Shortcake

The driver picked up my chair this afternoon right as I was ending my first of the week workout. When I work out I think I've written this before but when I work out I'm strapped to my arm bike and I go through my different settings getting an overall workout for an hour. Today I didn't do anything close to an hour I think I just did a half hour workout. I was not in my regular chair. Lissy had put me in my backup chair this morning after my shower. What new shoes being placed in a chair that's not what I usually use gives the same feeling and many times it's an awkward feeling. This chair is significantly different from my other chair. I think this one is smaller, it does not fit the same way with its cushion and it has no elevator function! I also think the batteries are somewhat limited as well perhaps as bad as my other chair. The chairs so uncomfortable that I finally decided I could only stand doing a half an hour work out and it's during the latter part of that workout I thought I heard a knock on the door. I yelled for someone to come in but nobody did maybe 4 minutes 5 minutes later I heard the knock again this time I yelled again but a little bit louder and sure enough the guy came in and said he was here to pick up my chair. I thankfully unstrapped myself from the arm bike and signed the documentation of him picking up my chair and sardonically giving him the order to bring my chair back as soon as possible. I just pray that happens and that by tomorrow night or at least Wednesday morning I can get switched back to this chair. I canceled one meeting that I have for tomorrow that I didn't want to jeopardize my butt or risk being stranded somewhere in this chair because as I remember right the battery in this chair isn't much better than the chair I sent away just now. So my plan now is to just basically lean back in my chair as much as I can to take the weight off my butt and to get by the next couple days or as long as it takes. My biggest fear right now is transferring from the bed to the chair. The foot box is way smaller than the foot box in my regular chair, following a safe transfer is the actual dressing myself. I made a question myself in my apartment the entire day just because I would not be presentable.

I know this is way shorter than my regular blog but I'm going to have to hit the sack early tonight. It's like I've been fighting this chair all day and it's one this round. My only option now is to stick with this battle another day and hopefully my good old chair will be back tomorrow night. All right team drink lots of water, for loose clothes to get plenty of rest I'm signing off for today.

 

Sunday seconds

 I spent all day with this tablet plugged in trying to get it charged to full capacity. Earlier this evening I rolled by and checked and sure enough it had reached 100% charge but I started charging yesterday in the evening and it charged all night and this morning it was like at 89% and then I let it charge some more. It was important to me to get this charged so I could dictate or start my kid letters as well as have charge to write my blog for today. Needless to say I didn't get any kid letters written today.. yet but at least I'll be able to get my blog in in my journal and then plug the tablet in again so that I might have a full charge to start my kid letters tomorrow. Tomorrow I'm only semi busy because I have to have my caregiver put me in my backup chair and then put this chair on the charger so it's got a full charge when they pick it up to take my chair into the shop hopefully for new batteries but they maintained that I had to send my chair in with the full charge as well as with the charger. I didn't have the heart to tell them that the charger I use most likely it's not the charger that came with this chair I have no idea what charger I have that might be or if I even have that charger. I must I have three Chargers two of them have been pretty poor condition but they work and the third I had wrapped up in a canvas bag tied in so tightly I could not free the charger by myself and had to go across the street to a park and grab somebody to help me pull the charger out of the black bag. Now I have everything charging I should be okay for tomorrow. They will not be picking my chair up till 4:00 or so so I have enough time to put this chair I'm currently using on the charger and it'll be fully charged by the time to pick up boys get here. I hate giving up my chair but I've got to have batteries so I can continue my life.

I totally blew off the day after having breakfast with my son, as I usually do every Sunday, I thought about taking in another movie but I really wasn't up for that so I came back to the apartment went out in the heat for a little while- - it's been extremely hot but I enjoy that you guys know that- - I finally decided not to be heroic and decided to watch or finish watching movies I've started earlier this week I never got a chance to finish. I got myself sucked into a series as well 45 minute episodes and I think about 20 episodes per season I think there's five seasons. I don't know if I will last five seasons I don't know if I'll last the rest of this season. The series is called Heroes and I think I saw an early version of it the number of years ago but I can't remember any of the episodes I've seen so far and it's a little sci-fi/fantasy entertaining so I'll use it until I find better movies to enjoy..

Popcorn in a movie

It's hard to believe that in five short months it'll be Christmas Day as hot as it is right now I think it was 103° in Salt Lake today. Who knows what will be on December 25th 2026. Everything's strange everything's different the country is burning up because of the drought I'm just surprised Salt Lake hasn't really shown any effects of the drought except the Heat and no precipitation to speak of. We've really not had any fires or floods or anything like that that seem to be happening all around the country it's just kind of strange that's all. I know I always come back to the thing that we're just waiting for the slippage that will signify the Great earthquake along the Wasatch Front which will probably more than make up for anything that's happening across the country right now. And who knows maybe these increased temperatures well leads to the slippage that will cause the Great earthquake… that's not now however, it's Saturday night and of course I'm not really doing anything except pondering hitting the sack maybe a little early just because Sundays I try to get up the shade early to make sure I'm ready by the time that I'm supposed to be over at the restaurant. I used to just get up early and mess around until it was time to go but now I have to use every second of any time that I have waking up early to get ready. I know I keep harping on this but it seems like they're just certain things that I can't do anymore like I did even earlier in this year. I have not yet not been able to get up but I've noticed my right leg seems a lot more difficult to do the early morning move that I need to do to transfer into my chair. Once I'm in my chair I'm pretty much okay but getting there seems to be more and more difficult. Crossing my legs to put my shoes on was another challenge today eventually got it done but it cost me time at which cost me from giving up on going across the street to the coffee shop. Sadly I find out that mark anthony, my son, was that the coffee shop with his friend Kevin. I'd like to have seen them. That was pretty much it for the day I pretty much stayed home the rest of the day just a little concerned about being out in the heat it was going to be 100 plus today. I did go out however with a cap and my equipment went to the movies. I got popcorn a drink Red Vines and Milk Duds- the movies basically free but the price for the amenities was $22 some months I paid for it with my card. I got a small container of popcorn that's what I usually do however the people sitting next to me in the movie gave me their bucket of popcorn when we left. With a bucket of popcorn you can get it refilled at least once I guess so I had them top it off when I leaving the movie theater. I spelled it all over everything it seemed like it was a challenge trying to keep it together while I was on the bus but I finally got home deposited in the corner and amply forgot about the whole thing until it was time for bed. Found it again and enjoyed couple pieces of popcorn. I'll have it with me now though for the rest of the weekend who knows how longer?

All wrapped up

I seem to have been plagued all day by a power cord wrapped around some facet of my power chair that I can't get untangled. Of course it's a holiday so a lot of staff are not here today I was hoping the main technical support individual would be here but no so I'm just dragging this wire around all day trying to get it less wound up in my wheels or tires. That also means that the code that I used to usually charge up this device has not been functional and so no charging has been done to this tablet. I am hoping I will have enough power to get this document up. Really haven't done much of anything today except just hang around the apartment I mean I've only registered 0.8 miles on my odometer on my chair so not even anything like across the street to the coffee shop or the market. That's okay I've got bad batteries. The bad batteries excuse the works really well would not having to go somewhere and do something you don't want to do or I don't want to do. My wound on my right elbow is coming along just well as far as healing goes. We're Way Beyond the issue of infection. Lissy has indicated that it's nearly healed she's done a great job with this piece. Yesterday I went to the market as well as to the movies which requires a lot of rolling and distance rolling actually. I guess I would have been able to get to the appointment last week for the wound doctor. I just don't trust this chair but now I think I will. I'm not going to have it for my needed trip into assist on Tuesday. I'm a little worried about the other chair as far as that goes the one I have a backup chair. Hopefully that chair will get me through or I may just have to cancel their assist meeting as well.

Dinner tonight consisted of the last of the box of fried chicken that I got from Smith's last week you know one of those eight piece Fried Chicken things that you get from the deli? It was pretty good though I was a little suspect of some of the pieces of meat but I did not get sick or I have not yet and I finished enough that I threw the hole box of remaining chicken pieces away. They've been pretty well picked over by now and most of the breading had fallen off it was just right for cats at this point if they dare get into the dumpster. I have to watch myself cuz I could really get into those Fried Chicken boxes if I don't watch out. It's nearly time for bed at least for me. I really am trying to do a concerted effort of getting to bed earlier than I have been this whole year. We didn't have any storms along this portion of the Wasatch Front today but the wind is picking up now there's been heavy clouds on and off all around the area today. I got a few drops of water on me this afternoon visiting with somebody out front of the building but it was just a little bit. I doubt if anything will happen tonight of significance but I've opened my window even wider by the bed just in case…

 

Chilly Willy

I just turned off the air conditioner to my apartment. 7:50 p.m. in we're sliding into the night time cycle but it's just too cold in this apartment otherwise. Sniffling my nose is running and I feel chilly. This apartment gets really hot really quick it seems to me during the day and I've started turning on the air conditioner around 2:00 or 3:00 if I haven't turned it on already. On Monday Wednesdays and Fridays I often turn the air conditioner on in the morning just so the apartment will be a little cooler when my care person gets here. I like to make the environment as comfortable for my people as possible. For my caregiver I want to make sure the temperature is right, the coffee's new and hot and there's snacks on the table and food in the fridge if she needs to have some sort of breakfast while I go through my morning process. These are the little things that I think is important to keeping folks that serve you happy to serve you and want to come and serve you. I'm not that smart I wish I were but the bottom line is I don't want the apartment hot hot wind she gets here. I'll actually turn the air conditioner off after she leaves and not turn it on again until maybe later in the day if the apartments way too hot. It took me a long time to figure out the air conditioner module thinner , okay thermostat! I mean I really should know this kind of stuff my dad was a furnace guy and he knew all about thermostats I just have a hard time trying to read our thermostat here at the property. It's a challenge of getting close enough in my power chair and then up high enough to see what module the thing is in at any given time. I've worked the thermostat enough now to just about know where to put it at any given time for the results that I desire. And sometimes it was good and hot I like to feel the coolness creep into the room. I don't know why but in the doorway between my bedroom and the main room it seems to be a vent or something cold air blows right through that area all the time and if I'm really hot that's where I like to plant myself for a little while anyway until I bring my body heat down. Looks like we're about ready to enter another hot spell maybe beginning Saturday the days will start becoming triple figures for the next week or so. I'm afraid we're building up to the high point of the summer after which point a little bit by little bit we start that downhill push to the end of the year. I know there's a lot of days that will be before then but just knowing summer is passing very quickly and I suppose so am I…

 

Cash!

  

It happened again! The other night I had gone over to the market just to pick up a few things more of a recreational/social outing than anything else. It's kind of a forced socialization that I think that I need from time to time throughout the week. Unfortunately, I guess that I live close enough to be able to do this anytime whenever I want, I don't know how wise this is but it's just the way that it is and I enjoy the ability to do this but anyway I was at the market. I wasn't really looking for anything specifically just a few purchases to get me through the night something to snack on something to have in the closet or the cupboard so when that movie comes on or whatever and I need a little munchie I can just roll over my stash and pull something out. Or maybe it's something sweet like her perfect piece of candy or a candy bar or just something that I can just quickly and be satisfied. I like to look around and see what else is available roll up and down the meat aisle look at pieces I wish I had the courage to purchase even though I can I still don't. I need to have a reason or a purpose to justify such a expenditure. I mean I cannot believe T-bone steaks costing $40 for a package of three or maybe even more it's just blows me away. But it's fun to look in the book and think of all the things I could do. Anyway, I pick up a few things and I have them balanced on my lap / stomach as I sip around the the store finally realizing it's time to leave it's not getting any earlier. I get in line and wait to and wait to go through the checkout.

All the sudden my spider senses begin to tingle I'm not really sure why then I noticed there's a construction kind of guy two people ahead of me just finishing his check out. He's engaged in a conversation with the checkout person so it looks at me and then moves off a little bit. Then the next person is a fast check out she's in and out and gone then it's my turn. I threw my stuff up onto the countertop it's kind of hard. This is one of the things I'm noticing as I age that things that used to be really simple just are more challenging and one of them is getting things I'm going to buy up onto the countertop for them to run through the checkout. At the same time I begin checking through my pack to get my wallet out to get ready for my purchase and the guy up in front looks at me and smiles and says “hey buddy I got it”. One of the lessons I've learned now is to just smile and say thanks. It doesn't do any good to get into a argument about if I could pay or not pay or get angry about how I didn't ask him to do the good deed. I've just decided to accept the deed and roll with it. I didn't really count almost what happened next. He said something like hey wait before you put your wallet away here they open up his wall and pulls out of fresh 20 throws it down on my lap turns around and leaves. Like I said I wasn't ready for this part I'm thinking to myself cool I'm not having any impact my savings at all and I come out 20 bucks a head life doesn't get better than this. I don't know how cool that is but if you got to accept something you got to accept it all the way. It's not like I was out trolling looking for a benefactor and if I was trying to do it it never would come out the way that I wanted it to so I was just thankful that all happened tonight and everyone came out looking pretty decent. However I'm thinking what I might look like for Thanksgiving or Christmas…

A

Slow Mo's sloppy joe

 

I did pretty good for a no help day no I have four of them over the week. I've been having some issues the last couple of days when I didn't have Home Care coming in. But today is not a problem that was awake by 5:00 a.m. dozed until 6:00 a.m. then I got up. I didn't dress immediately but I did get my meds and the regular stuff and I did get dressed and was ready to go by 8:35ish almost 9:00 a.m. it would ha

ve been a perfect morning had I had to go into town for my regular Tuesday morning meeting which we did not have this week. The biggest issue I was having this morning was how it's going to make my appointment on Thursday for the elbow wound at the wound clinic. I ended up calling what's his name over it Salt Lake wheelchair shop of course she wasn't there and got back with me later on in the day. I essentially next called the folks at the wound clinic and let them know I would not be making it in on Thursday. This is kind of frightening but not really. If my wound was giving me more issues as far as pain and such I would be more stressed out by dropping this appointment but I think I'm doing okay especially with input from Lissy, who I feel has done a great job. I feel just a little threatened by dropping the appointment but the person did leave the option I'll put the just give him a call and they'll schedule another appointment. I asked them if they could come out but they said they couldn't until I came in for an appointment then after that they could do something maybe. Just an update the wheelchair shop did call me back and I have an appointment to send my chair in to have it looked at and hopefully they'll install batteries at that time which will be next week next Thursday.

The senior center which is across the street from our building has a lunch 5 days a week. The beginning of each month they probably say a recipe or a listing of what they're going to have each day. Today they had sloppy joes and I thought why not grab lunch at the senior center? It's always a strange experience going over there if you ask me but I did at the appointed time. I have to confess that the sloppy joes didn't look like anything that I would ever produced for one I would use a lot more tomato sauce or tomato base or whatever there is hardly any in this sloppy joe that I got. Quite a bit of flavor was lacking but it was still a sloppy Joe and I enjoyed that part of it plus I had some questionable pork and beans. It's amazing how many old people show up at this event and I used to think that I look pretty bizarre and how I present myself with my shorts and my weird shoes and my strange feet positions in my chair but some of these walking seniors have me beat hands down. They look totally derelict and they're grouchy and clicky I set the table by myself mostly until three or four old ladies sat down started cackling and talked about their old life situations. I was kind of glad to get done with the whole event in fact I just realized I forgot to give my $4 donation. I'm almost talk myself now into doing my own sloppy joes I'll have to see if my green pepper still alive. I'm almost excited about not having to go in for the burn Clinic or wound clinic on Thursday feeling just a little guilty but not much..

Hot hot

 

 I swear this summer heat should begin to beat me up more so than it ever has before. It doesn't necessarily frighten me but certainly makes me wonder what's going on with my body and everything else seems to be in Flex or change. I really wasn't even in the environment today. I just went to the market after Lissa left and I was dressed and looked great for the rest of the world to see. Actually I also dropped it on a couple of the other stores in the same Mall as my market is. You know those stores that aren't really high-end stores but did not low in stores either. I don't know if they buy Factory Closeouts or whatever but sometimes they have items that are somewhat interesting and I want to see if there are any Caps or hats that I could get that would be different than the one I wear all the time as it is. I like that I've been told that I look Debonair if not cool in the top piece. Alas there wasn't anything even close to headwear. For what I'm searching for I may have to go down to one of the downtown malls and some of their specialty men's clothes store but also means there'll be a specialty of price I don't know if I'm looking at paying a lot of money for just a piece of headwear. In fact that's where I got the piece I'm wearing now that people give me good comments on.

What I'm wondering is that maybe the apartment is too hot. I know that sounds weird as heck but I have this weird thing that I do which is basically to turn the air conditioner off during the day and usually during the night as well. I like the apartment without the air conditioners on. Let's begin to change however. Tonight I was feeling a little dizzy not faint per se but not the best either and I checked the thermostat and it was 83° inside the apartment and maybe that was just a little bit too much for the old guy. So I turned on the air conditioner in this now it's beginning to turn down the inside Heat to a more livable standard. I found that around 72 degrees it's almost too cold for me to appreciate and I start thinking about turning off the air conditioner so I need to find a Zone temperature wise maybe 76 or 77 or something like that to see if that might be acceptable for inside outside temperature enjoyment of my living situation.

Remember on Sunday the problem that I had with the receiving latch on the side of my chair? That I had to have Marc Anthony come over and help me get finished dressing for the restaurant as well as seeing if he could do anything with the offended piece of equipment. And he did a good job of preparing the problem but it came undone again and so this morning I had Lissy look at the problem and see if she could do anything with making the piece secure so I could get through my day without fear of losing the arm again. And once again I'm surprised at first but then I can accept it easily she's able to get the screwdriver out and do whatever she did but totally fix that particular issue. In fact I had Ted the big guy who is the maintenance guy here at the building it was just a wonderful guy and can fix anything and is really smart. He looked at the job too this afternoon when he stopped into my apartment to fix the screen door that I broke last night remember? Anyway he looked at it and said she did a great job there wasn't much he could do to make it any better so he did look at it I think he twisted a few things which makes me double secure now. I really didn't want to have to go into the wheelchair shop but I think I will give them a call to find out what statuses are and if anything's changed regarding the possibility of getting a new piece of equipment to replace this one. The battery has been holding its own but I really haven't been going too far three miles and it's still in the upper 90s so that's the best that's been for some time. I think if I went a little bit further anywhere it would start plummeting as far as the power gauge goes. I really think I do need the batteries batteries. I know I seem to be rambling a lot these days but that's okay my goal is to get words out and words on the screen. It's going to be a warm week, it's a short week as far as work days go we celebrate the 24th of July here in Utah this week we're really lucky..

Sunday's rest

I wouldn't say that I had a bad morning it's just another one of those mornings that show to me how dependent I am on other individuals from time to time. I should have noticed yesterday but my left arm rest was getting kind of squirrely as far as trying to find the receiver to put the end piece in to make the arm piece steady and usable. The receiver is getting more and more loose I didn't realize it it didn't pay attention to it either way this morning soon after I got up it fell off my chair completely. I had been limping around with it a good part of the day yesterday that's what I should have just found someone to fix it for me should have called my brother to have him come over and fix it would have just been a couple twists with an allen wrench or my son used a screwdriver this morning I was surprised that that'll worked. Anyway trying to get dressed with one arm rest and one non-functional really took more than the 2 hours or 3 hours I had a lot of myself this morning to get ready for the restaurant with my son. I called him on my third hour which was right 7:00 a.m. and told him I was going to need some help or we're going to have to skip it today. I was really having trouble dressing. Luckily by the time he finally reached me I had gotten myself 90% dressed depending on how many points the shoes count. I didn't get those on. But immediately found the piece and was able to put it back on the chair and stop tighten it to the point that it's functional now and I don't feel nearly as desperate as I did this morning. It's funny how just one little thing can change the whole outlook of something now I'm thinking I can make it another week. I may take it somewhere and have them tighten it up a little bit more just to be sure it doesn't happen again. If I don't I think it will happen again very soon if I don't get the piece tightened up.

Aside from going out to breakfast with Mark this morning and listening to is Yammer about Russian women that was about all that I really did today all things considered. Even with the chair repaired I didn't find enough interest in the going out anywhere and doing anything particularly if it cost money. The day look like it was going to be cloudless and hot which it was. I spent the day wandering back and forth from the chips I had out on the table to the TV watching different movies at least one Marvel and one on Netflix I know I looked at the prime but I didn't really choose anything on their selections. I generally go to Netflix for the movies and Disney Plus for Marvel. I've babbled enough to get to my 500 Words. Looks like it could be and interesting week with more moisture being pumped up from the ocean or wherever it seems to be coming from..

 

Suddenly Saturday

 I'm almost concerned about how long it's taking me to get dressed, on my own anymore. My knee-jerk reaction of course is to blame it on my power chair which I'm sure is the culprit. I think the chair itself is so messed up because of me that none of my spasms seem to work anymore like they used to. I can't trigger a spasm that will make me Arch high enough long enough to pull my pants on up over my hips so it's a push me pull me thing and today took almost an hour if not longer. I wanted to be over at the coffee shop a little bit earlier than usual just because the radio station that I listen to, k u e r the local NPR affiliate through University of Utah was having what they had a mug stop or a mini fundraiser at the coffee shop. If you donate 20 bucks you get to go a mug with their logo on it. I kind of just wanted to see a couple of local DJs who said they were going to be there taking the orders for the mugs and such. They were going to be at the coffee shop from 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. and so I kind of wanted to be there early so I can just hang around and watch the event as well as get a coffee cup since I needed one set because I broke my radio West coffee cup couple days ago.

I actually got the leg up to begin with relatively easy got my shorts on as well as my shoes. This morning I just could not get my Arch start so keep me up in the air be able to pull my shorts up. So I ended up doing was taking my meds and pulling up my shorts as long as I could and then roll around some more which eventually works and gets my shorts on my butt far enough that I'm no longer indecent as far as being in public and actually not looking half bad. I really should start working on my image for some reason it would be nice that I didn't look too ragamuffin like. Actually what I finally ended up doing because I was running out of time was I got the shorts up long enough that with the t-shirt that I wore was able to pull it down over the the shorts which basically hid my unbuttoned garment. After I got my legs bound and my top pulled together is to pull my legs together and then my bag with my cell phone and wallet and such which I carry around all together, I expected myself with the full length mirror that looked okay. I finally left the apartment about 15 minutes to 10:00 it had taken me almost an hour and 45 minutes maybe a little longer to get dressed. Something is happening. I got my mug and they got to talk with a couple of the DJs From The Morning Show I listened to and sat with a group of folks that I usually don't and it was good. I had to sit there just because with the folks from the radio station doing their fundraiser it was fairly packed much more than the regular mornings that I go. I did surprise myself by staying longer than I anticipated. Next I rolled to the bus stop jumped on the bus went up to the movie theater and watch The Odyssey by Homer. It's a 3-hour movie started about almost 11:00 when it finally got done with it with the commercials and stuff or the previous. So nice piece of work I really enjoyed the folks that were in it one a Spider-Man actor and the other one the guy from board identity. It was late afternoon by the time I finally got home but also my yellow light had come on from the batteries. I've been watching it real close the last couple days and they're definitely is something wrong with the batteries I think they just burned out. But I am juicing them up every night only half of me yellow by mid-afternoon and not even going very far I can really barely go three miles for the yellow light comes on I don't know how long after that I've got before the chair stops moving entirely. I'll have to check but I think I do need to call the boys at the office IHC to check about the status of my chair and well I need to do is fix this problem if it's too batteries do I invest in new batteries or get a hold of some basic good old middle batteries I don't know all drives me crazy and I qaq think I'm handling the heat the way that I used to. I'm kind of exhausted tonight thinking on hitting the sack early getting ready for the breakfast tomorrow..

@

Fumbling through Friday

 Did you know that Netflix has the whole Gray's Anatomy series available? It's like 20 years! I don't think I've watched any of the last 10 years of the series but I was pretty faithful for the first 10 I think at least most of the first 10 before I started wandering into something else on Thursday nights. I really love the first of the series or they're just out of medical school residents or whatever or however that whole system is worked and becoming real doctors. It's so well directed so well made I wish there were other serious that I like as much as that possibly Hill Street Blues I can't really put my finger on right now that I would make time to watch if that series was still available. I try to limit myself to one episode a night however there are those times when I'll watch two sometimes even three if it's a bad weather day. I don't know if I'm going to watch a whole lot more of Gray's Anatomy but I love the whole series about people becoming doctors. When the series is on Netflix I can watch it any episode anytime. Nobody's really said anything about my odd viewing habits but I don't care. I get a lot of Solace from the flat screen.

Today was podiatrist day. I had to take the bus 40 Street South to get to my podiatrist. He cuts my toenails every 9 weeks. It's kind of stupid because I know that Melissa would do some good job if I had asked her to do toenail clippings. Somehow how I think that's why though to keep some of the things separated. I really like the little guy I think I've talked about it before on this blog today is Richard. I really enjoy following him and his family from cutting to cutting. They do all these neat little trips together real family stuff. The Family itself is quite bright I hope they will keep that forward always. He hasn't shared with me any beliefs that any of the kids will go into Podiatry as he did but it probably would not surprise me. I think  Richard kind of shares a practice with his brother in different cities along the Wasatch Front. Each day he has committed to one area they're like a foot Dynasty.

Very early on a Friday evening but that was pretty tired after I got back from my trip to the doctor but I sort of napped true local and national news then one Gray's Anatomy which is now sort of passed the tiredness anyway I feel a little more refreshed. It's not like I can go anywhere. Battery indicator on my chair indicates that I'm down to 37% and showing a yellow tag on my indicator which means caution caution. This is a new development. My battery seems to be running down quite quickly these days on top of that my chair was acting strange this afternoon I still can't figure out. But it would almost stop the forward function as I was driving it between here and there. In one case it actually stopped and the chair had to be started again after which it seemed to work okay. I'm not sure exactly what this means and that sure as hell don't want to send it to have evaluated. Remember I have this ongoing issue of my durable medical people dragging their feet to start the the chair ordering. I don't know if it's the batteries but now I think it's maybe even worse than the battery maybe the motors. I haven't called them yet I'll wait till you do that that's a battle I know we'll be harsh and one I'm not looking forward to but I need to get something going on I'm going to be sitting on my butt looking pretty stupid without a chair to really work with. I like my backup chair but still that's just what it is not a real replacement. It's one thing or another. I'm just glad on this Friday night it's not my teeth …

Thoroughly Thursday

Once again it's much later than I would like it to be and I'm just now getting to my blog and then hopefully quickly to bed. It hasn't been that busy of a day thank goodness I've enjoyed not having a lot of stuff to do but I did my usual I did my arm bike of course and I'm behind on that day or so so I still have to do another 30 minutes at least if not 60 to get to my 200 minutes. I actually was able to get dressed without much issues this morning which was good. I did take off the dressing that the hospital guys are the InstaCare PA put on my arm yesterday but did the last long at all I had it off when I did my arm bike pulled it right off. I'm kind of waiting for the folks to call about the wound care. I did get a call today but they wanted me to go to the LDS Hospital all the way up Salt Lake and I want to do the one through IHC which is local to me a lot easier to get to actually I'd like for the ones where they come actually to your apartment like they did a couple months ago when I was having to deal with wound care then. I'm hoping that this will just be done quickly I think it's just going to heal right up we'll have to see. The medications I'm taking I'm having difficulty remembering when I've taken them or when I haven't taken them. I swear I'm beginning to really get concerned about my memory and stuff. If it gets worse I'm just going to have to go in and get a checked out if I can remember to do that - - LOL.

Marc Anthony just left he was here working on my problem of today which was somehow I disconnected all the power to my flat screen and my computer and everything. We did find the problem which is the connecting area or plug is right behind my bookcase if I push it too hard it pushes on the plug it disconnects everything. So now I've got to be responsible and not push in on the bookcase when I get close to it to work on the flat screen. I think I can do this but I've got to figure out another solution so it's not turning off on me all the time gets to be a real pain having to rely on someone else to come in and do the fix. I certainly appreciate Mark stopping by. I spent a good part of the day working on the apartment trying to clean it up a little bit. It is really gotten out of control I can't say it was me making the rice which didn't help at all because I spilled a whole cup of white rice and basically had to throw it away. Luckily I had two or three bags of brown rice since April one of those and make Frank so that worked out okay. Matter of fact I had Frank for dinner tonight. I'm just amazed that I'm looking down the barrel of another weekend spend a whole week just like that click of the fingers if I could

Two Medical Offices, one tetanus shot, trip to the pharmacy- - one long day

When my caregiver looked at my arm this morning she changed her position on whether I should go in or not have the wounds look at. Since she is one of the few people that I really appreciate my life and their opinion I decided I would do that. The clouds are still bunched up so the sun was not out yet so the heat had not gotten out of hand. I was kind of hoping that the rain they keep suggesting might happen would happen but not today. Now, not only did I have the wound on my arm to consider and the wound on my leg I developed some sort of sore throat but I don't or can't figure out why it is or however it came from. I can barely swallow so I figured it great as long as I'm at the doctor's office / Hospital we can check that out too. I was hoping that's going to be able to get in and get everything taken be back by 1:00 so I could be working on my arm bike and doing my 60 Minutes on the bike. I get to the hospital however and get to my clinic and they tell me that I can't be seen by them till tomorrow sometime that I really need to go to InstaCare. I should have done that first another I was just hoping to get us hope I didn't have to make a lot of travel Arrangements but what the heck? I had to take a bus that runs on one hour headways which is a lot of time waiting but finally got on the bus Which took me close to where I needed to go got off the bus and rolled to the clinic. These guys are great and they were concerned. I really haven't been concerned my kids are really concerned and my caregiver is concerned just me I wasn't concerned. They had to wait a little bit not significantly however. They did the whole doctor thing on my arm cleaned it up wrapped it with a new wrapping and gave me a prescription for some medication to kill whatever it is I have four tablets a day- - talk about overkill? Which is okay my nurse practitioner means business they got me wrapped up and soon I was out heading home in the afternoon day sun and the day it turned hot!

Today is Wednesday and the reader knows that I wash my clothes on Wednesday and I had my caregivers start the wash. I waited an hour then went down and collected my clothes and brought them back to the apartment. I pride myself on folding and hanging up clothes as soon as I bring him in from the dryer but not today I wanted to get out and get the stuff I need to have done done. No I'm too exhausted. I'll have to do it tomorrow if I can find the time. I did do my arm bike today maybe that's all so why I'm so tired but anyway have a good night all is well the wounds are healing..

 

Hot Road Monday

I am flat out exhausted! My day is definitely catching up with me. I had it a little bit of pressure on me this morning when I got up or even before. I had to finish the stuff for my recertification for staying here at the senior apartment complex where I live. I have to do this every year in the process totally freaks me out. I tried doing this on Friday if I remember right and I was on hold for an hour at Utah State government phone systems after URS are Utah Retirement System. Today I figured I would just go ahead and finish the project as long as it took and I was on hold for 45 minutes or maybe an hour in that in that vicinity. Luckily I have some puzzles that I was working on, I had something to drink and I was okay and I have time didn't think I was going to be able to outlast me drone of the recorded message asking that we wait and they would be with us directly. Finally however I did get a live voice and she was really nice. She's now going to send out the information that I need forget the Jennifer for rent manager or the apartment manager. So I'm still hyped up at this success I decided I would jump the bus and go over to the credit union and get a copy of my last statement which was needed by whoever. I'm sure there was a way to do this from the phone at the apartment but I just wanted to go in person to get it document and get it done and come back and enjoy the rest of the afternoon. Thank goodness today was only 105 degrees not like yesterday there was 109. But I was out in the for a little bit yesterday it didn't feel too bad I enjoyed it actually. They keep the hallways here so cold I'm glad to go out in to the Heat and get an instant warm up. The credit union is not that far from the apartment complex but you have to catch the bus to get over it actually two buses one does a colleagues and when you transfer over to another one it takes you two blocks to get you off the credit union. 

Of course the line at the credit union is almost out the door! I could not believe it had been a Friday I'd understand that have been a Payday for any of them today but on monday? So I settled in and I think it took about 40 minutes to get through the line and finally after I had made contact with the bank teller I got the document it was not waiting for the bus which was a fairly long time less than 30 minutes but after a quick stop at the market on the way back I finally got home and got to relax in front of the 5:00 news.

As you know, Mondays I start my 200 minutes so exercise on my armbike. I just couldn't do it and I'm not going to do it today this is going to sort of mess up my week a little bit but that's okay I've got the days that I can do the arm bike and they'll be less stressed another today…

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Ho hum Tuesday

@It was another one of those mornings but I just couldn't get things to work right in trying to dress myself. Dedicated reader remember I have to dress myself for days of the week tuesday, thursday, Saturday and Sunday. To dress myself I use the number of apparati to accomplish this mainly sticks and leg lifters to get my shorts over my feet and then to a series of wiggling around in my chair and doing all kinds of this like bridging to get my butt off the cushion I can pull the pants up over my hips. I used to be a very simple thing I get really high to listen be able to pull the pants on quickly not So Much Anymore. Perhaps if I'd had a meeting or someplace to be at a certain time I could have been much quicker but today I just sort of couldn't get real motivated to move very fast I started probably around 7ish and didn't get really done until 10:00 of course I wasn't working all the time with this dressing project. I was doing things like taking my meds turning on the radio getting into the day's weather. All I could focus on is the fact that I wasn't able to dress as quickly as I used to and as if and everything is going to change one of these days. This is flavored the rest of my day actually. I did not put shoes on today I didn't need them just because it's so hot but the reason is I didn't want to have to go through the whole process of trying to lift my leg and cross it over the other leg so I can put my shoes on. I only have one pair of shoes right now- - maybe more if I really looked - -. I get a pair of shoes in the last forever. The shoes look very poor makes me look very homelessly homeless. Then I got a general email about folks my age becoming more and more susceptible to disabilities like Alzheimer's! Pretty soon I started checking myself against the predictors that they went through in this article it wasn't very promising. The best part about Alzheimer's I guess would be the fact that you wouldn't know that you had it and probably at the end not even care. If it's Alzheimer's I hope I don't remember much of it to say the very least. I just don't know how I would do everything else if I could do everything else. I don't even know how I would get into a long-term care facility if I needed to. I don't think I was depressed just Moody. Luckily I went the whole day really without seeing or talking to anybody except one of the old people walking around here talking half to themselves and have to you and not being able to understand any of it and particularly since this woman is German anyway. She came across the ocean with her husband in the '70s or something like that. She drug  me around the parking lot in the back of our building today trying to communicate to me that somebody had bashed in the door of her vehicle. I have to take her at face value because that's all there is except for her vehicle looks like somebody's side swiped it really bad. I cook tonight I made Frank it was pretty good. I got chicken a couple nights ago and now we're having using chicken and all kinds of recipes.

H

Grandpa abrasion stat!

This is going to be a short posting because I've lost power to my computer rack that's got all the technical logical things that I need to send information out over the internet. I bumped into the tray I have in front of my big screen and all the sudden everything went off. I think I just unplugged the major power source which I think might be the power strip and it made it so I can't use my tablet and that's what I really use on blogging. 

The day has been, I suppose, incredibly hot the local news reported the temperature was 109°. I was outside quite a bit this afternoon and it felt warm yes but 109°. That's amazing. I should be more careful wandering around outside in this kind of heat but feels good to me. I can always grab a popsicle if I need to cool down or a big glass of water or something. I see a lot of people out and about two of this kind of heat the pickleball people are playing as are the skateboarders next door to our apartment complex and there seem to be music Big Time in the park as well. I went over there just to check it out and it was some major family Hispanic family and stuff who had a big amplifier and such. They were making a lot of noise but I liked it it sounded good reminded me of the old days working with Dr Mcintyre. This morning I was up pretty early in got dressed in time to meet the kids over at the restaurant. If I had the subject about what today's blog was about it would be watch out for granddaughters. I don't know what I did but on my right arm under the elbow there's quite a large abrasion. I noticed it when I was getting ready for breakfast. I guess it does look pretty grim but anyway when the kids saw it at the restaurant they kind of freaked out especially my granddaughter, who is in the midst of nursing school. She sort of has that med school disease where they see medical problems everywhere they look and they try to fix the problem medically. Sexy kind of cute but they really were invested in following me home from the breakfast and then taking my arm as well as my leg where I scraped it too and sanitizing, cleaning up and then bandaging up my arm. I think it's a little Overkill but my granddaughter is so serious. She really is quite smart and was totally cute watching her go through the motions of trying to repair old grandpa. Both granddaughter and grandson-in-law both focused in on me and made sure that I got my wounds cleansed and covered. I don't think that was their big intention at first but surely ended up being that way. They wrapped a lot of stuff around my one wound on my arm and as I told them it would it's becoming very loose and I'm sure by tomorrow morning it will be totally off. I may have to have Melissa craft another dressing to put on. I have to watch out for my granddaughter too because now she expects Melissa to do heavy duty attendant care services for me. She wants you to do things I would never ask Melissa to do and then my granddaughter says she's going to follow up tomorrow afternoon and see if Melissa changed the dressing and how the new dressing looks.. I tried to take an image of the bandaged arm didn't come out very good and I don't even know if I can find it in my photos that I can use to post onto the blog itself. If not I'll figure out another way to get images of my wounds over to my granddaughter so she can see that we're taking her seriously and repairing my body. I'm just going to have to be now very careful and what I say are what I show medically speaking to my granddaughter. I assume that she's going to be in this mode for the next 4 to 6 years as she works herself through her academic Medical study..

 

Clam chowder and chips

 

     

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I woke up later than usual this morning and I was also slower this time that I was slowly getting of bed. I was a little concerned since yesterday I had a near problem with transferring from the bed to the chair. Luckily I resolved the issue with only some minor trauma today but I was cautious that problem didn't happen today and it didn't. Even then I was just not motivated as usual to get dressed as soon as possible so I can get over to the coffee shop for my Saturday ritual of sitting by myself and watching the other people communicate. In fact I was very close to not going over at all except that I did not want to make a whole pot of coffee and I figured it by the time I got dressed and everything it would be pretty late in my regular people would be gone by then. So I dilly-dallyed around the apartment then about an hour later than I usually did I ran across the street. I was getting my coffee and I heard my name called well not my name name I heard “dad! “. It was Marc Anthony and he was sitting with his friend Kevin on the other side of the room at the coffee shop. They waved me over and I joined them and we talked for probably the next hour and a half until I made an excuse to go. Those two are really going after it communication wise. That was great I was caught in my own little group having a moment at the coffee shop. I was kind of a third wheel but that's okay I entered into the conversation off and on but it's mostly between those two. At a time when it was convenient I broke the conversation indicating that I had to leave and that was it. Back home to the apartment shortly then out to catch the bus to go shopping over at Smith's which is something new. I like talking to a new store every once in awhile. I saw some interesting items got some grapes some bread even a cold Fried Chicken. So I have food for the weekend or I can make a casserole of some sort usually it'll be frank if I dine to make some rice. I stopped at this fish join across the street Mr and Mrs crab. It's kind of weird but not bad I got a great meal of fish and chips and clam chowder which was pretty good. Probably not as good as the Clam Chowder at Market Street but very convenient and not as expensive. I had too much to eat which worries me because now I'm in the long stretch before the next toilet episode. I included an image of the mess I left at the crabs. Enjoy the meal I sure did...

PB&J today

The dedicated reader knows that I partake of free food any chance that I get whether it's hot and comes from a restaurant or cold and comes from the food bank I'm up for free food anytime. One of the things keeping me from having a spotless apartment is the fact that I've got so much canned goods sticking in the closet shells that any new cans of food are precariously balanced on shelves or stacks of food or whatever. I don't think I'm hoarding this food because I truly believe I will eat it if I get a chance or have to eat the food to survive not having enough money to buy regular food. I've been pondering this dilemma all afternoon. I meant that statement to be is that people who are low income. When you are low income and you have lots of kids or brothers and sisters are however you want to identify the family you always have to be focused on eating the food in front of you or send with you to work or school. And once again the reason that I'm pondering this is because on my table with the loaf of white bread a jar of peanut butter furnished by the LDS church social welfare program and another program set up by the church to feed low income people. Jars of peanut butter, small jars with red lids of peanut butter and white bread which turns to toast. I love peanut butter and I love crunchy peanut butter poor people just get smooth peanut butter. I guess that makes sense in a weird sort of way also with each LDS Food box the recipient also gets a bottle of strawberry jam. I hadn't tasted the gym until today and now that I have it's a pretty darn good Jam actually. I'm not sure how complicated it it is to make jam I or jelly. I've been in the process all I remember is washing a case of jelly jars and then stepping back as big batches of carrots, onions and what other vegetables go into making a good stew or all canned in bottles in a pressure cooker. The Jam Jar Jam bottle in a polyethylene squeeze bottle but still sealed when I got it. It's been sitting around my desk or my table for some time but it still had the seal over the material itself the strawberry jelly. We got the protection to have off and I squeeze the bottle until I got a good pile of jam that I put on the bread and smooth the peanut butter all around and later the jelly on top of it making them fine PBJ sandwich. I thought about toasting the bread first but since I didn't have any bananas to slice onto it I elected to go with the strawberry jam. As I squeezed the peanut butter out onto the bread and spread the jelly wrap with my flat butter knife. The toaster. This loaf of bread was still fresh it seemed like to me even after opening bread up a week ago. I'm sure it had more to do with the nutrients and are materials in the bread to make it last longer. I've been out of brown bread for a couple of weeks now and I like the brown bread best for toast. But I'm writing about the white bread and the Globs of peanut butter that I put on the White Bread on top of the dining room table. I I put peanut butter on both the top and the bottom piece of bread then I disclose a couple of big dollops of onto the and scores them around throwing both pieces together to make the classic PB&J. A dugout the family size bag of corn chips or Fritos the big Style for super dippers. I drug my coffee over from the countertop to the table and took a bite of my sandwich and was transported immediately to third grade the lunch room of Campus School where I fished my peanut butter and jelly sandwich out of my brown paper bag. I had saved a nickel that I used in the Big Blue milk machine for a paper cart and a milk cold. The white bread was okay but not spun the soft as the one I had today. Many times mom used the bread she had baked for the week. Now, don't get me wrong I love homemade bread but it just doesn't hold up well for sandwiches especially if they've got to survive the trip from home to school in the brown paper bag…

Hot talk

I know we're in a drought and I've conditioned myself to accepting hot days but I have to really admit that I miss the monsoons that we usually get around this time of the year. Hopefully, according to the weather people that I watch on the news we will be getting some monsoons pumping moisture into the area maybe next week but I'll be surprised. I mean we live in the desert everyone knows that so we're always in kind of a drought but never with the kind of heat that were experiencing this year and probably forever onward now. I'm not too worried about myself but certainly seems to have everybody else on edge. It seems like there are calls for emergency Heating crisis everywhere in this community. I don't see the problem myself if you're hot you come in from the summer and cool down one way or the other. If you feel at rest don't go back out into the Heat luckily the world has Netflix now as well as Prime and Disney Plus so you've always got something to watch while you're cooling down or not going out at all. I suppose those who do go out have to have a good reason to do so but getting into a vehicle does feel deadly. Even with the windows down I suppose with the air conditioner running it would be doable but expensive. Everything is expensive now anyways so that's not much of a shock. It's easy to say global warming is the culprit which basically means it's the whole human race that uses and abuses everything to do with climate. It's not every single individual but it's a number of individuals in high power places that make decisions which effect everyone. The big lake in Utah is like totally evaporating. Part of the newsmakers aren't too worried about what's going on indicating there's lots of water still but then there's others that are crying Doomsday and end of the world sounds. Fortunately no rationing of water or fuel has really taken place yet but I'm sure that's just around the corner or until this coming winter season and if we have enough moisture slash snow Maybe we can bring the lake levels back up to a safe and usable level for everybody in the western part of the country that sucks off the lake here in Utah.

I spent time with my friend Lori today at Starbucks. This is our go-to place when we have to link up and make sure that we're still functional and doing okay. We both have significant disabilities it's kind of fun to be out sharing the same spaces everybody folks. For the most part people leave us alone to Yammer on for hours in the afternoon. We like to touch base, make sure everything's okay gossip about past experiences working for the same employer for a short period of time and realize that we basically outlived the director drinking coffee, gossiping and stretching out a hot summer afternoon..

 

Wednesday's winds

 A couple weeks ago I did an Impulse Buy- - I may have told you about it one of my blogs I don't remember- - it's one of those real factual type books almost like a textbook. It is definitely not fiction it's a document called yuppies and it's basically how that strata of individuals developed and became a part of our culture. It's very slow reading no question about it and I'm a slow reader anyway. But I am fascinated about the whole group of folks called yuppies so I thought why not? I've Got Friends who ordered books all the time I don't think they order real books at least one of them does I know but the others like order the books on tape and stuff like that that they listen to. I'm at no way to judge of what is reading and what is not. I mean if you listen to a book and it's entirety can you say that you read it? Does it even make a difference? It's sort of like that concept of can you say that you've written something if you realize heavily on AI to write the document or maybe to help you write the documents. I don't know where one stops and starts and stuff like that but anyway I was visiting via email with one of my childhood friends who encouraged me to stick with reading the volume, when I sort of complained about how difficult it was to read, I listen to this guy a lot cuz he's always been smarter than me. And so rather than letting the volume defeat me and overtake me and eventually have me drop it off somewhere I'm going to read it with small attempts here and there on a regular basis and try to at least get through the additional reading of the volume. His encouragement is helped a lot and now that I read almost 70 pages into the document I've got a good feeling that I can finish at some point in time. It is a dry read there's no question about it I often wonder why these writers seem to have so little in the way of sense of humor when they publish these volumes. This volume at least has images spread through the book mainly of yuppies that they're writing about. The whole concept is still fairly interesting to me how a whole social branch of the American public kind of morphed into existence. I was extremely impressed about how a whole social niche was separated out and lifted up into its own sociological Financial vocational group. That's not really a big deal but it's good for me to stretch my reading skills and commitment to a project. I only dropped the book once today after I nod ded off asleep.

There seems to be a significant amount of win yo ho  tonight as I'm writing this in my bedroom but the window open. There's a tree just outside the window and it seems to be taking on a lot of wind with this branches being pushed this way and that. According to tonight's weather person there is not really going to be any rain pushed out of the clouds on this particular evening probably not even any lightning either. It's just the cold front maxing with the heat of the day produced by global warming but just becoming pretty significant in the days…

Jerkwad World Cup- - televised

I'm such a jerk I wish that I wasn't but I think that something hardwired into me so sad. Today, Tuesday, I didn't think that I had this meeting today. I thought we were going to not have it until next week I called my quasi boss guy Andreas who reminded me that we were going to meet today and not meet for the next two weeks because he was going on a major vacation. Anyway I'm going through some real challenging things right now in the self-dressing department. I can still dress myself and I can pass myself off fairly decently as being dressed but it's just taking me so much longer and I think in some ways it's getting to a point where I may not be able to consider dressing myself anymore in a relative near future. Like I said I finally got myself dressed and still had quite a bit of time to kill so I just sort of hung out the apartment a little bit then decide to just go on in, which I did. I made the mistake of stopping by the bagel Shop and gotta dill pickle bagel. I don't really do this a lot so I'm not very good at it I should have had them toasted and everything but I ended up getting a what look like a bagel sandwich just a ton of sour cream with chopped dill pickles. It actually tasted pretty good but that's just so much bread and cheese even if it's cream cheese. I went to the office and the big boss is still gone he's out of the country or something everybody else is working fairly significantly but they had the big flat screen on the wall tuned into the current battle at some soccer place in Europe. It's this weird thing called the World Cup that everybody's Gaga about right now and I was surprised that the folks there are Gaga about it too. Of course had to be the jerk that I am and had to tell them how much I disliked soccer how much I thought it was a communist if not European plot to push European values back on to the Americans who hadn't been doing a lot with soccer the last couple of years. I just went on a rampage about how weird soccer is and how strange the USA is about the way they just sucked it in in this concept of wanting to be more European like- - at least that's how I see it. The whole soccer takeover was just too manipulative we did exactly what those folks wanted us to do. Anyway I could tell they all thought that I was weird- - and I am - - I try not to be too too weird but this game and the playoffs or whatever they're calledq definitely means a lot to these people at the office. There's nothing I can say that would turn them against soccer. I mean Andreas is Hispanic kind of but he was even wearing a soccer jersey of the team that was playing on the big screen. Well I got out of there as soon as I could. In fact we only did two names today! That's like I traveled nearly 3 hours to get here by 11:00 for just two names. I'm still glad that I went even with all the trials and tribulations, it is important that I get to leave the house or slash apartment whenever I can and I specially like the work concept that it sends me into. I took the bus all the way down State Street all the way to the hospital where I link up with the white bus that takes me to the Community College. UTA is working on tracks again and so we have to go through these bus Bridges to get back and forth to our destination. I did the bus Bridge from 13th South into the library and I couldn't find the bus Bridge to get back so I Rode rt 200 State Street all the way back...

 

Summer nights with emergency lights

It's one of those hot air nights you know middle of the summer, hot days, hot overcast days with a hint of rain but it's all Virga so rai doesn't really touch the ground evaporating due to the heat of the day. I like this kind of nights but way darker than it is right now. I like the lay in bed with the window open and feel the hot Breeze blow across your body. I remember nights like this when my older brother and I would sleep over it our best friends place a farm maybe a mile away from our farm. They were closer to the streets going into the city from the country. In the evening traffic flow was minimal and on hot days like today we would walk on the tower streets and sink a little bit our body weight sinking into the heated tar. The tire wasn't liquid or anything like that it was just sort of soft from the day's Heat. If you want to you could lay down still feel the days warmth on the blacktop. It would probably take all night for the blacktop to lose the Heat only to have it return the next day. I love those days now in the late night as I lay in bed my mind trips back to those days before my body was twisted and mangled never to walk again under its own power wishing that I could.

I was quite surprised this morning after my substitute caregiver got me up and ready for the day and it taken off. I was sitting in front of the stove whipping up my breakfast for the day. I had some spam left over from yesterday which had chunked up into small bits chopped up an onion and fried everything adding eventually two eggs and storing it all together. I really like this kind of breakfast I make them a lot when I'm in a real cooking frame of mind. I was kind of surprised when my regular caregiver walked in. She been gone for a week and she was surprised to see me up dressed and ready to go. She was sure that she had to get be up and ready. I'll sort of getting worried because I had not seen her for a week I thought maybe she'd quit. Her mother died and she had to spend a week with the family making arrangements and all that kind of stuff but she was now back ready to do my care which that will start on Wednesday as opposed to Monday. I will totally be excited to have Melissa back giving me personal care. I've worked with her long enough that she's like a machine that totally committed to my upkeep.

Once again I'm hearing the sirens and horns of the emergency vehicles heading out another run. There is a fire station just a couple blocks down from my apartment complex - I think I've written about this in the past- and every time there's a situation that need professional emergency care the fire engines take off once the big doors are opened. Small squat red and white emergency medicine vehicle takes off follows a few minutes later by the big long truck that has a seat in the very back that a backseat driver sits in that has to do something I'm sure in order to keep a vehicle that long on the road safely. These machines put out a great deal of noise up and down Redwood Road they drive. The small truck always takes off first screaming angrily I said Jets down the road. The big truck follows of course and in the evening and the dark of night you can see where they make the turn either towards the interstate or towards the western part of the city. You can hear their sirens all the way down. One thinks they will never get used to that but they do we do and soon we don't even notice machines now except when you happen to hear they're screaming voices sprinting down the road hopefully to save a life …

 

Sunday Sundown Serenade

The nights have been so weird the last couple of days it'd be in the holiday and everything. Typically the night would be a conchophony of explosions, whistles another noises associated with 4th of July. But this season is a weird season. The drought continues the whole state is a Tinderbox dried out weeds everywhere the slightest spark of Fire will turn the community into an Inferno torch homes and barns and Fields. They catch flame up and burn so fast the authorities really have time to put them out and there's so many this year I think the firefighters themselves are getting burned out and the season just barely begun. But to the point that I was making because of this hyper susceptibility to fire most of the firework displays have been canceled except those under extreme close attention and care. There's been a few diehards that of elected to do their own fireworks but a couple homes have burned as well as some significant property in Weeds and such. Law enforcement is trying to track down a lot of folks who didn't heed the the bands on personal fireworks. Usually when I bed down for the night on these holiday nights it's just one explosion after another sometimes I even see the fireworks but not this weekend and now it's over till the 24th anyway and that's okay by me I think I've enjoyed the silence over the spectacular of the explosion.

For my holiday treat I ended up cooking one of the steaks that I purchased couple days ago. Very thin steaks just two of them and they were $23. I was going to cook them yesterday for the 4th of July but the day pretty much just wound down and I never got the motivation to heat up the kitchen but today was different I pulled out and onion diced up half of it pulled some tater tots out of the freezer to cook with the steak and went to town. I could have used a bigger frying pan but chose to use the little one and just do one steak instead of both of them. So that means I also have one steak left for this week sometime. I don't want to do a major production for just one little steak. But it's fun to have something besides just the piece of meat to ingest. Maybe I'll get some mushrooms to go with the steak and onions next time I cook. These little cookaroonies are not major Productions but just little pieces of enjoyment that I found along the way.

Today was a hot day which I totally enjoyed. I had a breakfast with my son in the morning which is very good and then I pretty much hung out at the apartment for the rest of the day going out a little bit at one point to read and doze in the Sun for a minute. It was really too hot to stay out for any significant amount of time so I did come in and watch a movie or two to get through the day after the 4th of July. I wore my Venom t-shirt it's a new t-shirt and I got at the same time I got the shirt that I wore yesterday that was just a little bit too small and this is also a little bit too small but I wore it anyway and I don't know how much smaller they're going to be after I put it through the wash we'll see it's kind of sad though I really like these shirts I'm just too big. The tooth I had repaired recently still is causing me pain but maybe it's getting a little bit smaller everyday. I had a little ibuprofen this morning and might have a bit more tonight before I crash just so that I'll get him to sleep mode okay and I don't want to have to battle oral pain to get there..

Happy 4th of July

 I resolved early on this morning that I was going to take an early movie and then just kick back the rest of the day read Maybe watch a couple movies on Netflix or Disney Plus my usual way to get through a holiday. However I was pleased when I was contacted by Jasmine indicating that she'd like to come over and hang out for a while. Of course did not tell her that I was thinking of going to a movie because it's more important to me to have any time at all with my grandkids. So it took them a while to get there but they finally did show up and picked up and cleaned up around the apartment pretty well totally appreciate that then Mark Anthony joined us that was exciting as well Mark also got into the act of cleaning things up he watched the dishes cleaned around the sinks and stuff that was pretty nice it was a great Independence Day meeting everybody went their ways of course everyone had other things that they had to do family stuff and though I did not tell them I still was playing with the idea of getting to the movies. I was very pleased to find out that the buses were actually running today and pretty close to the regular schedule. I was totally pleased when sitting at the bus stop outside my apartment that little bus showed up in less than 10 minutes! I was planning on going to a later movie maybe an hour or so later but if I could get there the next 5 or 10 minutes I could get in to the movie that's just starting because it'll still be showing previews and stuff.

I'm pleased to announce that I was able to pull it off get to the to the theater and get my seating area even after some problems about finding my club membership. Today I chose to go to Young Washington a period of timepiece about George Washington as a young individual. Is by an organization called the angel group and I think it's just as it sounds it's a very born again/patriotic type outfits. I did not let that detour me. I thought the movie was well done. It was a real interesting take on the Redcoats and the early Continental Army and George Washington initially wearing a red coat even though he was a local boy. It was also an interesting portrayal of Native Americans and how they served not only the French but also the Continental civilian Army  George Washington was part of. I think I would like to see that developed a little bit further. There was still some aspects of the movie I was somewhat confused with. I would probably be well served to sit through the movie again but I don't know if I'm up for that kind of punishment. I was looking so much surprise though they were quite a few people in the theater with me that's hardly ever the case especially on Sunday.

Later in the afternoon once I came back from the movie I was supposed to cook either one or two of the steaks that I purchased couple days ago. However, I remembered that I have almost full bag of Frito dippers hidden away in the closet and I still have 3/4 of a container of chip dip just what I needed for the movies.

On holiday holiday

It's one of those days where it's a holiday but it's not a holiday. Tomorrow is the 4th of July the real holiday but because it's on the weekend they're celebrating today as they observed holiday. That's all pretty confusing sometimes but nothing federal or anything like that is open so it's just a non holiday holiday. Thankfully the buses were running today I used that early on to go to a movie which was fun. I even had popcorn. Spent more than I wanted to but I had the Sensation that the movie was free because of the program I'm on. My regular care person is still gone so I have Alan the Hispanic and he certainly tries hard. He's operating under the problem of not really understanding perfect English things get a little frustrating sometimes but all in all we get through. I certainly do not have the relationship with him as I do with Melissa. Again it's Friday and that means I don't poop again until Monday at least control it anyway. I'm a little worried because I didn't poop very much today which means I'm holding probably a lot I've got a hold of for two more days kind of freaks me. And with Melissa I could call her anytime and eventually should get over here and clean me up and get me going again I don't think I can do that with Alan. He works for two different agencies hustling and he tries to get some time in there with his family. Plus as much as I can understand he's also trying to start his own agency care Agency. I don't know how much faith I would put in him at this point he seems to be highly motivated however and that's a good thing. I spent $23 tonight or this evening on two steaks not too thick but steaks just the same. I almost had him tonight but I thought I'd wait till tomorrow which is the real holiday. I plan to get him cooked by tomorrow evening so at least I'll have one steak to go by on Sunday. One for tomorrow and one for Sunday I still have lots of potato salad left that's what I had for dinner. I probably should have something green somewhere along the line and I don't know if that's possible I noticed I still have some celery in there that needs to be used I guess that could count as something green from a crunch crunch standpoint. I am still eating off my concoction that's got green peppers or jalapenos in there they're green. I just have to be careful of what I eat now so I don't get too much stuff in me what goes in is got to come out sooner or later.

The hot weather is finally gotten back to the Wasatch Front excites me greatly if nothing else just to sit outside in the shade and read that was for me. I didn't sleep well last night so I tend to nod off a lot during the daytime hours. That's what I like to do most in the summer of retired life…

Working through Thursday

My Thursday just got longer by a couple of hours. I found out this morning that who's ever in charge of the coffee group here at the apartment complex has quit the job and there will be no more Thursday morning coffee groups until further notice. This is totally strange to me it's such a good piece of socialization for this place. Granted, a few more people could show up and some of those might be even men, and it's not like we have to have the social group here at the buildings just convenient everybody and certainly gives the building a warmer feeling but that's just me. Obviously not enough people feel this way and quite frankly I will miss the Thursday morning get togethers but on the good side it gives me more time during the day to do things if I may. Today I used the extra time to jump the bus and go over to a cheap deck clothing store not far from my credit union. I had to get to the credit union to get cash for the upcoming holiday weekend. One never knows when runs going to need cash. I know I'm trying to learn to live more on my credit card or plastic debit card but still I like the feel of the scene of cash either in my wallet or in my secret hiding place. It's something I can give my cleaning person straight from the book to her. She doesn't have to Wrangle the check or have to wait when the banks are open. She can grab the money and just take it to spend however she wants. It's not much but it's more than what she had whether it's for gas or for liquor it's all the same to me. He's been some talk about ordering a pizza in over the weekend to split between couple of households. Cash makes cashing out the people for the pizza much easier or to pay my share however that works. I did my bus trip way early t  this morning probably around 10:30 10:45. I waited for the bus to take me over to the Community College where I can transfer them to Route 47 westbound which goes right past my credit union. The credit union is at eventful except for it took seemed like forever to get to a teller because they were all caught in some sort of social dialogue with whoever they were serving and the transaction just went on and on and on. Things work well for me because no sooner had I gotten to the bus stop following my Trans in the credit union that the old 47 rolled up picked us up and brought me back to the Community College and I rolled home from there.

The strength the rest of the day goofing around the apartment. I should be washing dishes and sweeping floors but I didn't get to that today I'd like to think I was too tired but I think it's more like I was too lazy. I did my arm bike and worried about Lissy.   I can't quite remember what kind of relationship she had with her mother I don't think it was a very good one. I hope she's taking the week off for to grieve but somehow I don't think that's the case either way more power to the girl/ woman. I doubt she'll be back tomorrow I think I'll have Alan again to barely English-speaking Hispanic he's okay I just worry about the long shot between tomorrow and Monday morning ut we'll just have to go through it and see what happens…

July beginnings

 It's truly hard for me to believe that I've turned another calendar page for another calendar month! I know it's cliche but it's true time / life is going way too fast for me to even try to absorb. It doesn't do me any good too bitch about it so I won't then get on with my month. Last night I was so focused on getting my kid Letters Out I was doing them up until 10:00 and then I actually ran him down to the post office or letter area not a post office and drop them in the mail slot but in doing so totally spaced off the fact that it was the last day of the month and my rent is due today. In the past I've always prided myself in making sure that I got things done on time. But the space off rent just one more thing that lets me know that I'm aging and making simple mistakes that I used to not make. Hopefully I will still have time tonight and energy to write out the check and run down and drop it off in the Box. Whether I am one or two days late on my rent doesn't make a whole hell of a lot of difference It just does to me.

The only significant thing I really had on my agenda today was getting my tooth taken care of. The tooth with a hole in the side that I kept sticking my tongue in and the dentist inform me the food is probably going in there all the time too which is totally gross. I really thought it'd be a really short visit but it was longer than I would have liked it to have been. Perhaps it's because I elected not to do nitrous oxide the good old laughing gas this time. It was only an extra $61 but I figure I need to start putting the pedal breaks on. There's quite a discussion and a number of images were taken of my teeth are tooth in question. I guess they couldn't figure out why I needed to have the work done I wasn't in necessarily paying and all the stupid pain tricks wasn't happening. So I guess I could have got away with out any dental work today but I don't like sticking my tongue in that hole all the time it also sends me to signal that it could cross over and get into the sensitivity area pretty easily and I hate it when teeth go Nova on me and there's no easy Swift solution. I just wanted the whole patched up and to see if there really was any ongoing Decay to the point that pain would be involved. They gave me two shots of Novocaine just even having one child know okay means that's going to be a while before they start working on you just because they got to have time to do its work. Then when the drilling started there's a super hint of pain from the drilling saw he shot me again. Then there was another break for the painkiller to do further deadening. I truly hope this will stop any further process. And my teeth area in that area of the cavity we'll see what happens tonight. There's also a lot of discussion going on over my head about teeth that are disintegrating or work that's been done that's still holding together and will continue together. They make it sound like it's imminent that it's going to fail and crumble so I just asked my dentist straight out or my teeth going to last are they going to be crumbling on me soon? And if you were a betting man what was he bet with the outcome? He told me that he was pretty sure his dental work without last the rest of my life. Still I had him patch the hole just to be sure …

June's end

 A busy day and another day for the tablet didn't charge appropriately charge it all day and only got half a charge and I used the first half to print Letters Out For Today Mail out tomorrow. Luckily I have the letters written and they've been printed out now I just have to do the envelope so I don't have to use the tablet for that I just need to use the tablet today to dictate today's blog and journal entry. But I can see that doing this straight into the battery pretty quickly will to go till we can't go any further. It's quite a shock today when I got a message from Melissa actually I first I got a call from the agency. I didn't get to the phone fast enough and it went to voicemail and I had to retrain myself to do the voicemail but I did get to Melissa text wise who indicated that due to a death of the family/ her mother/ she would not be doing my attendant care for at least a week! This is kind of freaky to me just because now I have to deal with another person and I know that's been an issue I should have been aware of what happened and I did the back of my mind I was just never really prepared for it. So now I have this guy I think they said his name is Alan I will have to see how that works. I don't think I'll get the service that I get from Melissa if I just tread water to Melissa gets back I think we should be okay but this does bring up the issue of Melissa can't be there forever at least I don't think so and what do we do when we no longer have Melissa forever? It's good to have a backup plan.

It wasn't the warmest day of the year and it wasn't the coldest either so the heat is coming back a little bit by little bit. I should have worn long sleeves but couldn't bring myself to do it this late in the summer. I did okay, got dressed all right out the door on the bus into the city. We did our names at assist, then they turned me loose. I went straight to the Train that's straight to the hospital made good time and had an hour to kill before my appointment so I got myself a lunch at the cafeteria which as you know I love cafeteria food. I got a big sandwich named after a city but I can't remember what it is right now it was probably more food than I needed. Then tonight my neighbor brought over meatloaf and mashed potatoes another great meal and probably more calories than I needed if not just poop material. I certainly appreciate her looking it out for me.

I was pretty tired but I thought I'd better work on the kid letters tonight so it took a while but I got the pages printed out and that was kind of spooky I had to link up the tablet with the printer again for some reason. I thought it wasn't going to work but finally I did something must have held my mouth right or whatever it finally printed. Now I just have to do the envelopes and then stuff the letters in the envelopes and then should be done. I have not even tried to get on the horse today or the arm bike. I'm just going to have to pick it up somewhere along the week before Sunday which I can certainly do.