Monthly Archives: March 2009

That’s funny. I don’t feel fifty

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I woke up this morning feeling about like I always do when my dearest Love, who had arisen before me (as usual) and was blasting away at some horrible alien thing on her computer, looked over her shoulder at me and said “Happy birthday honey!”.  At that single moment in time I realized that today was indeed not only my birthday, which I usually forget about almost every year, but it was my fiftieth birthday as well.

Funny—I don’t feel fifty.

I suppose at this point I could ramble on in the vein of ‘where has the time gone?’ sprinkled here and there by such statements as ‘it seems only like yesterday’   and ‘I can remember when’  and other types of nostalgic reminiscing but I’m not going to right now–maybe later. I’m hungry and it’s time for lunch.

But before I throw one of those frozen hamburger patties into the microwave to thaw, it occurred to me that some of you might be wondering how I might be feeling about this securing of my first half a century upon this world of ours. How I might be looking upon the next fifty that are in front of me now, realizing that I’ve finally reached the point in my life where there’s most likely less years left to me then I’ve lived so far?

In short—how am I handling the fact that I’m at the beginning of being OLD?!!?

Well, I’ll tell ya’.

 

I’m taking my time, taking one step at a time and feelin’ just fine!

OldGuy

Bring it on, baby. Bring it on.

Saved by a Puppy

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Due to a fat finger in my part while doing the usual PC house cleaning the other day that I’ve been doing for more years than I can possibly remember…

…I busted my Windows–but good!

Figures.

As of this moment I’m typing up this post with built-in the WordPress editor via Firefox 3.0.7 running in the latest version of Puppy Linux I’ve been booting up the computer with for the past two days. The only reason I’ve had to wait until now to write this up is that I had to figure out how to use this Linux just good enough to get Firefox installed and online

It was actually easier than I thought but that’s only because the folks who make this Puppy cram as much convenience as they can into this little gem just for Linux impaired people like myself. I know I don’t have Firefox installed correctly but it works anyway.

So if you sent me an email or anything like that and are wondering where the hell I got to, now you know. The “technical genius” whose been in computers and R&D for nearly 30 years hosed his OS and had to depend on a Puppy to save his skinny behind.

I’ll be banging into my Gmail on the morrow. Thank you for your patience.

VA Visit of Voluminous Variety

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By now you folks should know that it’s fairly common place that I should disappear for a few days time, sometimes without notice. And some of you will know that when I do it’s either due to a flare up of one of my disabilities or a trip my local VA medical facility which usually entails a couple days worth of recovery afterward. Of course, when referring to my local VA facility, the word ‘local’ should be taken with a grain of salt.

To define what ‘local’ means in regards this regular trip of mine, I’ve provided you happy viewers with this lovely interactive map to help you visualize what ‘local’ means around these parts (113 miles one way according the VA Travel but more like 103 give or take):


View Larger Map
Never tried embedding a Google map before. Works pretty slick

I’d have to say that this last trip was the busiest trip I’ve ever undertaken and, amazingly enough, the timing worked out really well—for once. If any of the appointments had started late, which is often the case, it would have screwed the rest of the day up royally.

I hit the road about 8:15 in the morning, successfully avoiding my usual coffee and doughnut stop at the local midi-mart (diabetic you know) and arrived at the VA an hour and three quarters later to an absolutely packed parking lot. I had never seen it this packed before and it’s a fairly good sized parking lot too. And not one free space to be found. I got lucky on the third go around though as an old Ford Taurus pulled out of  a spot right in the front row–lucky me.

Guess the doctor that the spot was reserved for wasn’t on duty that day?

I had 3 appointments scheduled for the day, the last one being with my audiologist which took up 2 appointment slots starting at 12:30. The idea was to get the 2 morning appointments out of the way in good enough time so I could hit the cafeteria before the 12:30 rolled around (I have to eat–no choice). I also had to be able to get to the Blood Lab and then to the VA Travel Office before I headed back out on the road. Fortunately, as I said, the timing worked out fine, no clinic was running more than 10 minutes behind for once.

The first stop was at the Green Mountain Clinic (GMF) so a nurse could wash my brain out for me. You see, my audiologist needed to make impressions for some new hearing aid ear molds and my brain was getting in the way so it just had to come out.

I was a bit surprised at how small it was. Guess at that size I won’t miss it much.

Next was a regular visit with my PCP. No, not the drug—my Primary Care Physician. Doesn’t the government ever check these abbreviations of theirs?

Fortunately, as it turned out, she pronounced me Dead On Arrival so I made the cafeteria while the food was still nice and hot although it took 10 minutes for me to get rid of those guys from the basement with the gurney, the tie down straps and the body bag that were following me around. Jeez, can’t a guy eat in peace anymore?

Now to the audiologist and a set of brand new hearing aids, associated gadgets, adjustments, explanations and the large syringe full of pink goop. This visit turned out to be another whole post in itself complete with pictures with explanations and arrows pointing at various buttons and switches and other such fancy things. I have the aforementioned pictures ready but I’ve yet to write up the post. Tomorrow most likely.

As it was, I left the audiologist right at 2:30, dizzy with all the new noises I was hearing, made the Travel office okay and stopped at the blood lab on the way out. The vampires took the usual 16-1/2 vials of blood and handed me the dreaded ‘pee-cup’. This I took humbly took into the bathroom, cursing myself thoroughly for already taking a whiz right before. Why it is that I can never remember to wait until after I finish at the blood lab I’ll never know. Even so, I managed to squeeze out enough to satisfy them and out the door I went.

The day wasn’t over yet as I had to stop in Woodsville (about 40 miles up the highway) at Walmart to replenish the various sundries and such that we needed at home and then on up the road another 30 or so miles to St.Johnsbury and the supermarket there for some stuffed salmon (they have the best seafood selection going even though we have the same supermarket up at home…figures). All the while marveling at how much more I could hear with these new hearing aids they stuck in my ears.

I finally arrived home around 6:30 in the evening, of the same day no less, dragged out and very glad to be back. My honey shoved to fish into the oven and I brought her up to date about the happenings at the VA. When I got to the part about my doctor pronouncing me Dead On Arrival I had to take my vital signs right then and there before she would believe that my PCP wasn’t actually right.

I’m still amazed at all the sounds I can hear now.

Man! Sure is noisy around here.

Vernal Egginox 2009 | An even half dozen

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Yes folks, it’s time once agina for the annual Vernal Egginox or to be more precise about it, yesterday was the day of the vernal equinox where the sun balances ever so precariously on the equator before crossing over to favor those of us in the northern hemisphere with some very welcome warmer weather. And this means something else as well…

Time to see how many of those raw eggs you can balance on their little pointy bottoms.

What? You can’t balance raw eggs on their pointy little bottoms, you say?

Well, normally I’d have to agree with you however, during a short period of time during the vernal equinox, you can balance those wee eggs on their posteriors just as my Lady Laurie has done for many years now. And this year she managed an even half dozen.

Of course, there’s always the poo-poo’ers who will never believe that it’s actually possible to do this but I can’t help it if they don’t get the timing just right. :P

Anyway, without further ado…

One egg

Two eggs

Three eggs

Four egs

Five eggs

Six eggs
And so there you have it. Another Vernal Egginox and another set of eggs balanced upon their pointy little bottoms. All thanks to our local chicken farmers, my honey’s infinite patience and the consistent orbital velocity of the planet Earth.

Here’s to fine Spring and a wonderful Summer to come.

Now for an omelet.

Doing the VA thing today

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I’m off to the VA today to take care of several different items. Blood workup upon arrival then some flushing out of my wee little head to see if they can find something resembling a brain in there contrary to all existing evidence (okay, flushing the ears actually—wax build up from hearing aids).

Then it’s next door to my physician to see what she has to say about things. Probably get reamed out for not being consistent with my blood sugar readings. Hey, I got the majority of them or at or least enough to know that the new diabetes medication hasn’t been very damn effective.

Once that’s done–lunch (hopefully) then upstairs to the audiologist for  a new set of hearing aids and a couple of fancy gadgets to go with them. I’ll have to snap a couple pics of these expensive doo-dads when I get home for your viewing pleasure. It’s amazing what they’ve come up with in the form of artificial ears these days.

Alrighty then. The grandfather just struck the hour of 8:00 AM which means that I’m on the verge of being late for heading over the mountain. And seeing as how I have to head to the bank and top off the tires before I head out, I’d better get a move on.

Have a wonderful day all…

Salvation in a new mattress and box spring set

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mattress RIP

Relief from aches and pains doesn’t necessarily have to come in a small brown bottle with a prescription label slapped onto it or bought “off the shelf” at the local drug store. Sometimes it comes in a box truck.

A new mattress and box spring is due to be delivered hopefully before I even finish writing about it or shortly thereafter. It will replace the 20-something year old set of the same brand name that has developed some rather severe troughs on either side of the mattress that we have trouble climbing out of in the morning. It’s also causing some rather troubling spring sized depressions here and there on our bodies that take some serious massaging in order to get the blood circulating again.

Although it was originally one of the better brand names with some sort of fancy patented independent coil spring suspension system that keeps one of the occupants from bouncing out of bed every time the other occupant has a bad night (posi-traction?), said suspension has definitely seen it’s better days. In fact the cats had even started to complain about it.

Hold on a minute now…

The truck just pulled into the driveway. Hah! Salvation is at hand!

See? Delivered before I finished writing this post. Don’t even have time to add tags to it. Guess I’ll have to do that later.

Hello boys! Bring it right through here…mind the cats please.

First walk of the season

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We took our first walk of the season this afternoon. Never knew I’d be so glad to see mud again.

Of course this meant rummaging around the closet for the sneakers we exchanged for winter foot gear back in October. I always forward to feeling like my feet are about ten pounds lighter than they have been for the past 5 months. Especially since it’s coming up on 30 years past the last and only time I was 20.

I have to admit that the sensation is more appreciated every year.

Out the door, down the driveway we went. Left at the sidewalk (watch that puddle, Love). Carefully time the approach to the massive lake of melt water lovingly rubbing up against the curb to the rhythm of the oncoming cars. A cold, melt water shower would put a damper on our walk for sure.

Around the corner and up the hill towards the high school fields (returning the hellos to the crows as they raucously wing by) and round the curve and down the hill towards our path at the railroad tracks we go, checking out the dog tracks in the mud at the edge of the sidewalk (the cocker spaniel says I? The long haired dachshund says She.).

Crossing the road to the path across the railroad tracks, taking just enough time to walk the rail to prove to ourselves that we still can. As usual, I fall off first.

Pick our way through December’s snow and the boggy grass, across the basement floor of a building that no longer exists and back to our road (look, the wreath on the auto body shop is still green …sort of. Well, more ‘sort of’ than green I guess).

Past the vacuum cleaner busily rooting out boot droppings from the floor mats, across the road that took us up the hill (timing the cars plowing through the lake once again) and onward towards home.

Down the driveway and into the back door (watch the cats don’t get out now) and so comes the end of our first walk of the season.

Mud, salt, puddles, lakes,crows, bogs and more mud. Wasn’t that a wonderful walk, Love?

If things weren’t bad enough | A rant and a half

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{Begin rant}

I just love news like this:

Constable Stephen Paul Carroll, 48, was shot dead in Craigavon, 30 miles (48 kilometers) southwest of Belfast, late yesterday, two days after two British soldiers were killed by members of another breakaway group, the Real IRA. Police began raiding properties in Craigavon today in connection with the murder, a police spokeswoman said today in a phone interview.

Continuity IRA Claims Credit for Ireland Attack (Update2) – Bloomberg.com

If things weren’t bad enough, now people have to busy themselves reviving old hates and violence. I remember all too well when a day didn’t go by that you didn’t read or hear about the violence in Northern Ireland. It was just one of those “everyday things” like coffee and toast in the morning and the latest news on the Cold War. You know, get up, have breakfast, read the news (“yup, they’re still killing each other in Northern Ireland and do you know that a Russian communist spy could be living next door to us, honey?”) and head off to work. No big deal, right? Except for those living in Northern Ireland of course.

Now, after years of stability (for the most part) and with the world in turmoil, instead of banding together to help solve the problems, human nature takes over and people in so-called civilized countries start killing each other over old grievances. Hey, that’ll make things all the better now won’t it?

Stupid, worthless, childish (and sadly typical) human behavior.

So what’s next? The South Shall Rise Again?

God! I wish people would grow up.

{End rant}

Author’s note: There’s nothing personal against Northern Ireland here, I want to make that clear. And I realize that things over there have always been restless since opposing factions came to an accord to end the violence in 1998.  It’s just a damn shame that this kind of worthless, meaningless violence should rear it’s ugly head again—ever! And I just couldn’t help myself but rant about it. It makes it apparent how little it takes to start doing each other in…

…even in my own country.