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Why not?
Wanted to get one of these so Snookums and I could ride around Walmart in style. Of course, she would need a biker babes tat to go along with it …
… but she said no. š¢
On a happier note
Today on a much happier note, I took the long way home from the hospital today. The day is mild, a tad early for rattlesnake romance so it is a little safer wading through the sea of blue. It was a good day to just breathe the gentle perfume. I am so weary of my griping and complaining. In no way have I received my just deserts.
A little coffee, a little time with the bride of my youth, an easy run to the hospital and back for my bi-weekly finger poke. A homemade breakfast roll and some more coffee.
Yeah. I could get used to this …
Prattling
An empty monitor page shines brightly in front of me, and a slowly blinking curser begs to respond to my fingers.Ā My soul knows what I want to say, but my mind refuses to translate it into letters, nor words, nor sentences, or themes nor thoughts. It was only then that I realized my audience had changed.Ā My readers of today know what my readers of twenty years ago didnāt.Ā I have no advice to give to the young.Ā They obey Godās voice to thrive, and thrive they must. Then they must wilt.Ā Wilting is the latter of processes.Ā The young have little need to go to the old for advice.Ā Thriving has its own voice, its own ways, and will be obeyed. And so today I turn my thoughts to deeper things that I had neither the time nor the wisdom for.Ā The master teaches us that even wisdom is folly.Come, eat your bread with joy and drink your wine with a good heart, because God is pleased with your works! Always let your garments be white and let not your head lack oil.Ā And see life with the wife whom you have loved all the days of the life of your futility, because she is your lot in life and in your labor that you labor under the sun
There is my command.Ā And see life with the wife whom you have loved all the days of the life of your futility. I am ill.Ā My life is a misery every day, yet I scrabble for one more day.Ā I donāt think Iāll be resisting death. But who knows.Ā One good man falls off a chair when he is young, and dies.Ā An old fool lives until he is a hundred.Ā I think I dread being a hundred even more. But Snookums.Ā My lot in life, who isnāt without her own ailments and resignations, she is still the one I see to.Ā And I will see to her with my last breath.Rising from the Ashes.
Well, the dust has settled, now to pick up the pieces and rebuild. Life goes on, and so must I. Fatigue follows me everywhere. Caffeine no longer works its magic. Opiates only make it worse. The DilaudedĀ® goes into the back of the cabinet. Iāve struggled out of depression before, and I think I can do it again.
But still, there is the sipping coffee and the chatting with Snookums in the morning that makes the day good enough.
I see few silver linings in the news. Things will get much worse. Prepare for life in a dystopian paradise. In that respect, I am glad that I will have gone into that long goodnight before it does. I just want to remain alert and strong up to the day the LORD calls Snookums home, then I shanāt care what else happens.
But I have warm shelter. I have a surplus of food. I have caregivers. I have pets. I have Snookums. It is indeed sufficient for the day.
I hope to return to blogging now. I have nothing but time on my hands. I can now be a watchman on the tower. Perhaps Iāll write about such things. Then, again. There is the quiet mornings with only the thumps, obscure voices of the residents and occasional warnings from the dogs that something is amiss in the neighborhood. Maybe Iāll just write of those. Who knows?
I feel changed, somehow. Maybe what rolls off my fingers will reflect that change. I am in stasis with the universe. I float. I am a leaf blown in the winds. There is no up and down as I drift.
But there is still you, and that makes the difference.
Good morning!
Misery arrives
Well, I received my visit from Oizys, the goddess of misery this week.Ā Not that I wasnāt expecting her.Ā This is a time of trudging, and I arise several times a day, do something, and quickly retire.Ā I put up a pretty good fight this time, but now I am just out of ammo, and I must step back into the refuge of He-Who-Protects and hides me from the evil of lesser gods.Ā I am tired and discouraged.
I know many of you have words of kindness, but I am in no place to receive consolation, but I am not without hope. For good or for evil, I will emerge from this, but it is my cup, and I must walk it.
Petitions for strength and a sound mind are welcomed, however.
I donāt think I will be writing or socializing much through this time. It is what it is, to cite another worn out saw.
šSeeking the right thing š
I am searching for a bit of clarity here: š
Bidens lawyers are casually strolling around Joe’s garage sipping Old Fashions and looking at Joe’s Corvette, and accidentally stumble across moldy pile of cardboard boxes that are full of classified materials inside that they didn’t see because they were classified, inform Joe that he needs to do the right thing with those unseen documents in cardboard boxes
Joe says he’ll need to look at those documents to determine what the right thing to do is but his lawyers tell him that looking at the unseen documents would not be the right thing to do. So Joe asks his lawyers to do the right thing with the documents because Joe believes in the right thing, and of course, lawyers know what the right thing to do with boxes of unseen documents inside is, and call the agency that originally determined the documents were piled behind the Corvette Joe’s garage were the right thing at that time, but aren’t the right thing now.
The lawyers agree to deliver the documents no one has seen since they were not authorized to see them, to the agency of right things to do. They then informed the reporters of right things that they did the right thing right thing, and the agency of right things to do lauds the lawyers on doing the right thing … and the American press lauds the President who loves to do the right thing, the agency of right things to do, and the lawyers on doing the right thing to do.
I feel like I am missing something. I hope I am doing the right thing by even asking what the right thing is ..
Another Update
Well, I am now walking over another bridge I was going to wait to cross until I came to it.Ā I am officially on palliative care now.Ā Drugs and happy pills are ordered, but I can take them or not, and I am still being actively treated for heart, kidney and lung damage, so it isnāt like giving up entirely.
Or so I optimistically try to believe.
We are all born, we breed, we die ā¦ that is the world we inherited from our ancestor Adam. So I approach my octogenarian-hood this month greatly conflicted.
āMann Tracht, Un Gott Lachtā is an old Yiddish adage meaning, āMan Plans, and God Laughs.ā It was my plan to go before Snookums. I was ready. But since the stroke happened, she needs me here, and so I now ask God for more time. I donāt want her burdened with that responsibility.
Snooks has probably reached the plateau of her recovery, and any further healing will be in micro-millimeters and not miles. Her short-term memory has not improved much, and fatigue and stress only make it worse. Yesterday I awoke and saw the bathroom light was on, which isnāt unusual. She generally awakens a few minutes before I do. But she was in there a long time and I saw her go in and leave several times. That should have been my first clue, but I wasnāt totally awake yet.
The toilet had overflowed, and she was trying to handle the mess. The harder she tried, the more ineffective she became. I finally realized she was over stressed and sprang out of bed and took care of the stoppage while she cleaned up the flooding. She then took a nap.
If you know Snooks, you know she isnāt a napper. It was serious stuff happening. But finally, the mess was taken care of, and we had our morning coffee and cake. I noticed her right eye was sagging and asked my niece to keep an eye on her while I went to the palliative care interview. She did take another nap and skipped lunch, even after my niece offered to fix a sandwich. Today, that eye is still drooping, and she is still a bit pallid. I am hoping that a day of rest will get her back in condition.
I really need to become more proactive ā¦
So the new day dawns. No crises, just a weak January sun peeking through the blinds. I sip my coffee, chat with Snookums, check my emails on the Chromebook, medicate myself, and ponder this new change in life. I am ready for a new adventure, to quote Bilbo Baggins ā¦
More about the big I …
WARNING! GEEZER TALKING ABOUT HIS MALADIES AHEAD!
Sunday dawned overcast and cool today and I stumbled into the kitchen to start the coffee maker,Ā then weigh myself, took my blood pressure, sugar, temperature, pulse and oxygen.Ā Stuck myself with an insulin needle, filled my coffee cup and ate a healthy cardboard cookie made for diabetics, then went into the studio to check the day.
But Snookums quickly poked her head into the doorway and announced that she was up, and I could have coffee with her if I wanted. Translated, that means get your butt in here and spend some time with me. So, I dutifully padded back to the kitchen table for conversation and took her vitals while we were conversing.
I have been remiss in that, but it is a very necessary morning ritual for us. And this morning I let us run out of coffee cake. That is near the unforgivable sin in this household. So sometime today I have to run into town and pick up a couple of them from the bakery.
However, a new medical service from my health insurance wants to stop by and examine the two of us. I am not sure who they are, but like another service provided to me, it sounds like anything but health care. They donāt dress wounds, they donāt change catheters, they donāt do blood draws. But they come by every four months and take our vitals, apparently.
I am already enrolled in another health care service that pretty much does the same thing, but if I am running a fever, apparently, they will come by and take my vitals. Or I can make an appointment at the clinic and see a real doctor. I am not averse to nurse practitioners and physiciansā assistants, and sometimes actually prefer them. But I donāt need my vitals taken four times a year by them.
Snookums is still making progress, but it is by millimeters instead of yards now. I try not to be impatient with her, but sometimes it slips out of me, and Iāll speak sharply to her. All my anger does is confuse her and I really need to stop doing that.
And now the cardiologists are suggesting a heart pump sometime after January.Ā He says it will really help with the reduced pumping capacity of my heart.Ā I am mixed about this, and if Snookums hadnāt had a stroke, I would have just said enough.Ā But now I need to be around for a bit longer because ā¦ well ā¦ I need to be around.Ā When I meet again later this month with him, I think Iāll tell him to start the process. It isnāt as invasive as open-heart surgery, apparently they do it with through a small incision, and the recovery doesnāt require a hospital stay.
ā¦ and one day follows another in my little corner of paradise.
Good morning!
Shabbat, Bill Collectors, Rain and Rest
Shabbat dawned sunny but a bit chilly, for us, anyway. The latter rains have come to the dry pampas but blew on over to the northeast yesterday leaving everything a bright green and fresh smelling. That part of it is great ā¦ the waving fronds of weeds mocking me isnāt so great.
But today is a day of rest, and I put mowing out of my mind, along with a growing list of house maintenance items. I spend all week ignoring my chores, and then on a holy day of rest, I want to do them all in one day. I am a failure at religion, but I keep trying to live up to its tenets.
The neighbor bought a new motorcycle, and rather than ride it, he sets in the yard and guns it. I like bikes ok, but after ten minutes of hearing it rev, I start getting a headache and contemplate if I can put a hole in his engine block with a 30-06 without putting a hole him. They frown on shooting anyone but robbers and burglars here.
Snooks is at a plateau now, and at some moments she is almost normal, and at others she canāt recall anything more than six seconds past. But I can tell her the same joke everyday now, and she thinks it is funny. So often I want to ride to her rescue as she fights with the remote control, and usually she gets it after struggling with it. But a few times she has pulled me out of bed to turn off the TV and black box. I keep reminding myself that we are not even into a full year yet.
I have noticed that if she doesnāt take an honest nap in bed, she has more problems. But she has never been a ānapperā, and sometimes it is all we can do to talk her into it. More difficult things like counting by twos and fours gives her problems.
And she is a sucker for telephone spammers. One day a salesman showed up for a roof repair, and I had to send him back home. He protested he had an appointment, and when I told him that Snooks just canāt handle pressure now and told him yes just to shut him up.
And now we get incessant calls from Medicare plans since this is the enrollment period.Ā For a long while now, it has been people from Pakistan and India making the calls, but just last week, I started getting people with Asian accents.Ā They want to talk with Leeendahh ā¦ and I tell them she is unavailable and will never be available to them.Ā A couple of them got very nasty about it, but frankly, it makes my day when I unhinge one.
But Snook ALWAYS knows that on Shabbat, she listens to a podcast from our old congregation in Denver. She remembers how to find it and log on. So, a lot of her memory problems are contingent on her interest in the subject.
Bruce and Amber have really risen to the occasion, and prepare six of the evening meals each week, and clean up afterwards. And I havenāt horked off too many of my debtors as I try and get their bills paid in a timely manner. But that is going to be the subject of another post, when I can start laughing at my mistakes.
So on this day of rest, I write, I muse, I play games, and I remember what this day is, and the mystery of it.
Good morning!
Rain, Computers, and Wisdom Come
Monday dawns wet and rainy as I sit down to my new PC and bang out an original blog entry. It starts by putting something down and seeing what happens. Sometimes I get diamonds, and sometimes I get rust. I never know until I post it.
I am decompressing now from the latest emergencies and things are starting to fall into their natural order again, although my life has changed greatly. Exercise becomes a staple in my morning routine, albeit partly cloudy skies prevented me from venturing out to the rehab unit this morning. And when I am done with them, my insurance company pays for my membership in planet fitness.
I can hardly contain my joy.
So much has changed, and so much remains the same. Gone are the mornings that I grabbed a cup of coffee and padded down the long hallway to my studio. Now I start the coffee (usually), weigh myself, sit down at the kitchen table and prick my finger for my insatiable glucose monitor, take my blood pressure, oxygen levels and temperature, fill my syringe and stab myself in the belly.
All this gets dutifully noted in a spreadsheet to make the visiting nurse happy
Then I get to do vitals on Snookums, less the glucose and stabbing.
A little small talk, some raisin bread toast, more coffee, some coffeecake, and an unbelievable assortment of medications finishes that ritual, THEN I can pad down to my studio to do studio things. Like blogging, musing, and napping.
I am so off of politics, and that used to make up half my posts. I donāt know what I want to make the theme of my morning posts on. I spend a lot of time pondering the nature of God these days, and He does reveal much if you ask.
I spent much of my young adult life learning of God and how to obey Him and discovered that I simply was not up to the task of obedience. It just isnāt in my nature. So, these days I simply want to know his mind.
I think back to a time when I was on a number of self-improvement attempts, but that life was always six inches beyond my grasp. After a time, I quit reaching, and spent more time musing on my predicament. I finally concluded that it simply wasnāt in me and never was going to be me. I had reached my limit.
Oddly, that was a comforting conclusion. Like a child watches his father, I began watching God and often I imitated what I saw and childlike mimicking what I saw. I didnāt always get it right, and often did foolish things, but as I matured, I became more like him.
Donāt get me wrong. I am light years from seeing God and doing what he does. But from my new perspective, things became clearer, and I could just ignore obscure passages in scripture until revelation came.
There is a wisdom that come with age, sometimes. And sometimes age brings even greater folly. I continue to have both experiences, but over time, my actions have improved in such an easier way than trying to bulldoze my way into it.
And so the new dawn changes into a late morning. When I post this, I can get on with getting this brand new whiz bang computer up to speed. This is my first post on it, and I am happy with the speed that it has. I can hardly wait until I get my new games installed.
So while my world outside is drippy and wet, I sit in the warmth of central heat and say good morning!
Rusty's Armory 