Talked with my doctor today

We discussed my recent blood test results and getting my meds up to date. One of the things we talked about was it took since 2007, but I finally got my red count in the green, I’m no longer borderline anemic. But my sugar and cholesterol are both borderline high, enough that he prescribed a blood-sugar medication. My calcium and magnesium are both mid-range, where the calcium was high and the magnesium had been low. But basically I’m in pretty good heath for someone my age and especially considering what I’ve been through.

So, everybody can stop worrying about my physical health. My mental health is still up for debate, however.

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I don’t have enough caffeine for this

Sorry if this post is a little more disjointed than usual, but an insurance person called me before either of my alarms went off, so I’m both underslept, and uncaffeinated. My spell checker needs a larger vocabulary/dictionary, because it is showing both underslept and uncaffeinated as spelled wrong, but Google says I spelled them both right.

Anywho, I was called before my first alarm went off at 1000, about getting me the best deal for Medicare, and for me it’s Medigap to cover my deductibles and copays because apparently getting killed doesn’t count as a pre-existing condition, if I’m talking to them on the phone. So, I got set up on a policy that uses Medicare for most of my medical costs but covers the rest so my out-of-pocket should be pretty much nothing. The downside is I have a $120~ monthly premium, so another expense I have to cover on top of everything else.

And now it’s after 1500 and I’m fading because of that lack of sleep, so I’ll put this post to bed and get some food so I have the calories I need to function.

Hips are hurting and other things that aren’t new

Lately I go to bed and my hips hurt but eventually I can get to sleep. Then I wake up in the morning and they hurt again, but different, and before I have dinner, or maybe after I have lunch, they hurt like they did when I went to bed. And then they hurt like that for the rest of my day. Apparently hips that don’t hurt are not on my menu.

In other news, sky without clouds has a distinct blue tint, and rain is wet. This is my new reality, things hurt 24/7, and there’s nothing I can take that stops it. Until recently pain was a warning that something serious was wrong with me, now it’s just telling me I’m still alive. But I already know I’m alive, cogito ergo sum works for knowing the difference between alive and dead.

Also in other news, weather in the local area is changing between hot but dry and chilly and wet. Also we had a rainless T-storm come through, followed by a quiet gentle rain. Texas weather, can’t make up its mind.

Current writing jam: “Ball and Biscuit” by The White Stripes, followed by “Clint Eastwood” by gorillaz. At least I have access to good tunes these days. I hope you have a pleasant one in spite if what I’m going through, no need for both of us to have a bad day/night.

Florida man creates really stupid law

They’re really thin-skinned in FL. Florida blog registering bill and a thousand other links. I first heard about this from Steve Lehto’s You Tube video. Of course since I’m doing this blog on my own dime the proposed law doesn’t apply to me, but I’m sure that would be on me to prove I was making money off this blog, which hasn’t happened since I think 2014, might be later than that, but definitely not since 2020.

In other news Mrs. the Poet had another operation yesterday this time to repair a hole on her heel on the same foot as the hole on top of the arch of her foot, which also has a skin graft over it. The doctor days everything is healing fine and she’s doing great. The took a bone biopsy to make sure there’s no infection in the bone, and even if there was that would just mean a round of antibiotics to clear that up. I have to say that bone stuff for Mrs. the Poet are much more painful for her than bone stuff was for me after the first go-round. And I think the first go-round for me was maybe more painful because they missed the tibia portion of my Tib-Fib fracture, along with just letting the broken fibula flap in the breeze because it wasn’t weight bearing. But anyway they took a core sample out of the bone under the skin ulcer over her heel, and it’s hurting Mrs. the Poet. And the most powerful pain reliever she’s allowed is Tylenol or generic equivalents.

OK this is weird

It’s 2/21 and 1530 and the local temp is 88°F which is the forecast high. Eighty-eight freaking degrees Fahrenheit on the twenty-first day of February, we are less than a degree away from the AC coming on from the thermostat setting of 78°F. This is early Summer weather, not late Winter!

In other news Mrs. the Poet is recovering well, and is looking forward to returning to Casa de El Poeta as soon as all the skin grafts heal over and her infection risk returns to normal. And on that note, in today’s mail that came as I was composing this post came a note from the insurers that Mrs. the Poet should not have been kicked out of the nursing home. A few weeks late, but anywho they admit they screwed up. Which we can use in filing a wrongful death lawsuit against the insurance company, should that come to pass.

Anywho, bitch about the weather noted, bitch about heartless greedy insurance companies noted, and I’m pretty much out of things to say. I’ve given up hope of ever getting the Sprint-T completed, so that’s also noted. Catch you next time I have something to say.

I need to get this published while it is still relivent

OK 45 years ago the not-yet Mrs. the Poet and I hired a babysitter and got married, and 20 years ago we tied the knot (literally) and renewed our vows. I should have written down all the people who bet me a million dollars we wouldn’t last longer than 10 years, because we’re 35 years past that.

And in case you wondered why we had to get a babysitter to get married, I found out she was pregnant the afternoon after she delivered the baby on the way to the hospital in the morning. So we got off on the wrong foot, so to speak, but we have made it so far. Even if we have to live in different houses because she got sick. And that wasn’t the first time she had a baby before getting to the hospital, 3 years after that experience less 4 days I pulled the youngest out of her waiting for the paramedics to arrive. I believe I mentioned that one, compound breech birth at home with her older sister standing in the crib watching. Anywho, 10 days after the oldest was born, we got a sitter and got married.

Current writing jams, My Mix 2 on YTM, Electro Swing and original swing music.

Sorry I haven’t been keeping you posted

I should have at least been complaining about the weather, but I have been too depressed to do much more than feed myself, or take a shower. I can’t tell you when the last time I turned the TV on except I caught the last lap of the 24 Hours of Daytona last Sunday.

Anyway I forced myself out of bed and the house to pay property taxes Friday which I did for 2 of the three taxing bodies who lay claim to my property unless I pay their ransom. Just kidding I don’t mind paying taxes so much because they buy me something I like to refer to as civilization small “c” because the one with the capital “C” is a registered trademark.

Now the reason why I paid my taxes in February instead of January, and why I only paid 2 of 3 taxing bodies in my town is we have been covered in ice since Tuesday, actually light ice followed by light snow, followed by heavy ice that brought down tree limbs, and some trees, powerlines that weren’t buried, ditto phone lines that weren’t buried. It wasn’t a grid disaster like 2021, power outages were local and confined to likes broken by ice or brought down by idiots who can’t drive taking out poles and substations. I heard a rumor that the driver that destroyed a substation transformer died from the high voltage, but I’m pretty sure that was wishful thinking on the part of a person without heat because no electricity to run the thermostat or fans.

Anyway, I paid city and county property taxes, but the schools offices hadn’t reopened, so I can’t pay them until Monday of next week. Which means I have to spend more money on transportation, to go with the $30 extra I had to spend paying city taxes because we were out of checks and had to use a card. Summoning a Lyft or Uber is only about $10 with tip, but that’s a significant drain on the budget multiple times a day like what happened Friday because although the streets were clear the sidewalks and parking lots were NOT! This meant that as a person using a cane to navigate I was at more of a peril that usual because of limited traction to go with the bad balance. I managed, but not without some scary moments. And I have to do it again Monday, because GISD offices were still closed on Friday.

Anywho, enough of the meandering narrative or lack thereof. Time to put this to bed.

Things are Weird, What Else is New?

I won’t claim to be psychic, but there are times when I know things I shouldn’t be able to know. As in things that happened in another state or country, or otherwise in a time or place I didn’t have access to. Like the medical history of someone I only met a couple of weeks prior in elementary school, or knowing someone else’s transport ship get would be delayed by a mechanical problem at sea, or knowing that Bush would start a war if he won the 2000 election (I saw burning buildings and people shooting in civilian clothes, I didn’t know where they were fighting, I thought it was rioting in the streets).

Anyway I know something I don’t know how to interpret, again. And as it’s strictly a visual/tactile vision without audible context to let me know where/when it happened/will happen. So you see my dilemma here. I know something has/will happen(ed) but I don’t know where, when, or with who, or if I even take part. Cassandra had it easy, she knew things but couldn’t do anything about them. I don’t even know enough to not be believed. But it’s usually always like this, I’m like Nostradamus, visions that can only be known in hindsight. Like “Oh that was what that was!” writ large. Or as Fred Sanford put it “Nostradummy”.

Just stumbled on a terrifying piece on YTM

Someone made a 10 hour loop of the Batman TV theme from 1966. You thought it was repetitious at the beginning of the show? After 10 hours how do you think you would feel? I only played the 2:16 version, then had the Green Hornet TV theme (AKA Flight of the Bumblebee by Al Hirt) as a palette cleanser. Now I’m listening to my Trump Party playlist that I curated for 2021-01-20 to play Voldemort off the stage. Specifically I’m listening to the ELO version of Fanfare For The Common Man, the 7 minute version, and now it’s Pink Floyd’s Money.

Didn’t have much to say today, just wanted to warn you about the 1 hour Batman loop.

More evidence the receptionist at the massage place is sweet on me

Or that she’s freaked out by me, I can’t tell. Anyway, I get all scrubbed and shampooed and ready to be massaged, and I walk into the massage place and the receptionist comes from out of the back, and she’s all smiles and guides me to the room right away. I tell her I need to use the restroom first, so I leave my bag with my stuff in the room. Then she runs, (not just hurries, but flat out sprints) to get the massage tech to the room, and I don’t even have time to get undressed before the tech is knocking to come in. Notice at no point in this exchange has there been any opportunity for me to pay.

So I get on the table and pull the sheet over my butt and tell the tech I’m ready, and when she comes in I explain about my neck malfunction and hip problems and she asks about my socks and I tell her I have cold feet, this is of minor importance later. So she gives me a massage, lots of attention to my neck and head, also lots of work on my glutes on both sides, particularly the ones that rotate my upper thighs and make my knees point in and out on the outside of my butt. She does the hot stones on my butt (very nice, highly recommended) as well as all over my neck and back. Meanwhile the hole in the cushion I’m supposed to breathe through is mashing my chin and also my nose so I can only breathe through my mouth, but my forehead is nicely supported and my neck is perfectly aligned. This works out great for when she does my neck which it felt like she spent hours working on, but I know was only several minutes, with Arthur Dent getting a real workout. Anyway, by the end of the massage I have almost 180° of rotation in my neck.

Anyway, backside is rubbed to perfection, now comes the first “fun” part, rolling over. The tech gives me a helping hand and in the process leaves my crotch exposed for most of the operation, about 30 seconds. She looks but because of all the damage I took since the turn of the century, nothing happens, at least for me, or that I can detect for her either. Then she starts on my face and the rest of my head, really working on my scalp/skull/forehead. During this my sinuses decide to open and the sound of the pressure equalizing between the atmosphere and sinuses rings in the quiet massage room and momentarily deafens me, but the tech barely quivers at the noise. It’s mostly inside my head so it probably wasn’t even noticeable for the tech. Then she’s on to doing that “rub the back of the neck from the front” thing and works over Arthur Dent again even better this time. I think she might have felt it the first time through and decided that’s what I was telling her about at the start of the massage. Anyway, she did a (good) number on it and that’s most of the reason I had such a good range of motion at the end of the massage. And the tech did a stimulating colon massage which caused me to pass gas for a while during and after the massage, lots of work on my upper quads and lower abs that also really helped my range of motion for my legs, and she removed my socks for a really good foot massage that had my leg twitching like a frog in a Leyden jar (look it up this was the 18th century experiment that was the basis for the original Frankenstein novel) because it hit so many reflex points on the soles of my feet, then she put my socks back on.

Remember when I said I wasn’t asked to pay at the beginning of the massage when I was rushed off to the room? Well the receptionist didn’t tell the massage tech, who tried to get me rehydrated and breathminted and out the door without asking to get paid/tipped, and didn’t seem to understand when I wanted to you know, actually pay for the massage. It took a few minutes to get it across, because the usual procedure was to pay up front. And that’s the story of how I avoided getting a free 90 minute massage.