs Janet and of course I left the shop and forgot all about it. And I didn't want to go over during the rain storm so I checked what was left in the coffee can I figure there's enough there for one more pot of coffee on Monday morning to get through the morning with Melissa and my morning routine. Anyway I digress.

When I purchased the chicken legs I also saw that they had a bunch of barbecue sauce bottles of barbecue sauce for 99 cents so I grabbed one of those on the way out of the market so for an investment of $6 for the chicken parts and another dollar for the barbecue sauce I think I did okay and then I just have to set it up which I did this late afternoon. I put the chicken legs in the Crock-Pot and then covered them as much as I could with the barbecue sauce which came out pretty decent actually I didn't cover them entirely I figured that I would reach down and drip the barbecue sauce and chicken fat over the legs as they cooked. I wanted to do it a slow cook to see if that would work or what would work best. I ended up doing a slow cook and that didn't seem to be doing it quickly enough so I turned it over to hi and let it cook for about an hour and a half and that pretty much did what I wanted it to do the chicken meat didn't fall off the bones- - not been anyway- - but they were pretty well done and I can see that. I also made a pot of rice so that I could have the rice with the chicken meat when I really want to I don't need to do it tonight and maybe not even tomorrow but this next week I can have both and it might be pretty good. So finally I decided to harvest the chicken and I thought I turned off the cooker but all I did was turn it to low I thought I had turned it off but I hadn't so the chicken and the chicken legs were pretty well cooked by the time I realized my mistake so I turned off the crock pot for sure this time I'm going back to a movie I was watching and I wanted the chicken legs to cool so I didn't put a hot mess into the refrigerator. I took the big bowl that Mark gave me for Father's Day and dump the watermelon that was inside of it out washed it up and then put in the chicken parts are the legs that still had meat on them and whatever meat I was able to scrape off of the juice. It took a while and made a mess out of everything of course but I got it out put it in the refrigerator took the Crock-Pot over to the to the kitchen sink and dumped all the juice and stuff down the disposal a fish stop all the bones put them in a sack threw them in the dumpster. Again the chicken legs aren't all that pretty but there's enough there for a meal or two well worth the $7 investment I'm sure ...

MAGA an me

I was helped by a red hat today I wished I had been able to get an image) was totally amazed. I don't know why I say that people are people but I almost had a visceral pullback when I saw Trump written on top of his hat it was weird but he helped me with my chair I was stuck well across the street and trying to get in or up the driveway to a business that sells restaurant materials I got my chair High centered which is easy to do a short wheelbase like I have all the power chairs. I was struggling to get my chair some space where the wheels could touch the concrete or the asphalt but they didn't do any good until this fellow with the Trump hat stopped and helped me. I was kind of shocked because he was really nice and he seemed really intensely worried about my situation and how he could help me out. I was in no position to pass judgment and are try to figure out his social/political setting. He is going into the same building that I was so he possibly was a restaurant tour of some sort looking for restaurant tools. I was just trying to kill time before the meeting I had to attend which is a couple hours later. I had purposely come downtown for the meeting a little early so I can have lunch at my favorite German spot and then spend some time at the restaurant equipment place. I'm looking for large rocker knives and I know I've seen them at various restaurant equipment stores that I visited in the past I think one of these larger rocker knives would be just what I need to do some of the cutting that I do especially looks like watermelons and cantaloupe. Might even help with carving up beef steak and our beef roast I mean. The best knife I found in the collection there at the restaurant equipment place was maybe a 20 in Pizza knife which might be exactly what I need. It's cost was $44 which is not really a lot and I would certainly pay that for it but I want to do some more checking at one of the other places I used to frequent place called Orson Gigi's they have quite a selection of restaurant equipment. I don't need a high-end rocker just one that will do the job. If I the courage and patience I would just order some of the rocker knives or pizza knives I've seen online. I'm always shocked and amazed how many items like this pop up when I do a search. My biggest issue is not being able to really see the product until it arrives in the mail if it's not what you want you have to go through all that rigmarole to send it back. I would just like to go get it bring it back and go to work. I was not ready to spend $44 on The Rocker knife so I went back to the building where my meetings to be and just hung out there until I was time for the actual meeting. It was a good afternoon, long, tasty and somewhat productive…

Stinky ride

I am sitting here by my bed patiently waiting for my chair to charge. It's the end of a very long long day for me they actually traveled today 6 miles which is a very rare thing for me to do. 6 miles does not seem like very much but it really is when you consider bus travel training and all that kind of stuff. But today was complicated because his major construction going on around my apartment complex. They're essentially renewing the park and today I found that they had torn out all the sidewalk going from my apartment complex up to the bus stop I used to go in to the city. This means I had to go all the way around to the light and across the street then down a block then cross over to the bus stop. Fortunately today was not too hot it was a good day to travel but I had not built this extra length into my travel day then I find out after I get to bus station that because of major renovation the bus companies doing to a couple of the bus or train stops if our train into the city I'd have to go through What's called the bus Bridge. I've written about this before but not in this kind of a scenario. Today is you can only go so far on the train then you have to deboard the train load up onto a bus and go a fairly significant distance which wouldn't be so bad all things being equal but everybody in their duck was on the train got off and got on the bus I was on it seemed like there was a number of bus was actually and they were all packed really packed. Thank goodness it wasn't a really hot day but it was warm enough that sweat glands were working overtime and I tell you it gets pretty stinky. To make matters worse when you're sitting in the power chair your nose levels right at armpit level many times it's not pleasant. Also, there's a guy maybe a rollback behind me on the bus coughing his snively head off. You know the kind cough cough sniff sniff sniff deep down cough. I'm totally sure the day I was exposed to covid again. It's kind of my fault because I didn't think to use a mask or to wear a mask I think the ones that they have there at the bus or on the bus behind the the driver will just paper and I don't believe they really do much to protect somebody. We'll see I hope I don't have covid. Two people I know personally are just now getting over covid for the second or third time. They're kind of disabled and I'm hoping that's not important as far as whether one that does or does not get covid and how dangerous getting the covert variant is. I'm hoping for the best. I think I was so excited this morning because I was taking off on the train and buses to get into a meeting that I woke up around 3:30 and I don't think I really got back to sleep maybe even who knows…?

Waiting for cantaloupe

For the most part it seems the storms have moved on at least for today in the rest of the week the weather person says that there will be more storms next week as the front or whatever is pumping more water Laden clouds into the area which will again cause more storming but the temperatures are dropping now and even if we do get more storms I'm sensing the back of Summer has been broken and even though the temperature is not rise again to the upper 90s I think we're done with the super hot weather for this year. Now I could be wrong and I am a strong believer in global warming and our climate is certainly on the change but I have a feeling that regardless this summer is pretty much done for the books. Between the changes in the weather and the figure ground effects from Good Old sunshine and the fact that the evening seem to be getting dark sooner and the sun is coming up a little bit later each morning I'm sensing the change. I could use more triple digit days but I think they're they're gone for this year. This of course makes all my neighbors here at the apartment complex just happiest clams now the temperature is dropping. They're little beasts, a bit more energetic energetic and their little tongues are not hanging out nearly as much and they seem to be getting back into some sort of enjoyment of the day. The sun was out more today then the last couple of days but the temperature seem to struggle to get out of the seventies. I didn't see the evening weather but I'll bet it didn't get to be 82° today. I had lunch with one of my fellow writers today and I couldn't believe how cold the restaurant was. I wish I'd worn long sleeves. But there I go griping again try not to pay attention to me I'm just old and grumping.

I purchased a cantaloupe a few days ago I think it was kind of green so I've been letting it sit by the refrigerator to ripen up a bit. The real truth of the matter is I'm a bit intimidated by cutting into the melon. Have it all set up now that I could cut the melon into sections then cut the melon off of the rind and put them in the stainless steel containers that Mark got me for Father's Day. They're nice stainless steel have rubber tipped bottoms and a nice plastic top. They of course have numerous sizes the biggest of the containers holds the last watermelon that I got it's still in the refrigerator but I want to sneak up on this cantaloupe and cut it into sections and put it in the other canister. I'm finding out that if I process the food that is a higher chance that I will actually eat it and not have to throw it out when it goes bad. I'm doing much better quite proud of myself. I don't know if I'll get to cutting up this melon tonight but tomorrow for sure. It's Thursday, Coffee Day, and maybe warm enough to get back out onto the bus system and go to the movies or something…A

Peanut butter and me

 I must admit I do love the occasional day off from my assist meeting on Tuesdays. Such was today for some reason no assist meeting. I really didn't do a whole lot with my extra time except have breakfast more so than I usually do today consisting of Frosted Flakes toast and I think rancid butter. That was one of my tasks for today was to get rid of the butter and put a new cube in the butter dish before I ruin any other items with way old butter. Had a great storm this evening very significant coming in dark and threatening and then finally released its energy on Taylorsville. Significant amount of lightning and thunder and rain came down pretty significantly as well. Cleaned everything out not that needed since it cleaned everything out last night too I think that's the last of the rain storms for a while until maybe this weekend I guess. I watched a couple movies and actually made a peanut butter sandwich for lunch. There's a scene in one of my favorite Marvel movies where one of the characters makes a peanut butter sandwich it always made me want one every time I see that scene. So today I made one probably not as nice as hers but it certainly was a peanut butter sandwich. What's interesting was I had opened up a brand new bottle and actually the peanut butter tasted funny and when I looked at the used by date it showed it was 5 or 6 years past its date so obviously the peanut butter had gotten Rancid which kind of surprised me I didn't think that happened if it stuff was sealed and the seal was still intact on the bottle of peanut butter. I get a lot of peanut butter from the sharing Shelf they seem to stick a lot of peanut butter in with the senior boxes which obviously most seniors don't like it because they end up on the Shelf. I've collected well five or six of them over the years and I just started using them and I think that's going to be my game from now on is that just keep a jar of peanut butter and one of the flat blades close by and every once in awhile just fill up the knife with peanut butter and lick it off. I really kind of like the fresh peanut butter most of it's creamy which is okay I probably like creamy best of all but occasionally the nut peanut butter is okay too. So I eat the peanut butter as a food source pretending that if that was all I had I could survive and it's true I can see how you could and get old real fast but still peanut butter would be nice to have so my goal now is to start utilizing the items I have on my shelves and start getting rid of the old dates and just start using materials that are within the appropriate time. So I'm atholically I'm going to start going through the cans and anything that looks past its due date I'm throwing away even if I really like the stuff. I mean it's a sure bet that I can replace it with something newer…

Wheels

 In order for me to either go to the toilet or to have a shower I have to have a special modified shower chair that's large enough to go over the toilet or I poop and then I can push myself in this chair into the  In order for me to either go to the toilet or to have a shower I have to have a special modified shower chair that's large enough to go over the toilet or I poop and then I can push myself in this chair into the shower and basically shower myself and that's my morning process three times a week. Anyway, I've been using the shower bench now for about 5 or 6 years ever since I had this stenosis it I could no longer transfer myself into the shower downstairs at the old house that was when I was married but seemed like forever ago. Anyway, the shower chair developed a real problem on one of the front casters rusted shot and no longer spun making it really difficult for my staff to push me around in that chair or for me to push myself around in the chair I just couldn't do it- - I ended up sending it away for New casters which I think I wrote about in this blog a couple months ago. Anyway about the same time again which I wrote about in this blog I applied to the Independent Living Center for a new chair. Actually, they contacted me which was cool. Anyway, I did go through the application process and it seems now I've been awarded the chair. I was afraid the chair that they were willing to get me was not the same quality as this chair that I've got now in particular since it works pretty well with the new casters. I was just going to keep it actually but since I can get a brand new chair free I'm silly not to go that route. So I had them fax over the chair there willing to get me and it's an identical copy of the chair I've got now. The shower chair I used now even though the casters are repaired and I can push myself just fine with it still has some issues with the foot pedals and holding me out of the chair so I'll be interested to see if this new chair will have better foot pedals or whatever the foot mechanism would be. Now I don't know how long it'll take to get the new product in and see if it will meet my needs and of course I plan to keep this other chair that I'm using now as a backup shower chair. For the life of me I don't know what could happen that I would need a backup shower chair but you never know. I know when the wheels rusted on the first chair I desperately needed a backup chair. So somewhere somehow I'm going to try to find a place to keep this original chair in case it's ever needed. I've got so many backups now I'm backing out of my apartment it seems like.

We finally has significant Cloud burst / rainstorm this afternoon with lightning and thunder in the whole summer thing. I loved watching the day come and hang around and eventually dump its load on this area. It's tropical moisture pumped up from Gulf Coast areas or something like that. It's hard to believe that these clouds are made of moisture wrought from the ocean thousands of miles away had pushed here by the winds. The only real drawback for me however is that the temperatures have dropped because of the weather or the rain action. Tonight's actually going to be in the seventies. I'm really not trying to be a moaner but I hate to see the hot weather leave it's a precursor of things to come..

Sunday soundings

 Mark is driving back today from time he spent with Shelly and his brothers in Oregon which means of course that I didn't get up and go over to the restaurant to have breakfast. I didn't necessarily sleep in but I didn't move with the speed that I usually do on Sunday mornings be able to be at the restaurant at 8:00 in the morning. Instead, I heated up what coffee was left from the Friday coffee and then I cooked the last two eggs in the 18 egg carton and heated up what remained of the pancakes I made yesterday. It was a pretty nice breakfast I have to admit. I almost made more pancakes but it's Sunday and I didn't want to over labor myself on the day of rest. So I only dirtied up one frying pan and got rid of the egg shells and other items floating around so it's not like the kitchen or the range is clean but it's going to be relatively easy to spruce up tomorrow. I have information that Gloria my intermittent caregiver and home cleaner might be over tomorrow to wash clothes and when she does that she spruces up the apartment a little bit and it needs it a great deal right now but if I can do a few clean up things before she gets here it's less that she has to do and but she still focus on the greater needs of the unit. I once again of let things get a bit out of hand and hopefully Gloria's touch will bring things back into order to some degree. I really have to focus on the mess in the corner that's got to be a number one between now and then the snow flies- - no particular reason I just wanted to use that phraseology in this blog. There's no reason I can't bring some order to this mess if not by just shredding papers and throwing things away. Any assistance will be totally appreciated.

I had a pretty Kickback day watched way too many movies but was able to take some of the weight off my rear end which I think needs to be done significantly I noticed but look like could be dried blood on the bed protector this morning when I got up not very much just a drop but where there's so drop there's more. Hopefully we can spot something tomorrow during the caregiver session. I don't have much going on this next week which is encouraging. There's going to be some stormy days I hope but I think the back of the Summer's been broken the temperature seem to be edging down now. We may have seen the last of the hundred degree weather or the three digit degree weather and I guess that's okay. We had a pretty good run this summer season I just will miss the really hot days as we get back to the low 90s upper 80s and it all seems to get cooler from there. I can live with 80° days then maybe they'll last way into October who knows. We're getting close to the back side of the year now Diane and I were talking this morning about how the next birthday I will be 74 that's getting away spooky. But I continue to be blessed with good health and relatively strong bones I hope and muscles. The skin is getting pretty flabby but I still look relatively good after a haircut …

Summer scams and showers

 Very rarely do I get anything in my email that I even want to think about let alone respond to. Because of that I don't really check my email probably as much as I should. Actually, after thinking about this I check it daily my email because if I don't all sudden I get literally hundreds of crap that I don't need and I have to go through and zip them all out the ones that I don't want just basically all of them except for a couple meeting notices and things like that that I have to keep up on but yesterday I noticed something weird from a guy named Terry who I don't know but when I opened up the document it was from National computer protection type program indicating that I had their protection I paid for it last year and before and if they don't hear from me immediately they're going to charge me to cover me for another year at 400 bucks. I don't really quite remember but I think indeed I went through this trauma last year too. I've never really used this service and never would pay 400 bucks a year for it and it's a scam I think to some degree might be a legal scam but he have to be on your toes to get a hold of him tell him to stop. I think they give you some several weird time limit that they don't hear from you they'll go ahead and charge your account. And I checked my account tonight and nobody's charged that yet but now it's the weekend I don't think I can get anybody there over the weekend and I don't even think the numbers that I have are good for them the ones they have listed at least when I tried to call I should have got to disconnect on the number that's listed. It's just typical of me though I always get scammed by this kind of stuff just drives me crazy. So I tried to isolate it and put it out of my mind as best I can there's nothing I can do now or until Monday probably but I will check on something tomorrow but all in all have to play it out and I'm willing to even contact Better Business Bureau or whoever that one has to deal with to see if they can help us something I wouldn't be surprised there's nothing I can do I have to chalk it up to another lesson learned- - painful as it might be.

One of the things I really enjoy in the summer is the occasional summer storm here in Utah which is basically the desert so when you see a summer storm it's really something. Today I was actually watching something on one of the networks that I frequent I don't know if it was Netflix or Disney or something I think it was Netflix but anyway, there was a major short small microstorm come through and I missed it entirely! It just wandered right through lightning thunder I noticed that getting cloudy but that was all then I went out a few about an hour later and everything was all wet outside been a major downpour for for 5 or 10 minutes and then it was gone. I still can't believe I missed it that would have been the high point of my weekend I bet.

Enjoy the day

I should have done more with this day than just enjoy it but that's what I did I just enjoyed the day. After a fairly productive session this morning with my caregiver I was dressed and ready to go nowhere in particular. I had no shoes on but completely dressed other than that fairly civilized. I did want to get enough juice to carry me through the weekend without having to go to the market again. I may go to the market tomorrow just because it's a form of socialization but I don't think I need anything I've got cold chicken, Frank that I made from part of that cold chicken yesterday and it's quite good I got corn from the giveaway table corn on the cob I've got cheese and sausage slices, watermelon hot dogs if I want them buy hot dogs I mean I have wieners beef wieners and hot dog buns I think they're still okay and I do have a rug Renegade hamburger patty that needs to be eaten as well so there's more than enough food to get me through the next 48 hours and also remember I need to eat very little during this period because I won't poop again until Monday morning but seems Forever on Friday night. I'm also thankful tooth has seemed to settle down a little bit the pain is not as severe as before how are there still is paying every time I inadvertently press down on that tooth. I always have to be careful now to make sure that there's nothing that well make me press down on that tooth too much. Not a good sign for the tooth I'm afraid it states might be numbered of what I'm going what am I going to do as I lose my teeth it's something hard to Ponder.

I watch two Spider-Man movies which pleased me a great deal. I tried to be doing something as I watch the movie so I didn't feel too guilty for not using my time wisely. I wondered out to the back parking lot a number of times to take advantage of what little heat there might be out there. I don't think we broke 100° today which kind of breaks my heart but it was still warm enough when I did go out plus there was the promise of a storm. We had a small storm no lightning that I could see but I could certainly hear the thunder once or twice and then the storm went away. The sky was fairly clear but obviously I doubt they'll be any more thunder tonight or lightning. We're in a bit of a monsoon right now so the afternoons of the next couple days are going to be interesting with possibilities of thunder and lightning and some rain. I doubt we'll get much. I swept floors early in the evening look pretty nice but then I messed everything up as I made dinner and just got busy in the kitchen I tipped over things got flakes on the floor ran over some potato chips which I had dropped during dinner. Yesterday I sent away for I think $138 bowls, paper bowls which I really like to use. I was pleased and surprised that there was a knock on my door this evening and when I answered it was the Amazon man just turning to leave he dropped off my package. I didn't think I'd see it for a couple of days but I'm set now for maybe a couple of years Amazon really does just blow me away. Tomorrow there should be more thunderstorms in the afternoon and I look forward to that. I must enjoy each and every day because the heat will soon be leaving in the cold will not be far off.. 

Owee

 Something's happening in my mouth that I do not quite know how to deal with I'm having oral pain again and I think the culprit is the tooth that just got worked on. I don't know why this would be that way but the pain comes and goes and seems to be somewhat intensified by cold temperatures especially food that's cold for the refrigerator. Like I said it's off and on I've been taking ibuprofen for it especially if it happens in the middle of the night and it wakes me up like last night. It's totally frustrating because I thought I had this thing fixed. Now, I'm debating on whether or not to contact the dentist to see what I need to do next. It seems like anything I'm going to do is going to cost money no question but I need to get this thing taken care of sooner or later cuz of my experience things like this if left attended to tend to get worse. It's late in the week now and I don't know if I want to move anything on this until next week if I do anything at all. My dentist is on a regular 3-day weekend so they don't even get back in the office till Tuesday after 11:00 a.m. I think. Depending how I sleep tonight I might crash the building tomorrow- - if they're open- - and just see what they think as far as the pain, the Pain's origin and possible remedies. My experience has been nothing's done on a drop in basis especially the day before the weekend but you never know maybe they like me maybe they like me to the point that they would at least stop what they're doing and take a look at my mouth. I'm not sure but there seems to be pain above the tooth below as well but that could just be referred pain from the pain of the tooth below. Like I said this is a confusing situation. I'm wondering in the back of my mind maybe they'll want to pull it boy and that's just one more tooth gone I'm having trouble chewing as it is. Not really trouble but I can see how the philosophy anymore teeth but certainly cause some problems. I feel I should buy a steak and see if I can eat it which I think I can maybe it'll be my last real purchase of chewy stuff before my teeth all disappear and I'm on a regiment of oatmeal and yogurt. This wouldn't be that bad really it was certainly keep it personal alive plus you can also do things like soup with bread soaked in it. Guess you could put your salad in a blender wouldn't be quite the same. Maybe when the doc puts the new tooth in that will help a little bit in masticating food. It's in these moments of rollicking pain as I go back and forth in the bed wishing I could be asleep but I have a greater appreciation for those who went before me and had to deal with losing all their teeth over a pretty short period of time. Life must have been Grimm in those days. I am really thankful for the time period that I live in and all the benefits of technology and medicine and dentistry and everything else. Sometimes I think I have a pretty bad until I think of the ancestors even my parents both of them had dentures and both of them lost their teeth real soon are all at one time it seems like they got along well enjoyed their occasional meat steaks and other things that took a lot of chewing. But we did leave a lot of oatmeal too I never thought about that before…

Family and food

That was quite surprised when I opened up my messenger this afternoon on the alarm went off and it was a short video of Marc Anthony and the two other boys James and Charlie. I almost said my two other boys which is kind of true I do sort of see these two guyses my own Sons even though I know they're not. They're not even my stepson's legally but if it looks like a duck walks like a duck is probably a duck and they are always part of our Saturday crew would not go get my kids on Saturday mornings for kid day James and Charlie came with. Charlie was just a little guy and he often sat on my lap as we cruised around the city of Salt Lake. We did that for a couple of years. When they moved from Salt Lake to I think someplace in Oregon or Washington State I lost contact with Charlie and James. It's great getting back some form of contact. James is living in Japan these days and Charlie lives with my daughter Michelle in Oregon. Mark went up there to visit the family when he got word that James was coming down from Japan with his family all of his family. What a great experience. I wish I could have made the trip with mark Anthony that would have been great. Well I'm happy for the video if nothing else it's certainly was an interesting highlight of my day that's for sure.

I cooked tonight that was quite a bit of fun. I totally destroyed the kitchen of course as far as cleanliness goes. This weekend I purchased one of those chickens you know that they roast right there at the store and they coming little take-home pouches bags which makes everything so convenient. I thought I'd better get busy and use the meat before it turns the corner. Plan to still use the breast that's left for chicken salad for sandwiches hopefully but tonight I took one breast diced it up mixed it with the celery and onions and then added the rice gave me lunch and dinner options for the rest of the week. And best part of that I'm using my resources for food supply. I love the fact that I basically have an endless supply of rice if I just pay attention to the giveaway table on food delivery day at the end of the month. Hardly anybody really uses their rice and there's bags of rice on the table I usually take one or two if they're available but they can certainly add to your food experience as far as I'm concerned. I'm still not really proficient at cooking my rice it's to the point now at least I am not afraid to use it for my dishes like Frank and such but it's not nice and Flaky like the kind you get from the Asian restaurants. There is a little Asian Hawaiian restaurant right across the street from my apartment complex but I think I can get a pretty good size bunch of rice for like five bucks but I've only done that once or twice and it works really well but I think to myself don't be a dummy use the rice that you have and I also have options to do brown rice which I really do like and I should use a lot more of it. Either way what a day the two boys mark Anthony and rice sometimes Wednesdays don't get better than that…