Months and

 Today was just cloudy and cool enough to keep me inside most of the day I did make one dumpster run later in the day as I wanted to have clean garbage cans by tomorrow, Saturday. I like to have a clean receptacles for Sunday I don't know why it just seems like a good thing to start your week with. I like to do it on Saturday so I don't have to do it on Sunday keeping with my light work on Sunday philosophy. I have a bag in the bathroom garbage that I think I will leave there till Monday but the kitchen one had to go I was getting way too full and also I need to worry about how heavy kitchen garbage bags can get especially when you have an event like I did this last Wednesday when Gloria came over cleaned out the refrigerator a lot of semi heavy things went into the garbage can and I was a little worried that I would not be strong enough to lift it up over there edge of the dumpster but fortunately it really was not a problem. It had to be a methodical operation but I didn't receive any big rips in the fabric of the plastic. Sadly however that's been my biggest piece of work that I really done today. I just sort of been sitting back and taking it easy. I did enjoy a bowl of spaghetti from Gloria the other day when she was here cleaning and making the bread pudding in the spaghetti that she found and that was basically to use up this container of that special cheese that you put in Italian cooking Dash I can't remember the name of it right now but it's it's a white cheese sort of creamy when used in the cooking. I was going to use it a long time ago and  the cheese actually got pushed to the back of the refrigerator and I'd forgotten that it was there it was months old if not years but it went right well into the spaghetti Gloria threw together. Gloria is definitely from Brooklyn and she did cook Brooklyn food like the Brooklyn bread pudding and Brooklyn spaghetti. The spaghetti was much better tonight than it was yesterday. I ate spaghetti while I watched the 5:30 news, the CBS News where they've got the new two guys on there instead of the one lady. I think CBS may have shot themselves in the front cuz it doesn't make sense to have two guys doing the news. They're trying to make it like the old days when they had the Huntley Brinkley report but that's when they had real news and not fake news like they tend to have today so it looks kind of ridiculous kind of silly. I wonder how long these guys will last. They are not new guys there's some of the older reporters they've had forever but now they chose the two most prestigious, I guess, and threw them in front of the camera for the Nightly News it's all kind of funny…

Another day another loss

It's another Thursday night and I'm kind of watching the Utah Jazz lose again. I've gotten to the point of General apathy with this ball Club and the fact that even though they're pretty poor playing it gives me something to do on the evenings and afternoons when they engage in something akin to basketball. I wish I was more supportive but they just lose so well each night it amazes me and I have to watch for just that concept alone. Anyway that's the Utah Jazz enough said. I wish I had more items of interest to share with you folks but this is the end of the month and that means I have to do a few things to get ready for the next month and of course the biggie for me is to get my kid letters finished, printed and envelopes printed and everything stuffed into various envelopes letters and cash to the regular people. I'm not saying this took the whole day it did not just a small portion of the first part of the day and I was able to basically get it done after coffee social this morning.

The letters have become fairly straightforward over the years. I tried to focus on one particular item of the individual I'm writing and then build a small group of words around it. I used to be real concerned about how long the letter is and how stupid it makes me look. Luckily for me I found most of the people in my nucleus who know that I do this I've indicated that whatever I'm doing it's not stupid and they wish they had a grandfather that would write to them like I write to my kids. But I got them written that was basically done yesterday but I had a few changes to make this morning, and then the print function today I had no problems except for the fact I'm trying to get all the letters on the one page. I don't know if that made sense or not but I'm right trying to write is that I try not to have more than one letter on each of the pages that I print letter on. I then get one of the other individuals kind of around my age and they get the documents sorted out and the printer working then I spent the next hour or so maybe longer Z printing the Letters Out as well as the envelopes. Brisa is the only grandchild I tried to keep each letter to about 500 Words. I have to be most careful that I use the best words that I can and the few others like weddings and such I pretty much leave alone but certainly will put the images up on a web page or or just to see if the resulting page of comets will advise me who 1 … 1

Too much to do

 

This has been a monstrously long day and it's not over yet. I had another strange night waking up very early like 3:00 in the morning and then stressing out about either I'm going to pee or I'm not and finally I do and I never really get back to any usual or good sleep then finally getting up at 6:00 a.m. to start my day. I'm learning that Wednesdays are hump days for a reason for me it's always the day that I wash clothes. It just makes sense. Fortunate for me my home health care person has started the process for me by taking him down to the laundry and then starting the wash and throwing it into the dryer before she leaves leaving me only having to pull the clothes out then drag him back to the room/ apartment to fold and hang clothes as you can see from the image I still have that to do this evening. I think I can get it all done worst case scenario is I take the clothes not yet folded and put them back in the basket and finish the job tomorrow which I'm sure I'm going to have time. I also have to do my arm bike for an hour which I did today and then something different my old home health care person Gloria still stays in contact with me and she comes over to visit and talk about her life every once in a while and I provide her quarters and some dollar bills to clean up a little bit. Gloria does a great job I wish I just had her coming in once a week but we've never gotten to that point. Luckily she needs money couple times a month at least it seems and that's just enough to get me by.

Today Gloria came over pretty late in the afternoon which is okay. She started in cleaning things up a little bit here and there then got focused on the refrigerator which is bad bad shape. For the most part I'll let her throw away anything she wants but I've got to be careful cuz she would get rid of everything if I wasn't real close and paying attention today she said she would make a bread pudding that's what I had. I didn't think I could ever do anything like that or have anything like that done with just stuff laying around your kitchen and the refrigerator. Turned into quite a scavenger job. I love bread pudding actually I think I talked about it before about the fact that we lived on the farm and every time one of the cattle came fresh we had tons of extra milk and that's what my mom used a lot in the bread pudding. The dead Bread on top of the refrigerator and the milk and whatever person uses. For today it was walnuts raisins two or three different kinds of bread that was hanging around the bread bowl and all kinds of things out of the refrigerator eggs and I forget what else Gloria threw in there what a magician. When she was cleaning out the refrigerator she found this container of ricotta cheese which I've had in there for years literally. She convinced me that cheese doesn't go bad and she wanted to use it so she also made spaghetti from a roll of sausage Jimmy dean, macaroni it took us forever to find the ricotta, tomato sauce and who knows what else. I've never seen it done like this before she threw all the all the ingredients into a container like an 8x8 bake pan cake pan or whatever color the whole shooting match with aluminum foil and threw it in the oven the cook along with the bread pudding. She spent a long time here doing this project probably way worth more than the 25 bucks I paid her. But she seemed happy and I was happy the stuff was still cooking in the oven when she left now I've tasted the bread pudding and it's great I'm not sure about the spaghetti that's still in the lower level and I can't get it I'm so I'm having to wait for the concoction to cool off to the point where I can handle it and threw it in the refrigerator and maybe taste it for sure tomorrow. What I did taste now is it seemed a little watery and I'm sure you have to do some more mixing things up a little bit but please to get the ricotta cheese used and now they're refrigerator plus some of the other stuff. Turned out to be a pretty long afternoon but had some great visit time with my friend a clean refrigerator and kitchen floor and spaghetti and bread pudding for the rest of the week doesn't get better than that

Cookie sheet please

I've never really understood competitive Sports all that much. I think I've talked about it in the past how I chose to wrestle pretty much because my older brother wrestled and it was something I did all my by myself. It was just me and my opponent there was a bunch of other guys wrestling at the same time. So I liked that kind of but it's all I could really do. So that in mind I stayed away from professional sports as far as watching them as well and I think understanding them too. I didn't really get into supporting the school basketball and football games and all that kind of stuff. I'd like to go to the games just to hang out with the crowd of people get lost in the adults and basically feel free and unsupervised for a couple of hours. But I never sat and watched the game is all lost on me. That's why I'm having such a hard time trying to identify with the local NBA team for this area the Utah Jazz. Perhaps I would feel better if the Jazz weren't in the last place. That's a lot of losses. I've tried to be a good team supporter but it's getting harder and harder. I just basically turned off the latest game I've been watching all evening. The Jazz get themselves into a giant hole and can't dig themselves out. They really have some skilled people on their team and a lot of them are rookies which I guess are going to grow up to be fine ball players at least that's what some of the commentators are saying as far as what the coach is trying to do. They just acquired a number of new players and he's basically getting them all trained to his coaching method and trying to get them to know each other so they can play better ball. But it's kind of ridiculous to watch the games every night they play to see them get creamed. There are some feeling that the team has gotten better as they've kept playing this last season but it's not quick enough for me. But I've sort of gotten a better appreciation regarding team support. Even though I'm not there in person I like to think my positive feeling if I have any work with the hole to support the team and maybe encourage them to do better. The last time I looked at the score it was the last quarter and it was something like 100 76. I don't see any way in hell these guys are digging themselves out of this hole. It's the season half game. This means it's exactly half of the season they don't have something like 40 games left to play. I personally don't think they're going to do much better but like it or not I guess I'll just keep tuning in and supporting these guys and see what happens you never know..

The Utah chokers

I've never really understood competitive Sports all that much. I think I've talked about it in the past how I chose to wrestle pretty much because my older brother wrestled and it was something I did all my by myself. It was just me and my opponent there was a bunch of other guys wrestling at the same time. So I liked that kind of but it's all I could really do. So that in mind I stayed away from professional sports as far as watching them as well and I think understanding them too. I didn't really get into supporting the school basketball and football games and all that kind of stuff. I'd like to go to the games just to hang out with the crowd of people get lost in the adults and basically feel free and unsupervised for a couple of hours. But I never sat and watched the game is all lost on me. That's why I'm having such a hard time trying to identify with the local NBA team for this area the Utah Jazz. Perhaps I would feel better if the Jazz weren't in the last place. That's a lot of losses. I've tried to be a good team supporter but it's getting harder and harder. I just basically turned off the latest game I've been watching all evening. The Jazz get themselves into a giant hole and can't dig themselves out. They really have some skilled people on their team and a lot of them are rookies which I guess are going to grow up to be fine ball players at least that's what some of the commentators are saying as far as what the coach is trying to do. They just acquired a number of new players and he's basically getting them all trained to his coaching method and trying to get them to know each other so they can play better ball. But it's kind of ridiculous to watch the games every night they play to see them get creamed. There are some feeling that the team has gotten better as they've kept playing this last season but it's not quick enough for me. But I've sort of gotten a better appreciation regarding team support. Even though I'm not there in person I like to think my positive feeling if I have any work with the hole to support the team and maybe encourage them to do better. The last time I looked at the score it was the last quarter and it was something like 100 76. I don't see any way in hell these guys are digging themselves out of this hole. It's the season half game. This means it's exactly half of the season they don't have something like 40 games left to play. I personally don't think they're going to do much better but like it or not I guess I'll just keep tuning in and supporting these guys and see what happens you never know..

Sunday's short ramble

 My granddaughter is not able to make her regular Sunday morning breakfast ritual. She emailed me during the evening night about how she was being stressed out regarding her Collegiate Experience and she felt that she needed to stay home and study and work on her academic projects. I totally understand her feelings it's a shame that she wasn't able to make breakfast however we had, Market i, had a great time visited with each other and just enjoying the morning's ambience. Surprisingly the day seemed a lot warmer than I anticipated that it would be. I really should have gone out and done something with the day but I couldn't figure out what to do so I stayed in and enjoyed the apartment. Of course that means I probably watched much too much Netflix or Prime video or whatever is available today. That's what I like to do when I have the time or when weather will to prevent me from doing anything else. I noticed when getting ready to blog tonight that today is the 26th! I had better get busy on my kid letters over the first well be here before I know it. I really like sending the letters out on time. I was going to even start dictating today but the evening got away from me. This will be a great project for me for this coming week. If I can get the letters posted by Thursday or Friday is a good chance they'll be getting the letters by the 1st of February or at least the second who knows? Of course you know what comes with the first of February, the second of February, and The Perennial reader knows that the second is my birthday which means this year I'll be looking at 74 which rattles me down to my bones. So I suppose you're going to have to suffer me moaning all week about my upcoming birthday. Since it's going to be on Sunday I should prepare some kind of Celebration of sorts. It's hard to tell you'll just have to be the morning breakfast and hopefully the grandkids will come with her boyfriend and our little quick will enjoy the celebration of me getting just one year older. I could go on and on about getting close to the three quarters mark but I'm sure I would lose what few readers I do have if I work to take that route. I'm just thankful to be where I'm at and to be as independent as I am and hopefully I'll be able to continue that forward for this next year

Tick tock time Bop

 I noticed late this afternoon when I was looking at possibly doing an early posting to the blog that I was all off on my days month-wise. I mean the blog date was different than the date on the calendar it seemed like the blog dates were ahead of themselves. I don't know how this happened I have to go back and check when I get a minute but it's really no big deal because when I post them to the internet website they just tend to follow each other and that's okay. But still it's another one of those things that's weird about me losing assuming to lose cognitive ability to keep time in line. I don't know if I've mentioned this before but time fascinates me. I love shows about time time disruption, time travel Etc. I really like those real daring stories that actually go forward in time. I'm really quite interested in those stories about time the time disrupts the plot of the story and then the protagonist has to figure out a way to get the time correct again. I always get this feeling when for one reason or another my clock gets unplugged and when I go to restore it, for however late it's become. I have to take the number it's on the face of the clock when the power turned off and then move the numbers forward till it matches incorrect time and start the clock. It's not like I really believe I'm doing something science fiction wise It's just sort of interesting doing the right time on the clock like I'm some deity that's over time mechanisms. I do wish this were true though that I could control time that would be kind of fun as well as save my bacon and a number of situations. Then again there's always the ever-present temptation to find the winners of various betting targets particularly horse racing to find out who winners are then place the bet entirely on my own, for myself. Even just a few minutes in time forward would be cool it would certainly make me the head of the party that's for sure- - that's if I went to parties. I hate to admit this but I like to reset the time when the clocks are not working the way they should. So far, I've always been able to find the right time to place into these pockets but that's sort of changing these days. After I post today's offering I'm going to have to go back and see if I can find a place where the same date got got considered twice.

I did not go to coffee this morning like I usually do on Saturdays with my neighbor from upstairs. She was pretty sick this week so she couldn't make it so that gave me more time than usual to hang around the apartment on a Saturday morning. I finished my 200 minutes on my armbike, washed some dishes and even tried to sweep the floor a little bit but that didn't work very well. I'm in and out of the kitchen constantly tracking dirt on my wheels. I enjoyed the Saturday morning I like this time too mess around my kitchen even to the point of messing my kitchen up….

Sleepy Friday

 I didn't get the best sleep last night I don't know why. I had everything set up for the way I like to sleep but it just didn't happen. I felt I was awake quite a bit after midnight forcing myself to stay in bed until 6:00 a.m.. I'm not sure but some of this might be from the heater I have in my room right now- - the one I got from management when the furnace quit working earlier this week. They left the big heater for me until they get a permanent fix on the furnace. They sort of got it working but it's nice to have this heater blowing all the time and I'm wondering however, if that's the problem. I think it might be drying out my nose or the air in general which again brings it back to my nose. I may have to start boiling some water on the stove just to put some more moisture in the air. I might turn the heater way down tonight see if that makes a difference. Like I said however I felt kind of sluggish all day just because of the lack of sleep. My caregiver who usually comes around 8:00 or 8:20 between those two times had to do something extra different today and showed up at 6:30 a.m. which I would much rather have her do all the time anyway get everything done by 7:30 and turn each of us loose for the rest of the day. It's not that I did anything different with the extra time I got during the day but it was just nice to have everything done by 8:00 to when I usually get started on my morning regimen. Sadly this early morning rise he may have been the biggest function of my day. I didn't go out and I didn't cook anything this week of I didn't check my mail and there was nothing in there but junk mail which I basically fed to the shredder and that was entertaining. I actually had a couple of those weird events during the day when I thought it was Saturday instead of it being Friday. That really threw me off for the few seconds that I went through that today. I know this is a very short entry for the day but truth be told I really didn't do much more I put 6/10 of a mile on my power chair today that was it. I did word puzzles of course and enjoyed some Netflix and enjoyed the leftovers in the refrigerator. I almost went out after my bike ride or my arm bike workout today I only did 20 minutes since I already had 180 minutes already for the week. I could actually not do any more this week and get my 200 minutes in. I may do some tomorrow just because it breaks up today other than that it's been a pretty good week..

Thoroughly Thursday

I can hardly believe that it's almost another Friday which means it's almost another weekend. And sorry to be so cliche but where does the time go? Life is happening so fast I'm just watching it fly by and barely a part of life anymore. I have a sneaky suspicion that might be what life is all about. Maybe everything is the same I'm the one who's changed Maybe I am slowing down to the point where I Am The Rock and life is flying past me. I have just become an observer. Having said that though I must reveal that I was at Coffee social today which was taken over by one of the life insurance or medical Insurance vendors who tends to come around every once in awhile with tree cuts and food to try to get more folks into their fold. However, they rarely show up on coffee social day. At first it was a bit of a front like why take up our time at the social but then I realized we really aren't that social anyway. There's two little groups in the big group one is Hispanic group and one is the Anglo group at least with the representative from Humana a major Insurance Group they at least brought treats or Refreshments of one sort or another better than what we were offering those who showed up. I never quite know what to do with these guys. In the back of my mind I have this major block saying that don't change anything on your living situation because you'll never be able to get everything back in order as it was. Even if they might promise three or $400 of dental or some extra medical or something it's not worth it if they mess up how to provide you the coverage that you need are don't need whatever is their problem. And you can never get things to go back to the way that they were either. You may get close to what they were but everything will be mixed up and hopefully you won't be paying more than before but still it's just too frightening for me. But I sure will eat there cookies and donuts and whatever treats they might come up with.

And one really interesting thing was that yesterday I was trying to figure out how to use one of those online shopping type things or you can purchase something from one of the local markets and then they bring it over to your place. I've been trying to find whole milk in sealed containers which will conveniently store on my shelves and last for as long as I need them. I thought I had figured out how to do it the order and finally decided I would do an order but in the end the milk that I wanted they didn't seem to have and they wanted to supply something equal oh I know that never really happens so I told them to cancel my order and that was about it. I ordered a number of these boxes of milk from what used to be the local dollar store now it's $1.25 store. I thought I'd cancel the order and this morning when I opened my door there was two plastic bags full of the milk. The cost was like 25 bucks for 8 quarts of milk which I know is basically just two gallons that seems Way High but the deed was done I have the milk and I feel a little bit empowered does that seem right to you? 

Wednesday words

 Melissa was late today I'm certainly not going to hang the fact that I hardly did anything today on that but still I couldn't do anything until I had gotten done with my morning regimen. Once  again now that the cold dictate my day and I really didn't go out any more than I had to. So there was no trips over to the market or any bus trips to speak of. Actually now that I think about it I'm just totally wrong because I did go somewhere today it just didn't take a whole lotof travel to get there at least in the power chair. I had my toenail clipping appointment today and that's pretty much what drove my whole day. I was rather proud of myself because I had made an appointment with the senior travel program for our transportation over to my appointment. add v xBecause the appointment was so late in the day there was no Transportation back for me so I had to take public transit back which is okay but made me have to be out into the cold a bit more than I anticipated. Unfortunately it wasn't as cold as I thought it was going to be but still it was pretty chilly if you're going to be sitting out there waiting for the bus. Because I made my appointment for the next toenail clipping, which is going to be in March now, I didn't have to wait around once the toenail clipping was finished so I can dash out go up to the corner across the street and get to the bus stop heading back to the apartments. If I had had more time I would have done some shopping at the big Smith's on the corner on 90th South but as of where I just wanted to make sure that I didn't miss the bus cuz on that leg of the Redwood Road bus trip it's 1 hour headways or 1 hour between each bus and it's too cold to hang out the bus stop for an hour. As it were the bus was about 10 or 15 minutes late for whatever reason and it was a bit chilly before the bus finally showed up. We're not gone more than one stop when there's another person in a power chair larger than mine sitting on the side of the road waiting to come in. There's a little bit awkward but I've been on that situation enough that I know that it'll work itself out you just have to keep working on the goal this case was to get the Kid on the bus and then to the tie downs. He was driving a big chair big power chair I think even bigger than mine. I didn't really speak to him more than a couple of Whispers here and there. The guy was quite involved disability wise and I was kind of impressed that he was out there duking it out with public transit and getting to know where he wants to go. He had to come on the bus backwards cuz there was no room for him to turn around with me in the other seating position. I hope I get a chance to see this guy again. He was a pretty high quad he was pretty well Decked Out as far as heavy jacket gloves and items needed to work different facets of the world as a quadriplegic. Like I said I was impressed this guy's out there riding the main line by himself in total winter regalia. I hope he got to where he was going without incident. I did, without incident, and I just totally grateful

Feel the heat

 Another significantly cold day giving me the excuse to stay inside and enjoy my apartment. Actually had something scheduled for today so I was kind of excited. Dwayne, someone who I've written about before a professional that I worked with a lot in my career over the years was coming over today to have lunch. Typically we go over to the park in the good weather I have sandwiches or something over there and we've done the restaurant thing as well but today because of the cold weather I believe it was decided that we would meet here and have our lunch in the big room downstairs. Nobody's ever there usually over lunch so I knew the room would be available and the room is large enough two lunches could carry on at the same time one not bother the other. Doing stopped at a pho joint and got a buttload of Asian. It was great we had a good time talking about just about everything in particularly the current political debacle the USA is currently involved in. Perhaps the best part of the whole lunch was that he gave me all the leftovers and I'm not proud enough to turn them down- I think that makes sense. I've got at least one whole meal left if not more. I know I've said it before I love leftovers.

I believe I briefly noted this before the fact that my furnace seems not to be working this morning it was 64° when I got up and it was pretty chilly through the night. Today being Tuesday the day after the holiday is the first day that the front office is going to be staffed so early on I wandered I'm down after I'd have breakfast got dressed and ready for the day and notified Jennifer that I was freezing my balls off I think I said but actually but you know. She got right on and of course the guy who fixes it's not here today so she drug out one of the heaters that they have a stock of I guess brought it down and set it up in my room which I've now had running all day. I'm kind of surprised because I've not heard the furnace come on so it still must not be working but the heat seems to be coming big time between my two little heaters. So much so I've turned one off now as I get ready for bed and then we'll turn this one way down and see if it makes a difference sleeping through the night. I was real impressed when Jennifer said the heater up and turned it on. Don't know why but I was immediately taken back to 2001 A Space Odyssey and the monolith. This thing is nowhere near the size of the monolith it's still reminds me. The bottle left was pretty rascally but it just sort of stood there the heater actually swivels back and forth..

Cookie time

The cold continues in the Utah air. Lots of announcements and news about how cold it is people begging the public to stay inside to not expose themselves to the super cold temperatures. I mean it's totally uncomfortable no question about it and it's dicey perhaps but I don't think it's as dangerous as they make it out to be. I think it just adds more flavor or stress to the newscast they love to keep everyone on edge but still it's cold enough that willing to stay in the apartment as much as I can and not go out unless I have to. I may have to go out in the next day or so to take the garbage out if I can't talk my home health person into doing it. Other than that I'm pretty much staying in the building and to make matters worse I think there's something wrong with my heating unit which I may have gotten into some explanation earlier posts. But now it's noticeable even to my home health person who loves the cold all I know is it's very uncomfortable tonight I sort of kept the Heat or temperature at a survivable level by cooking. Ever since I made those bizarre little oatmeal cookies a couple weeks ago I've had in the drive to want to make some more but to do it more the way that I remember making oatmeal cookies so today I downloaded a seemingly fairly decent recipe off the internet. Sadly I must report all the good works at Jackson my quasi grandson-in-law produced on my apartment cleaning it on Sunday I've been pretty much blown out of the water. I've got flour everywhere as well as ingredient scattered from the kitchen table to the refrigerator into the sink. Think I've got all the bowls right now that need to be washed immediately in the sink there was a little bit of cookie dough left when I had finished putting all the cookie dough on the cookie sheet. There's enough cookie dough the piece on if I wanted to but really that's too much sugar in I don't know how safe eating uncooked to cook cookie dough can be. It shouldn't be much of a problem I mean people do it all the time especially kids but it's enough of a good excuse that I can just wash the rest of it down the sink when I try to wash dishes tomorrow if not wash a couple of the mixing bowls tonight and get it out of the way. Now I'm just kept focus on putting all the ingredients away the vanilla and cinnamon sugar brown sugar White and white flour. Eggs are in the fridge and the pizza pan I used for the cookie sheet we'll need to have some scrubbing a little but it's easy to do all things being equal. I came out with about 10 to 12 cookies. I think I made them too big the recipe said I should have around 24 cookies. I also cooked them longer than the recipe called for because the recipe actually even noted that if I went over the cookie time that they specified the cookies would lose their doughy Center and I guess a lot of people love the doughy Center. On myself like a cookie that crunches like in the old days. It seem like I remember when chocolate chip cookies started coming out all gooey and I don't know who but some other power or some other entity tried to push that whole gooey cookie thing but I didn't buy it. I like my cookies crisp like a good sugar snap and who doesn't like a good Ginger Snap..?

Holidays chill

It's Sunday evening smack dab in the middle of a holiday weekend, a three-dayer tomorrow is Martin Luther King Day, for a long time my categorized this holiday as one of the minor holidays as opposed to the majors. What little bit by little bit MLK day has built a Prestige and a following and a history letting it into the majors at least as far as I'm concerned. It's possibly from the guilty conscience of White America that this holiday to rise in prominence. I'm not seeing MLK sales for tires or anything else happening yet but I'm sure it's coming very soon. Interestingly this year MLK Day falls on the same day that Trump's going to be inaugurated to his second presidential term and hopefully his last. Everyone says he can't run again because of the two term but these term laws didn't mean a whole lot when he ran for the first time and then became a felon- again - and he ran for a second time. I know you can't be a Feeling be president. So it's kind of ironic MLK day and president Trump they will be at the same day. Really not trying to read a whole lot into it but it is kind of amusing.

As I said it's Sunday evening and I'm sitting right next to my heater trying to stay warm inside my apartment. I'm not sure what the problem is but this morning I really thought the heat was off. Luckily I had extra blankets on the bed so I didn't feel too cold during the night except that getting up was a bit of a challenge because it seemed pretty chilly once I got the covers off. And I don't know if by having my heater turned on full blast all day long if that causes a problem with the furnace not coming on that's it must be doing inside other people's Apartments as well as in the hallway. The kids came over after breakfast to strip my front door and to clean up my apartment a little bit and they noticed the hallway was warm are warmer than the apartment. But they really didn't notice that much difference in the apartment Heat so I don't know if it's just an old guy thing or what but knowing how cold it is outside I think I'm conning myself into thinking that it's also cold on the inside but I know I feel most comfortable when I have the heater going as far as it'll go heat wise and me sitting almost on top of the heater wishing that it could blow a little more heat. The biting cold temperature is brought about by a cold air mass down from Canada- at least that's what the weatherman says and that's who I rely on most on this kind of stuff. I suppose this is now what they call the dead of winter and January always does have the coldest temperatures so I'm not too concerned. Luckily this week I only have to be out in the temperatures on Wednesday so that's a comfort. I'll have a bus pick me up take me to my podiatrist who will do my toes but then I have to get back on my own. It'll be late in the afternoon by that time almost 4:00 that I shouldn't have to wait too late or too long for a bus to get back to the apartments. I'll be okay 

Saturday's recap

 I'm kind of proud of myself. I went out in the cold and frigid world numerous times today. I did not stay inside and watch numerous episodes of a single series- - in all honesty I did watch too final episodes of a series called Travelers which I really quite enjoyed. But that was after I had got done with my running around outside. A trip to the coffee shop this of course for Saturday morning coffee with Janet and then 1another shopping expedition to the market across the street. This time for buttermilk and Parmesan cheese and a few stocks of celery. I even got on the arm bike for 20 minutes making my 200 minute arm bike workout this week complete. I don't suppose it matters if it's 20 minutes or 60 minutes or whatever 200 minutes is 200 minutes and when I reach that point I tend to stop the workout process. Perhaps had I gotten started earlier in the day I would have worked out for a full 60 minutes but since I already had 180 minutes under my belt, so to speak, all I needed was the 20 minutes on the bike today for the 200 for the week. I don't think it matters the amount of minutes in a workout as long as you get the 200 in sometime during the week.

I should have been working on the apartment as far as trying to put some order to the chaos that I've let it erode into. However that has not happened yet and at this juncture I doubt they'll be any cleaning binges this Saturday night. I've already contacted Mark Anthony and he's online for breakfast in the morning so I not going to be staying up a whole lot more time wise tonight. Just want to get my blog and journal in and then maybe do a little bit more on one of my word puzzles then call it in and wait for tomorrow. My mouth does not seem to be overly sore Dash I can't remember if I have written about the fact that I was flossing the other night and got a bunch of floss jammed between my tooth or two teeth and then now I can't get the floss out and the pressure against the teeth from the floss is becoming more and more sensitive. I really have some reservations about going to talk with the dentist about pulling the string out for fear that he may not be too interested in doing such work. I'm a little hesitant about contacting the dentist because he was supposed to be doing some more work on my mouth especially after he made the last extraction in hopes of developing a bed where he can drill another tooth in another molar to line up with the ones above. It's been two or three months since he did the work to start and I haven't heard back from them since so I don't know if they're upset or exactly what and I'm just waiting till I get so damaged in my mouth that I'm going to go back and just see what's going on. But my teeth Don't Hurt, right now, I can actually enjoy my current dentist and his staff. I'm not afraid of the pain as much as I'm afraid of the cost I may have to incur for any more dental work. Dental work is a function of life I can't bitch about it too much except it's cost money a lot of money and I still want to take just the cheapest and the easiest way out. I'm just thankful that the tooth is not caused any pain per se except for the pressure that the floss creates all bunched up between the two teeth. I suppose I need to make an appointment to see him soon

Of addictions and slumber

 Thankfully I'm not totally addicted to binging television shows at least right now. Today I was a bit more productive than I have been earlier this week. I actually crossed the street and did some grocery shopping. I know that's not a big deal really just a few yards crossing the street but I did it and I have Provisions now if the weather gets as cold as they're talking about getting. They being the local weather forecasters who for the most part I do trust but I do think you like to get a little hyper on the news reporting sometimes or the weather reporting are the forecasting. I think you like to use scare tactics to elevate their self-imposed superiority in a week quasi scientific occupation. Now mind you I didn't say I didn't watch any of the current series I'm dealing with right now that being Travelers. It's really a good series with seasons and they've been consistently good, at least for me, of those seasons. It's taking me awhile to get the concept of the series down but I finally figured it out I think to a certain degree. Body occupation by other entities is nothing new in the area of Science Fiction and probably horror but the premise on this one is really good in that they're using people that were going to die in the first place and working under a relatively rigid code of supposedly doing good working to save the entire planet. Some of the signs of someone antiquated but overall I think it's pretty well done at least I'm enjoying the series for the time being. I'll be more interested come the following week when the president takes the inaugural oath and the new Administration comes into power. That might be the best time to be a traveler to another planet. In the series to anybody who enjoys alternate realities, time travel, and a good team up. I don't know how much time I will devote to this series overall I think I might be in the last season. They might be working on another season now too which would be season number four or five I think. That is a lot of Television viewing which greatly embarrasses me.

Last night or this morning as I was sleeping last night or this morning as I was sleeping I was awaken around 3:25 a.m. why is sharp chirp. The chirping sound that a system gives off as its batteries are about to fail. In this case it was my smoke and fire alarm. They had been worked on earlier in the week and the new batteries were installed and everything set in order and put back in place. Somehow during the night however it developed a chirp and now it was chirping every 2 or 3 minutes and then a voice would follow like every 5 minutes say in the batteries are low and they need to be changed. I can't say that it was spooky but I can't say it was unnerving to the point where I couldn't get back to sleep with this chirping going on so I decided I'd have to get up and what I had in mind was to take one of my big sticks and knock the device down and then plug the battery or whatever- that didn't happen however. I drug my ass out of bed which is not an easy feat grabbed a big stick and then after the smoke alarm hard as I tried to hit it that wouldn't dislodge I ended up poking some buttons on the thing and each time I poked a button would give a different rendition of something and finally I noticed that it wasn't blinking anymore and it seemed to be quiet I stayed up for another 10 minutes that it didn't resume its chirping or it's recording so I went back to bed and oddly I went back to sleep for a couple more hours. This was a totally golden save if he asked me…..

When everything changes

 I'm exhausted I'm sitting here blogging and waiting for a second wind hopefully to finish the blog and my journal afterwards. It's not like I did anything today to speak of just coffee social and that was it spent the rest of the day watching or blinging- that's not the right word- Netflix working through a couple seasons of Travelers which I'm fine now is a pretty decent series. I don't like series for the very reason it keeps me trapped watching them until it's conclusion. I've just started the third season and still holding my interest really well amazing. I stayed up till about 12:12 a.m. last night reading or trying to read. And I pretty much slept through the night waking up about 5:30 and then just hanging around the bed till 6:00 a.m.. and as I indicated I spent the whole day watching the screen.

I cannot believe I did not work out today. No excuse and I rarely pass up the chance to work on my arm bike. Today would have been just a half day since I'm standing at 180 minutes for this week. I should have dropped everything and just done my workout during the radio show Marketplace which I try to listen to weekdays. It's a half an hour show just enough for me to get through the last 30 minutes of my 200 minute schedule. Luckily I still have Friday and Saturday to make up the 30 minutes. I know I'm becoming some but neurotic about this arm bike thing but I really feel it saved my life in a lot of ways and maybe extended it to some degree. I don't want to be the next one to go. I think I wrote last night about Eric Wadsworth my buddy from Moore High School who passed away over the weekend. Call gangly Eric a minor track star for the school and just a good guy. He was a Letterman you know one of those guys with the jacket who are on the In Crowd who sit around or stand around the trophy cabinet in the hallway in the mornings and in the afternoon at lunch talking jock stuff. It's beginning to feel like we're losing people almost weekly from the schools I went to. I shouldn't be so disturbed about the whole thing because it is that time of life. If this is with my buddy DD yesterday- - no not Donald Duck- who agreed with me regarding the mortality status of many folks that we know and grew up with. I know I somewhat macarba but everyday I wonder when I'm coughing or get a particularly persistent spasm that is this how it's going to go? Is this how I'm going to check out? I have to think how weird it is when you read about an obituary or somebody who just drops dead in the middle of the day and it's the last thing they thought they would be doing when they left the bedroom that morning when they went to work or whatever they were going to do that day and suddenly Everything Changes.

Cookie monster!

 I slept poorly last night. I had weird ass dreams that seemed to go on forever. I had to go to the at some point in time around 3:00 in the morning and it didn't really get much back sleep after that. The dream wasn't necessarily a nightmare but it's a strange dream just the same and of course now that I'm writing about this dream I cannot remember really what the dream was about except for that it was really weird and it was one of those dreams that you know you're dreaming but you question yourself during the dream process like what you're going to do when you wake up and what I'm going to do so I never have to deal with this dream again. Of course there's no way you can wish a dream away- the dreams are going to come whether you want them to or not just like the voices. I really do not have voices for say just one voice that usually comes out of my subconscious just as I'm preparing to sleep and just says”No! But it allowed in commanded voice which always startles me and quite frankly scares me. You have to play all these weird games and think these weird thoughts before I'm able to get back to sleep. It took me a long time to even acknowledge, even to myself that these voices or voice was inside my head. Then I got to thinking about neurosis and I got to thinking about multiple personalities and that really scared me. Or just psychotic folks in general, for the first time I really think I was able to consider how they might live if just for a little while. If I have just one voice and it's very intermittent how bizarre is it to have many voices rattling on inside your head at all times day and night? I would hope I would be able to cope with such a thing but I could tell now that I would be too spaced out to cope with anything outside the voices. Right now however there acting pretty good they haven't been out for a couple months. They never come when you think you could deal with them it just come when they want to. I pray and hope that what I'm experiencing is not psychotic issues or just psychotic episodes. Maybe at this point in life I won't be characterized as crazy as much as eccentric.

It's Wednesday night tomorrow is coffee social. I raised such a stink last week about them not having any cookies or really good treats that I would do some shopping for cookies for this week's meeting. I contacted the resident social worker are they contacted me I'm told that I'd be happy to do this but they weren't too excited about it so I didn't. So tonight is the night before and I hate going to this function when there's no goodies to eat. Sometimes some of the women like to bake something for the event mostly cakes which I'm okay with cakes I like cake. They're a bit messy for a function like this but they would still be I think basically appreciated. I wouldn't mind going somewhere in the morning as soon as I got up but that would be very cold and it would be quite a trick to go that early to the market and back in time for coffee. I should have done it today but I just listened to intimidated by the cold weather in the bleak reports from the weather people. It's easy just to stay in especially with all the streaming content that's available especially what's on Netflix. I would feel better have I had a package of cookies that I could just take down and spread out if nobody else shows up without treats. Life Will Go On regardless it's just nice to have a little bit of socialization even though it's contrived..

Old Men

 One of the most interesting things I've experienced the last couple of years has been linking up with old acquaintances, friends and getting there perspectives on things that have happened in the past. I am always amazed at how different my memory of how things seem to me were different to how other people's perceive the same event. The constant reader will remember about the event about me getting beaten up in the sixth grade by my music teacher while I was sitting behind the piano in music class. The individual sitting right next to me doesn't remember that event at all all other folks I've talked to clearly remember the incident and have indicated they would never ever forget it because the event seem to be so violent at the time. Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised when my tablet rattled this afternoon or more accurately my cell phone also begin reading at the same time it was an old friend of mine I mean a really old friend of mine maybe 60 years a friend. Gregory or better known as grog.

I've been trying to call Grog ever since I got a message from his little brother giving me the information that Greg was fine and doing well in Southern California in the Los Angeles area. I was concerned because it's also in the same area as the conflagration of the wildfires. The brother gave me grog's address that he would be excited to hear from me. I didn't necessarily believe that but now I was in the position where I had to call and I was going to but Grog fixed that problem by calling himself, first. First and foremost Grog is fine the fire has missed him and his family but not by much. He does not sound the way that I thought he would sound but it definitely is grog. We had a good conversation. I think I hesitated in calling him because he has done so much better in life than I have at least from a success orientation. He is actually the president of a major check company, I'm not sure what that is except for they do a lot of Financial Security type work and it's been very successful. Of course he's my age so he's kind of retired but he's got everything set up so he continues to work but not very much and has income flows from four or five different areas from the way the corporation was set up and how it's ending up. He's no longer the main controller the operation, although he is actually, but on paper he is not and he's able to do things he wants to with his life which I think is totally cool. We talked about things that old men talk about mainly things we did together growing up and we did a lot of things together I'm Amazed. But there is three of us that sort of hung together from about first grade on up actually. We went to the same church and we hung out together. A large part of the call was us validating each other that the stupid things that we did together we're actually done and that we can substantiate all of the events we've talked about to our family and friends. It was a grand time to be alive a great part of this time is even before adolescence in the great accident after 45 minutes we ended the call. Grog is very conservative quite a bit different than me in a lot of ways but quite similar at the same time. We committed to miet up with each other this coming summer. He has family in this area and we decided that we will meet sometime during the warm season at the park across the way from where I live. It should be a grand time of old men reliving their past….

Forward looking

 I just suffered through another Jazz ball game and to their credit they actually won! I'm so pleased to see this because they've had so few wins this season. I can't believe I even care whether or not they win or not and this game actually went into overtime and I really thought about just turning the TV off at that point in time and letting it ride. I'm surprised they pulled it off I thought for sure they were going to choke- - the game was in overtime and it was just too anxiety provoking. Perhaps that's why I would just assume not even observe sporting activities and why I've never really liked them it's because someone always has to win which means that someone always has to feel bad maybe I just take the game too seriously and that's the lesson I've got to learn just to let everything go in its own way because it's going to anyway and all you can do really in the long run and sit back and watch. I heard one of the announcers talking during the game that we're just about halfway through the season. As I've watched these guys play ball I've seen how much they sweat and how much they actually do work out play in the game. I never really thought about how hard it is on the players especially like tonight's game is like the third game in about four or five days plus they had to do traveling in between venues. That's all got to have a real physical toll if not a mental toll as well. I guess I should be less critical of these lads playing these games for the obvious pleasure of the supporters and not necessarily themselves but I sort of suspect they like playing this game the game of their lives as well. I'm kind of astonished at how many these folks actually have played with their opponents since they are always being traded one season to the next. It would be a hard life to live even though you're making big bucks in some cases. These guys need a breather now and will be off for the next 4 or 5 days to do to play again Wednesday night and hopefully I'll be able to get a break hit a bit of a rest as well but it's always nice to have something to look forward to.

Senior intervention!

 I am so blessed to have as much functionality and ability to live is independently as I'm able to do. I am keenly aware that as I age I'm going to lose more and more functionality and I suppose along with that my Independence. Still however I continue to be fairly independent with just a little systems for my caregivers and my kids off and on. I'm so lucky to have support the way that I do. With that in mind I must admit I've a little curious the other day when Mark contacted me indicating that he'd like to come over- - this was yesterday actually- - I said sure come on over. He also informed me that he'd been in contact with his sister who contacted him because she was concerned about my response to one of my accounts that covers my prescriptions and I indicated I was a little confused about having to update my passwords which I really hate to do. Mark informed me that he was coming over to assist me with that issue. I certainly welcome him coming over I always look forward to seeing any of my kids. I've written before about how it seems that Mark has become somewhat focused on taking care of me which is good but the same time a bit threatening.

I also think I've written before about how frustrated I get with all the different programs I have on my accounts that require account names and passwords or usernames and how frustrated I get when I'm forced to change one of these names for one reason or another or just update. I tried to appreciate what could happen to me should I get fished or get attacked by some bad person out there and it could really happen. And unfortunately or fortunately I don't have a whole lot to lose but if I did lose everything I would be someone freaked out there's no question about that. I just have to back up and realize that this is what the world is nowadays and era of electronic everything and I just have to bite the bullet and do what I have to do to use the services. Of course I bank with my credit cards and everything online and I also have a prescription service that gets me my meds all in one place and they mail them out to me. My confusion is that I never know exactly who's mailing what to me I just receive them and I seem to have enough medication to take care of what I need. I just hate thinking about getting into it and changing it at all because once you start changing then things really do happen that I don't want to have to deal with.

I must admit it really did feel like an intervention and Mark first came over but soon we got to enjoy each other's company and Mark was really helpful and helping me establish some new passwords and username. I was kind of pleased that a problem that he was concerned about had already been taken care of which I had done earlier in the day. I wasn't sure had I done the right thing but it looks like everything is copacetic. So now I'm new I've got a a new password and my username is correct and my drug should be coming as usual and anytime my kids want to do an intervention they're more than welcome..

Friday at the market

 Today I went to the other Market in my area. Lucky for me I live between two relatively good markets one Market is basic food and General Market which is relatively close to me and the other Market is a number of blocks south which is a large lower cost Market does that make sense? It's not like Costco where you have huge amounts of items for sale for a decent price this Market undercuts a lot of people in the area price wise and they have good items. I wish I could remember the name of the joint but it's slipping my mind right now and if I remember it I'll shove it in here( Walmart!) at some point. I pretty much went to check on a couple things one I wanted to get mixed nuts salted mixed nuts as well as some fresh fruits. Totally out of grapes so I wanted to get some good grapes and check on the sliced jalapeno peppers. I also want to get a bag of oranges and a bag of grapefruit which the other Market on the other side of me doesn't carry. I wasn't sure if I could carry two large bags of fruit home but I'll try at least look into it. Today wasn't super cold or maybe I'm just getting used to it I don't know but I caught the bus no problem and got to the market. I really do like doing my own shopping even though it'd be easier to have someone else do it I don't know if I'd be as happy with what they purchased as as much as I like to choose and select my food and produce. I don't have a very good leg cincher so my legs tend to spasm out on me and the leg binder I do use velcro is worn out to the point where it doesn't really keep it closed so I had all these cans on my lap and as well as the oranges and finally I checked out. The lady named Kathy was just really great. She was a little bit older but she's very patient with me even helped me lift the items onto the counter. I'm not going to go into it but I'm getting a little concerned about me being able to do things like throw the items out of the counter the way I used to. I swear it's because of my chair but that's when the first zdxsteps of denial right? Well I had all the items on the counter I really did my legs and put the band tight again and reposition the hook. I had brought my own bag and that's what we used for the real heavy stuff like the oranges we put them straight on my feet and I lifted the foot box up enough to cradle the oranges safely and then that's we also put the food in the bag that I brought. It worked out I was kind of surprised but I was able to catch the bus and get home and enjoy the afternoon and evening it was a nice Saturday. Snow is forecast for tomorrow…

I am wimp

I'm beginning to run into this kind of weird phenomenon that at the end of the day I remember things that I did that morning but they seem like they happened a long time before. What I mean is that this morning what's Thursday morning which means it's coffee group. That's every Thursday morning at 9:30. I went to the coffee group this morning and had the coffee and did some visiting socialized all the things that I need to do but now at the end of the day it seems like I did this a couple days ago not this morning. When I sit down and rationalize it out however I know that I did it this morning because it's Thursday and because I still remember bits and pieces of the event enough that let's be realize that it was this morning that I was at the coffee group. I don't know what this is and I don't think it's necessarily cognitive issues or SpaceTime relationships or whatever it could be. I think it's just being at the point of a long day that what happened in the early part of the day seems forever ago. I doubt this is going to in any way affect my daily living situations unless I start missing appointments. It's just another little thing that makes me realize I'm getting older. It seems the other part of this equation is my becoming more and more of a wimp. The days of turn cold again. There are cold Alaskan blasts of air. The temperatures don't get above the little 30s and even though the sun is out I'm still cold and the cold tires me out rather quickly. It used to be I could be out in the cold weather all day long and it didn't really bother me. It got me cold of course chilled but not to the point where it affected my ability to do one thing or another and it would never have kept me in the house had I better things to do on the outside. It was all I could do today to go to the market but I finally mustered up the strength put on my red jacket and cruised across the street to pick up a few items I totally believed I needed. I'm trying to increase my liquid intake during the day so I picked up a couple bottles of large V8 spicy vegetable juice. I really enjoy this beverage it makes me think I'm a grown up cuz I see anyone who enjoys V8 is an adult enjoying an adult drink. I also picked up a couple cans of jalapeno peppers the only drawback was they were whole peppers and I'd rather have sliced peppers. I would really like a certain brand to slice Peppers but for one reason or another my market does not carrying any sliced Peppers it seems like except for this one brand which I don't really like. All peppers are not created equal that's a fact plain and simple. Because I'm running low on Peppers which are a vital part of my concoction drink I bought the whole pepper SML either eat them bite bite ours pull a couple out slice them up before I use them on an item like meat burritos are bean burritos or whatever I might be ingesting. The jalapeno certainly give any little meal a zip which I like and I really enjoyed it. And I really like to believe it's good for me and some long-term bizarre way. I made the trip and I got the items I needed or I thought that I needed and then came back to the apartment turned up my heater it sat in front of it for the next couple of hours warming up trying not to be a wimp…

 

Peaches and cottage cheese

 I opened the can of peaches and heavy syrup tonight as a treat after dinner. I didn't even know that I had a can of peaches and heavy syrup. I've been trying to find syrup That's Heavy which is used in fruit. Seems like the only Peaches I have been able to find this in light syrup which I guess is good I really can't tell the difference now that I've had heavy syrup and it was just nice to have. It brought back all the memories that I've written about in the past about how one of my family's treats on Sunday night was peaches canned by my mom in the summer with the help of a lot of the kids, toast and cottage cheese. I've written a poem about well not a real poem just one stanza I've never been able to get past that. I was the person that seemed like who always had the job of going down the basement and getting the peaches and then bringing them up to the rest of the house. The basement was not a real basement it was a kind of cement room underneath the house that storage was provided. Rough you and shelves on which bottles of fruit and such replaced there's also a bin in the corner for potatoes and there was a hookup there that when the temperature got so cold that we could not keep the outdoor faucet out in the elements disengage that faucet and had to water the cattle from the faucet in the basement which was really pretty spooky for a kid by age anyway. But I've written about that in the past in this blog somewhere. Anyway, my job was to go down to that room to secure a bottle of peaches and bring it up. The poem would be called there's a boogie in the basement.. the lines that I do have is: there's a boogie in the basement, near the bottom of the stairs, I can always hear him growling by the peaches of the pears.. I really never been able to get past these first couple lines. I wish I could I know there's a major piece of work there that I've just different been able to tap into it's kind of sad I really like that piece and it came together naturally there's got to be more than I'm hiding somewhere for one reason or another, maybe just too frightening. I didn't fix toast tonight which would have been just perfect for the event. I just didn't have the patience just sit and wait for the bread to be toasted in my little baker oven. It would have been nice however. I was pleased that the cottage cheese was still usable. It says it's best used by sometime in December, the 11th I think. Cottage cheese was still somewhat liquidy and went really well with the peaches. I enjoyed the brief return to another day on peaches went well for a Sunday evening treat ellipsis

Beware a cautious future

 The temperatures aren't bitterly cold but they're uncomfortable to a certain degree when you're taking off at 10:00 in the morning to get to your 11:00 downtown. There was sunshine today most in clouds and when the sun was out being out in the or on the tarmac wasn't so bad. I was wearing my nice warm over the head Hood but wearing it as a neck wrap around and that made me very comfortable when I could give it to stay wrapped around my neck. If I had the patience I would stop and put it on the way I'm supposed to so I'm wearing it as a hood but no time for that when you're rolling around waiting for the bus. Today was a dropsy day all day long it seemed like I was dropping things out of my wallet or my bag or I was dropping my cell phone a lot. I dropped it on the bus I dropped it at the assist meeting then I dropped it later on at the restaurant for lunch. I was hyper alert because when I'm in a mood where I'm dropping everything it's also a high probability day that I'm going to lose something important IE either my wallet or my cell phone. Fortunately today I got home with everything and that's a good day.

Today was really the first real assist meeting of the new year. We actually had names that we had to sign and it sounded like somewhere they released monies for our clients so our signing would actually mean something. It was weird though the big boss is gone he's been gone pretty much the whole last 2 months. His daughter just went through a heart transplant she's just 10 or 12 or something like that and so they've had to spend a lot of time at the hospital and such. The office is open and things are getting just seems a little LAX and that's okay I don't have a problem. I noticed that Andreas who is the guy the citizen volunteer committee, that's who we are, as always trying to force the meeting to a close so he can take off and go collect his kid from daycare or preschool or whatever young guys like him have their kids into these days especially the ones that live in the Avenues. Again that's that whole loose thing that make up the staff of the assist organization these days. I really don't mind how long it takes to do our meetings and when we get out. I just hate being held up on silly talk that often the dates are meeting but the main silly talker wasn't there today so that wasn't a problem. We talked a lot today when we weren't signing contracts about the private nonprofits are having to consider now as we get closer and closer to inauguration in the new president-elect. I kind of feel it's going to be kind of iffy for a lot of private nonprofit agencies as well as folks who are low income. The new president isn't one I think the suffer low-income folks very readily. I really think he's going to try to get rid of that population and the folks that serve them as quick as he can once he's totally in the driver's seat and starts to try to bring about some of the promises he made during his campaign. All I can say is it's going to be very interesting to see what this crazy guy does the program who typically are low income

Monday's Madness

I believe I rattle on about this before but I think in lieu of the fact that I have been stressed out about it today I think I'll do some more rattling. Actually what's happening now to me is that one of the things I go through for my medications is Express Scripts. I think I got into this while I was still married and I didn't have to deal with it anyway cuz Diane took care of everything. Well seems that I'm still on Express Scripts though I don't think I use it very much. And, they've had everybody renew their subscriptions or prescriptions or whatever they do at the beginning of this new year. They made it sound very important that it be done at a certain time or people will lose their options with this program. Fortunately for me, I don't really use that many medications and so it doesn't really affect me that much I don't think. Maybe more than I think and I'm going to find that out in the next couple of days just to be sure but you have to go in and first of all get on the website which means passwords and names and all that kind of stuff. I have a morbid fear of passwords and I just know that I'll never be able to work with them in any significant manner. And particularly nowadays that they've become so worrisome that they're changing the passwords every couple months it seems like. Anyway, I have resisted having to do anything with this password changing thing until today and so and Diana's made it really important that I do this and so I'm trying to figure this out but it just defeats me each and every time. I'm going to have one of my kids come over probably Mark Anthony since he's only lives in town and see if he could set it up so everyone's happy and that I continue to get my two or three drugs on a regular basis. I think theoretically the whole concept of Express Scripts was to get all my meds through the mail and have them keep records of everything. However, I kept defeating myself and ended up going to the pharmacy of my market which I like to do and have that interaction with people. So they've been providing my drugs for my prescriptions but I get some other prescriptions through the mail and which I imagine is through the same program but why the difference is I don't know or what the difference is I don't know either way all I know is it's driving me crazy and I'll be happy when everyone's happy.

It's late Monday night. I don't know what happened but the evening got away from me and now I'm just finishing up on this particular project and have one left and I can get ready and get to bed. Tomorrow I have an assist meeting and so I'll be up sort of early dressed and out to catch the bus to go downtown. It feels good to get back into normal life again after the holidays. I always enjoy the transition back to normalcy

 

Sunday's ramble

 Now that the holidays are passed it seems like the world has begun to speed up. Not super fast but quicker than it was that's for sure. Having said that I really didn't do much today except have breakfast with Marc Anthony and Jasmine at our local place is the first time we've been there since before the holidays began. Was kind of nice to get back into the old routine. We have some good discussion and probably spend about 2 hours there before we found the se broke up. I basically just came back to the apartment and spent the rest of the day watching movies. I really tend not to do very much on Sunday so that's not a justification for wasting the whole day playing movies but I just don't know what else to do that's not real physical labor. I reckon I could be reading or doing more puzzles but that's somewhat trite and somewhat embarrassing to acknowledge. I'm just kind of enjoying the day oh well actually I was sort of Killing Time till the Jazz game started and I tried to watch the Jazz game, which I did to a certain degree till I got boring and then I watched a Marvel movie coming back to find the Jazz ahead and then the third quarter. The team eventually went on to win the game and I was totally surprised that's two wins in two days things are looking up for the boys on the hardwood. I'm curious to see how long this is going to continue. Maybe the guys are finally clicking and the rest of the season will be much more positive for the lads.

When I was out and about this morning heading over to the restaurant to meet up with the guys I was once again struck about how much I enjoyed being out and about. And that once I am out I'm feeling much more energized and open to different experiences if not generating new experiences. I think when I start thinking I am somewhat apartment Bound for whatever reason that's when I need to suit up and head out and just see what was going on on the outside world. This week I hope we will resume our meetings at the assist office and if that's the case I will get me up and out on the bus and downtown rolling around. Even if it's during rain and such I can always dress for that and enjoy my downtown time. One other thing just in passing I'm not sure how much of an issue this is but I've been feeling quite anxious at different parts are points of the day. I've become somewhat aware of a weird phenomenon happening it when I try to Exhale through my nose and keeping my mouth shut it seems like the wind gets caught up on something in my back of my mouth area. I don't think it's getting worse I mean it's not painful or anything it's just blocking the wind from leaving my body. I think I've had it before so I know it's not life-threatening that would be a drag but still I'm becoming more and more aware of the blockage each time I tried to Exhale and pay attention. Like I said it does not prevent me from breathing but sometimes gets a little I don't know chunky when I'm trying to blow out through my nose area. I thought maybe it was keeping me up at night but I don't think so cuz I sleep on my side and so that's not an issue. However this morning I woke at about 4:00 15:00 a.m. and thought I had to pee for the first time in weeks that I tried to use my catheter in bed. I really didn't end up using it but certainly took away the urge to pee. But I just don't know if anything's happening and I need to be aware. Tonight watching the flat screen I felt the anxiety in my chest a little bit but it passed thank goodness I just don't know what it is and I don't want to go through the whole process of having to go in and get it checked out and everything unless it really starts interfering with my day to day life then I'll take action…

Corner Crock-Pot

I just finished scrubbing out the crock pot that I used for a day of cooking. I took the roast that I purchased a few days ago actually before the New Year's and finally got around the cooking the meat today it was really a fun project I really enjoy cooking. I knew that the Crock-Pot project was going to take all day because I think it was a pot roast or a rump roast or something that's pretty tough it needed a lot of time under the Heat and I was willing to do whatever the job took. So I started at around 10:00 this morning after I got back from coffee with my neighbor. It snowed this morning really the first snow of this year where the snow actually came down to the valley floor and it looked like winter. It's pretty warm however the snow did not stay it melted quickly and soon the storm itself had moved on by that point in time however I was into my cooking project. I got the vegetables I also got the same time as the roast the small potatoes and the carrots. I had an onion and the last part of a clove of garlic which I smashed up and threw into the mix and I dug around and finally found a package of lipton's beefy Lipton soup mix which I found really does a good job on roasts in the crock pot. I turn the crock pot to low and then just hung out around the apartment for the rest of the day. Sweeping up here trying to put things away there cleaning out the refrigerator so I'll have a place to put the roast and vegetables once they get roasted. I did all that and like I said just a few minutes ago I finished the crock pot. I remembered to put in the garlic sesame seed oil I think helped a great deal because there was hardly any residue left in the bottom of the crock pot when I finally dumped the meat into their vessel that I stuck in the refrigerator leaving just the dirty crock pot. Took it to the sink filled it with a shot of dish soap and then turned on the hot water and let it sit for 2 or 3 hours or the length of the Utah Jazz basketball game.

But I think I like best about cooking is the ability to take a bunch of unrelated items put them together add Heat or whatever and a edible item turns out at the end- - usually. I'm pretty lucky that most of the things I make turn out relatively okay. Since I cook for myself I'm easy to please. If I were cooking for somebody else that would be another matter and I don't know how well that would turn out however my ex-wife- - who my regularly communicate with- - always enjoyed my cooking especially since I was excited to do it and turned out well enough that she enjoyed it and I enjoyed it worked out pretty good. What was really fortuitous in that relationship was that she had real cooking experience in the number of different areas and was more than willing to instruct me on the better ways to cook and most proficient ways to cook. Before that. I just threw together whatever I had especially in all guy situations they'll eat anything they don't have to cook especially if it's warm and got enough salt and there's enough cold beer in the refrigerator to wash it down. I usually cook the apartments that I lived in that I had roommates with and they are more than happy to let me do it. Well, the crock pot is clean but the rest of the kitchen took a major hit no question about it. I tend to drop a lot of stuff on the floor when I'm around the refrigerator and I cook right next to the refrigerator so well a sample spoons full of food Falls onto the floor floor gets quite messy somewhat sticky and all together gross. The one person I have that is a fairly good cleaner won't be here until Wednesday so until that time unless the grandkids show up the food projects on the floor we're going to stay where they're at. The crock pots clean and then it's a little space under the cupboard and unplugged from the power strip so no problems can happen there I'll let the rest of the kitchen fly until Monday I have food for Sunday and I've got to go to breakfast in the morning so far

 

Clarity please

There's a storm coming in and that's supposed to bring snow to the valley floor. No I'm not spooked by snow and I doubt there's going to be enough on the valley floor to really worry about but still it's going to be messy and cold and possibly a little bothersome. So, with that in mind I figured that if I needed to get anything done important I would do it today so I can just hang out at the apartment for the next couple of days as a giant cold front supposed to race through the area in the next couple of days. The only thing I really needed to do was get over to my Credit Union pull some cash out so I would have currency to work with here at the apartment are going over to the market are the coffee shop or wherever. I tried to not use my plastic anymore than I have to so I get a couple hundred bucks of cash that I can use for tips to my staff as well as cash for my person that comes in and cleans every once in a while for me. I don't have a standard cleaning person- - though I said on a regular basis I've just never pulled the hammer back and pulled the trigger on that particular project.

I checked with the local weather guys who indicated it was going to be above normal temperature wise basically the war before the storm phenomenon but there wasn't good to be any sunshine. I didn't have anything else slated for the day so after I got done with my shower and got dressed and got a little something to eat I suited up it went out to catch the bus. I tried something new because the bus I was going to get on was also going to try to be boarded by a family with a giant baby carriage and about three kids and I just didn't have the patience to see if they would all get on the bus and still have room for me. So I figured I would catch another bus that would really get me to the credit union perhaps even quicker. And it kind of worked that was okay the day was warm as they promised felt like spring. I still had my hood on just in case but I was definitely warm enough and I didn't mind waiting. I probably waited as long to catch the 47 as I would have on the 217 but that's okay the bus did come and I climbed on board got off at the bank. I didn't even think about today being Friday which means everybody in their duck would be at the bank. When I finally got into the credit union and I realized it was soon after the first of the month and it was a Friday and there was a line that almost went outside that building. Luckily I'm sitting down I don't know what those poor people standing have to go through. I settled in and waited for the line to move which it did eventually getting me to the front of the line. All I wanted us to pull out $200 10 $10 bills s and 5 twenties and somehow in the conversation with the tiller- - and this was all my fault I totally realize this- - I conveyed that I wanted 20 $5 bills. I thought the envelope was a little fat when you handed it to me but I didn't pay that much attention it's only when I got home, tonight coming into the bedroom to put the money away did I realized I had 20 $ five bills. I freaked out for one second then decide it's not a big deal they would spend just as well maybe even better. I was just glad to be done with the day and home in front of my big screen and thinking about dinner…