Happy Birthday to Us!

"Us" would be Canada and me. Canada is older and will be around a lot longer than I will. When Spouse and I went for an ice cream lunch, we encountered a young girl wearing a Happy Birthday crown. I asked if today were her birthday, and she said it was. I pointed to my tiara (I wear a tiara on my birthday) and told her it was also mine. We exchanged birthday greetings. She turns four today while I edit the digit in the 10's place and turn 70. I hope that, like Canada, she will be around a lot longer than I will.

So what did the horoscope in The Washington Post foretell for my coming year? It may be more fitting than last year's was.

You are deeply sensitive and introspective. You're also empathetic and compassionate. This year is the completion of a nine-year cycle for you. Take inventory of your life. Let go of people, places and things that have held you back. Do some internal and external housecleaning. Clear the decks.

Moon Alert: Caution! Avoid shopping (except for food and gas) and important decisions from 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. today. After that, the Moon moves from Capricorn into Aquarius.

So I have no idea what the Moon Alert is all about. The most important decision I have made today was where to go for ice cream for lunch. Since Spouse paid for it, it probably doesn't even count as a purchase I made, though ice cream is food. 

As for taking inventory of my life right now, I should probably try to accentuate the positive. I can walk on my own if I have to, though unsteadily. I no longer have a nephrostomy tube coming out of my back and a nephrostomy bag of urine on one hip. I also no longer have two kidneys. Does that count as positive given that it's connected to losing the nephrostomy items? Am I better off now than I was on my last birthday? Hell, no. Am I better off now than I was on July 23, 2025? Yes. I have learned a lot about myself this past year, most of it good. Do I want to elaborate on that? Not right now.

I have struggled a bit thinking of resolutions for my upcoming trip around the sun. I would like to write more. All the writing I have managed to do this past year is the two 2026 entries here plus daily entries in a 5-Minute Journal given to me for Christmas. I'd like to do better this coming year not that much of what I write is earthshaking or even notable. Back when we traveled or planned to travel to Vietnam, I made two attempts to learn a bit of Vietnamese. As it happened, the only thing I could say turned out to be "thank you," but just that scored oh so many points. (I was also complimented on my accent by a seven-year-old.) Given that we have no plans to go back there for any sustained period of time, I can't really see the use of giving it a third try. Some--now 60--years ago, I spoke fluent Spanish. I can still read it a bit, but speaking it escapes me. Perhaps I should work on that again. It would certainly be more useful than Vietnamese. Whether to go about that through some sort of formal program (you would not believe how many I have seen marketed) or try on my own, I don't really know. I'm still thinking on that.

As for birthday doings, I did this morning open a card and two gifts a friend delivered yesterday. She nailed the card: "Congrats! You've made it another year of tolerating people." Perfection from one introvert to another. I'm looking forward to reading the book she gave me: Lawbreaking Ladies: 50 Tales of Daring and Dangerous Women from History. I have only heard of several of the women, and those all seem to be in the chapter "Outlaws, Gunslingers & Bandits." I also watched a delightful video birthday card sent by another dear friend and have tried to express appreciation for every birthday greeting I have received on the book of Faces. We'll do the traditional birthday celebration this weekend with Spouse and Older Son, I hope with the addition of Younger Son, Daughter-in-Love, and Spud (our grandson's name in utero). It won't be a true birthday, but I may wear my tiara anyway.

Finally, I continue to toy with the idea of marking my 70th birthday by getting my first tattoo, a small potato (yes, a spud) on my upper left arm. It has been suggested that should I do that, I can follow his progression by adding a tater tot, a small fry, and so on. The plan certainly has merit.

  

And the Birthday Looms

I still haven't come up with any kind of resolutions for the rest of 2026. Whenever I think of my July 1 birthday I find myself reminded of the July 22 surgery that started what has been politely called (not by me; I'd likely be more impolite) a year from hell. I've said all along that the ureter--now kidney--damage bothered me immensely more than the nerve damage. The nerve damage has required physical therapy, something I've done for multiple other injuries or surgeries. I'm used to it. I know how to make it work--do what my therapist tells me to do and not do what they tell me not to do. I have control. I had anything but control over the ureter-kidney deal. Well, I did have control over the decision to try for an autotransplant that turned out not to be feasible. I can't fault the surgeons there; if the kidney wasn't fit to be put back in, I'm glad they didn't try. 

So, I now work at keeping the one kidney I have left as healthy as possible. The nephrologist I saw told me that a big part of that is simply keeping myself as healthy as possible. That, along with no longer using NSAIDs, drinking at least two liters of liquid daily, and keeping my daily sodium intake under 2,000 mg (that's less than is in one teaspoon table salt). While I had no definite plans to take up kendo again, the thought had crossed my mind from time to time. While I could certainly still do sword forms, partner work and definitely sparring would be very bad ideas. I'm not sure how much fun that would be, though it's definitely something I'll keeping mind.

This weekend, I look forward to getting into a swimming pool for the first time in over a year. Spouse and I will be in Newport News for his pre-hip-replacement lab work, and I persuaded him that what could have been a one-day trip should involve an overnight at a hotel with a pool. Even if it's full of screaming children, I plan to get in, possibly swim, at least float, and, at the suggestion of my wonderful physical therapist, just walk a bit. The little things I look forward to now.

And now, noting that they can indeed be little things, I'll get back to thinking about those resolutions. 

Here's Hoping...

...that 2025 can be better all around than 2024 was. I feel as if I survived 2024 rather than lived it. The last month has been particularly hard. I lose it almost daily, resorting to angry tears and feelings of being totally incompetent and/or useless. That's gotta change starting tomorrow (that's what she said). Yes, I already had a short cry today, over one not-so-big thing that happened as I tried to make sourdough bread for the first time. Younger son has a way of gifting me things that push me a bit out of my comfort zone. That can be a good thing; other times, not. One year, he gifted me a marijuana plant, a gift followed soon thereafter by seeds and fertilizers to start my own plants. This year, he gave me a sourdough starter. The bread made from it is on a second rise atop the range. The Dutch oven in which it will be baked is preheating with the oven. If it all comes together or totally falls apart before I finish this post, I'll provide an update.

I have been pondering New Year's resolutions. I make them yearly and sometimes manage to fulfill them. This year, I gave myself a small spiral notebook with the title "New Year's resolutions and other short-lived ideas." As with other notebooks and journals, how long it stays functional is a big unknown. So far, I have entered my resolution for 2025 on the first page. It is guidance a very good friend sent me from a blog or source noted as Sweatpants And Coffee. She knew I needed it. I printed the graphic and taped it on the first page of that notebook. I don't want to risk copyright infringement by inserting the graphic as I received it, but I'll share the text here.

When life is hectic and you are overwhelmed, and your brain is like a squirrel darting across a busy street, remember that all you ever have to do at any given moment is the next thing. You can manage that. Also, you should drink some water.

This seems like a good resolution given how overwhelmed I have felt lately. It also highlights something I have wanted to work on for a long time: focus on the thing I am doing and not let worrying about other things distract me. The fact that I have wanted to work on this for some time should speak to how hard it is for me, given Type A personality and, most likely, ADHD. I'm hoping that just trying to get through life one thing at a time will help relieve some of the anxiety I'm trying not to feel right now.

Spouse's bypass surgery remains scheduled for the day after tomorrow. I may very well be more nervous about this than he is. He asked why that might be so, to which I answered that if something goes wrong such as he dies, well, he's dead, while I would have to keep on muddling through the rest of my life without the person with whom I've shared 40 years. The "in sickness and in health" part of the marriage vows? Yeah, this is it. He's also been relying on me to remember surgery details he needs to take care of--special mouthwash, what medications to stop when, special soap--giving me just one more area in which I can feel incompetent and/or useless. 

Here's the whole-wheat sourdough bread. I won't taste it until it cools, but it does look like bread.

The Road into 2023

Fortunately, I stopped the daily pandemic blog when I did. Remember the couple of times I said I was afraid of long COVID were I to get COVID? That apparently happened. Fatigue just kept growing. The first thing I noticed was that going up stairs was noticeably harder. I then realized that I was only making it through each day by ingesting over a gram of caffeine between coffee and caffeinated gum. Besides telling me to cut down on caffeine, my doctor ordered several types of blood work. When all the various tests came back normal, the diagnosis by exclusion pointed to long COVID. Doctor's orders were to stop doing all the things I'd been doing even if they had seemed fairly easy. This may be the year of no Christmas cards. This may also be the year of no resolutions, at least for now. I don't think "get my energy back" counts as a resolution, but that would be the big thing I'd be hoping for for 2023. 

Happy New Year to all, and to all however late a night you want. Mine will be an early one. 

The Road goes ever on and on ... Day 337 (837) Birthday Edition III

The poem I'm working on for my 66th birthday won't, I think, be as good as the one I wrote for my 65th.  I have too many other things on my mind right now. If it gets to a point that doesn't embarrass me, I may post it, but it won't be today or, probably, any day of the four-day weekend--Canada Day on Friday and US Independence Day on Monday. One summer in which the days fell the same way we spent the long weekend in Stewart, British Columbia which sits right next door to Hyder, the easternmost town in Alaska. Back then, you could just slow down at the border crossing, give a wave, and go on. Those were the good old days. Stewart is where we witnessed something I've never seen done anywhere else, a hospital bed race. One team member rode on the bed and the other three or four pushed the bed down the street. Needless to say, there were also costumes. 

As for the six-months-old resolutions, I'm not totally bombing. I wanted to finish the list of 50 things I started working on in my 50th year, the one leading up to my 50th birthday. I'm getting there more slowly than I had hoped but it's still doable. The Professor has agreed to accompany me on visits to two local historical sites, Monticello and Montpelier. I have written four of the seven poems I needed to finish. I have yet to sketch anything, so I still have nine to do there. I gave away my box of children's books written in Spanish, so I can't take the easy route on reading something written in Spanish. I did find the Spanish shelf on one of the bookcases, and need to see what's there. I did have The Gulag Archipelago in Spanish, but I don't think that's doable. 

I have practiced doing quilt binding on Xena the Warrior Bernina. I haven't decided if I'll try it on the quilt I'm quilting right now. It may take a little while to get back to that quilt. The Professor was complaining not for the first time about all the stuff in our garage. One item was a dresser that originally was our changing table. It moved with My Mom to the condo to which she moved, and when she moved on from there it came back to us ... to the garage. I did not realize that it was not going to fit where I wanted to put it in my studio/sewing room and to put it the only other place it would fit meant a massive reorganization of various things including my dolls. I have more dolls than I thought I did. I also found a couple of decades-old projects that shouldn't take too long to finish once I'm done with the current quilt. 

I wanted to keep up with the on-demand bodyweight training program I'd been doing. Then I had my nose-breaking fall on January 6 that also bruised my knees to the point I could not kneel. Then I developed what turned out to be a recalcitrant nerve in my right knee and spent some time attending to it. I am getting back to working out now, though. I'm doing the morning dog walks in a weight vest and have added some light aerobics to the mix. 

Related to the working out, I didn't want to gain any weight. I haven't and have even lost the couple of pounds I gained over the holidays. The working out helps for sure. 

Finally, I wanted to make friends with our convection oven. While I've done some recipes from convection oven cookbooks, I'm not comfortable yet doing something I'm used to making in the regular oven in the convection one. Adjusting time and temperature is, so far, intimidating. I've got six more months, though. 

And so I begin another trip around the sun, my 67th one. It will hold surprises, some welcome and some not. It will stretch me possibly to new limits just as it nestles around to keep me safe. I hope to be back in six months to make post new resolutions and in six months after that to embark on a new orbit.  

Be It Hereby Resolved ...

Resolutions were hard to come by this year. Maybe it was the "do one of these every month" checklist attitude of last year's. The ones I came up with for 2022 are real in that they really are things I have consciously told myself I should or would like to do. So here goes ...

Finish the 50

On my 49th birthday, the advent of my 50th year, I made a list of 50 things to see, do, and so on. I did not make all 50 in that year nor did I finish the 50 in the next couple of years. I recently found my original list showing items checked off as completed. There are six items left, though a couple involve doing more than one thing. Here goes:

Visit Monticello. (I haven't been there since one of The Sons went with his third grade class.)

Visit Montpelier. (I haven't been there since they removed the DuPont renovations.)

Do the "guilt trip" book. (This is an art project I thought of years ago but have never done--an atlas to some things that can make all of us feel guilty.)

Write seven poems.

Do nine sketches.

Read a book in Spanish. (This one originally had a specific book listed, one that I have since given away. I'll find something, though.)

Quilt Binding

As I struggled to sew the binding on my latest quilt yesterday, I kept repeating that I need to get comfortable with machine-sewing a binding. A secondary resolution would be to learn how to blind-stitch a binding by hand. I cannot seem to hide my stitches. A couple of times I have asked someone in the quilt guild how to do a binding, and no one has offered more than "you blind stitch it." That isn't enough for this binding-challenged quilter; hard as I try, I have never been able to hide my stitches.

Workouts

Around Thanksgiving 2020, The Washington Post Local Living section had a review of more than a few workout programs do-able on your own from online sites. The person who did the reviews, a former bouncer and security guard, closed with the program he said he purchased and continues to use. I figured that was a pretty good review, so I bought a year's subscription, a subscription I just renewed. I started at the bottom of the bottoms since I then had a lower back problem. It's body weight training and gets more challenging as you work your way up the list of classes. My resolution is to stick with this for at least another year. I know it's working because there are things I could not do a few months ago that I now can do.

Weight

Don't gain any.

Domesticity

Since I'm now friends with the Instant Pot, it's time to get to know our new convection oven.

The hard one will, I think, be the quilt binding one. More profanity accompanies a binding than accompanies a new, level-up workout class, and believe me, I sometimes compare workouts by how many times in each I swear at the screen.

Happy New Year! Tomorrow, it's back to the pandemic and Omicron.

 

 

  

 

The Road goes ever on and on ... Day 156 (656)

Yesterday, I questioned whether the availability of rapid at-home covid tests was making the daily case counts superfluous or even too wrong to be of use. Using counts is called case-based surveillance, and it does work when all the results are reported accurately. The alternative is sentinel surveillance, the method by which influenza is counted. Sentinel surveillance relies on a network of health care centers or personnel to track cases. The overall case numbers are extrapolated from the number of cases tracked. The data missing due to at-home tests also negatively affects percent positivity figures. At-home testing is very much a double-edged sword. It allows people to isolate when necessary but leaves public health figures in the dark. I'm interested in seeing how the public health folks resolve this. 

Between December 14 and 20, 2020, 3,561 people were surveyed about how hopeful or fearful they felt. The study was repeated between December 14 and 16, 2021 with a survey of 2,602 people. In 2020, 58 percent of Republicans reported feeling fearful compared with 36 percent of Democrats. In 2021, 69 percent of Republicans reported feeling fearful compared with 45 percent of Democrats. Overall, 36 percent of respondents felt fearful in 2020 compared with 54 percent in 2021. In 2020, 63 percent of all respondents felt hopeful, a percentage that dropped to 44 percent in 2021. Respondents were also asked what issues mattered the most to them. Topping the list in 2021 were jobs/economy, democracy, and health care. Finally, two words that 2021 respondents wanted to hear less often were "covid" and "Trump." The one word most people wanted to hear more of? Travel.

As New Year's Eve draws nearer--The Professor and I do not expect to be awake to welcome 2022--I am fine tuning my resolutions for the coming year. Reading through the resolutions I made for 2002 through 2012 and 2018 through 2020, has offered perspective on how best to phrase the new ones. I will say here that the resolutions I made for 2021, stated as five things I would do each month, were for the most part successful. I did make at least 12 pies and used my Instant Pot at least 12 times. I fell short on  starting, working on , or finishing a creative something each month, and if I donated or tossed 12 banker's boxes full of "stuff," it was in the first several months. I did meet my fitness goals for the year, several of which were set by the programming behind my Apple watch. I failed totally at ending this blog when I became fully vaccinated. Given how fully vaccinated is evolving, that was likely a very good thing. 

Finally, 2021 slapped us in the face one more (I almost typed "last" but didn't want to jinx us all) time with the death of Betty White a mere three weeks before her 100th birthday. She was an icon, someone to look up to no matter who was doing the looking, a lady well worth her while. Godspeed, Betty, to your new year as we creep to ours.

The Road goes ever on and on ... Day 151 (651)

Still in the midst of the Christmas weekend, the number of airline flights canceled globally has passed 5,400. Over 1,000 of those have been in the US. I wonder how many people sweating out getting rescheduled ever considered flight cancellation as an side-effect of covid. The only time we've had flights canceled, it was our flight only. We weren't standing in line at the ticket counter for hours waiting to get to the head of the line only to discover all other flights going where we wanted to go had already filled up.

US hospitalizations are on the rise while remaining under the peaks hit in January. ICUs especially are strained with workers sometimes working 16-hour days for weeks on end. Many hospital workers have left citing burnout or anxiety as reasons. The ones who remain are now getting infected, with the CDC allowing health care workers to return to work after seven days instead of 10. I wonder how many workers would like those extra five days just to have a bit of a break. One thousand military health care workers are being deployed across the country to help. Of special concern, pediatric admissions are rising. As of Thursday, over 50 children under the age of five were hospitalized. The American Academy of Pediatrics calls cases in kids under the age of 18 "extremely high."

March will mark the second anniversary of the "15 Days to Slow the Spread" featuring guidelines set by the ex-president and his coronavirus task force. We could very well be seeing record numbers of caseloads by then. We are currently averaging almost 200,000 new cases daily, more than in last summer's Delta peak. The seven-day global average of cases exceeds 755,000. Will it hit one million? I would not be surprised if it did. Experts say that we are likely to see an "almighty surge" to start the new year. They also say that we will never be without covid but need to move it into the background. Looking ahead, Dr. Fauci agrees, saying, "It's conceivable that, sooner or later, ... everybody will have been infected and/or vaccinated or boosted. When you get to that point, unless you have a very bizarre variant ... that evades all protection--which would be unusual--then I think you could get to the point where you have this at a steady level." He also noted that it is "entirely conceivable" that we may need a fourth shot of vaccine. 

We are not alone in facing or being in an almighty surge. France just saw over 100,000 new cases in one day, the most since the pandemic began. Hospitalizations have doubled over the past month. Over one person in 100 in the Paris region tested positive in the past week. They are seeing surges of both Delta and Omicron. The government does not want to close schools nor do they want to do anything that would hurt their economic recovery. The percent of positive tests in Kenya has gone from one percent to over 30 percent in three weeks. In Uganda, 50 lawmakers and staff tested positive after attending sports tournament in Tanzania.

The week between Christmas and New Year's sees the release of every list that was not released between December 1 and Christmas. Lists of noted people who died usually come out before Christmas, overlooking anyone who, like Desmond Tutu, died in December. I expect this happens because at the dawn of a new year, the focus should be ahead rather than behind. This year we may even have a separate list of people who died because of covid, 2021 being the first year spent entirely with covid. We will also this week see lists of Outs and Ins and the Best of almost any medium or genre. And then there are lists of New Year's resolutions. For several (maybe more) years I have posted my new ones here along with an evaluation of how I did on the expiring ones. I'm thinking along those lines now. I recently came across the cards on which I've written my resolutions for years past starting with 2002. Looking for themes should be interesting and will likely help me set the ones to shoot for in 2022. 

The View from the Hermitage, Day 307

I've had better days. I heard from my brother this morning that his wife's just-discovered cancer is at such an advanced level it's not clear if the side effects of chemo are worth it in terms of the quality or length of life it might give her. I responded to his email noting that I wasn't sure there were words for this situation. 2021 was supposed to be better than 2020, but last year's suck is continuing smoothly into the new year. An insurrection at the Capitol. Sister-in-law's cancer. The very real threat of violence tomorrow into the Inauguration on Wednesday. 2021's first two weeks and two days leave a hell of a lot to be desired. 

On the coronavirus in Virginia front, the numbers from yesterday elicited a gasping, "Holy shit!" when I checked them this morning. The number of new cases yesterday was the highest yet, and by almost a thousand. They need to change the y-axis on their chart. I fully expect yesterday's number of 6,757 to be exceeded this coming week; 7,000+ is coming. The question is if this is the New Year's bump or the second generation of Christmas bump. I hope the governor and his minions are paying attention to this, but now that we have vaccines.... Actually, I would expect them to be thinking about insurrection violence right now rather than covid.

The Professor and I have registered with our local health district to be notified when they are ready to start vaccinating the group we're in, the 1B folks. There was nothing on the registration form about whether I need to take any proof of my underlying condition(s); I imagine they will tell me before I show up whether I should bring something. 

One in three residents of Los Angeles County, California has been infected with covid-19. Not a place I would want to be living right now. The national death toll is over 389,000; I expect we'll go over half a million in February. Globally, the death toll now exceeds 2 million. We're at the top of the list in terms of how much each country contributes to the total. Yes, America has been made great again. We're followed by Brazil, India, Mexico, and the UK. 

The Lame Duck will now depart the White House on the morning of January 20. He would like a military sendoff. The Professor expressed hope that the aim of a military sendoff was not to spark a massive demonstration that offered an excuse for declaring a national state of emergency that required martial law to put down. The My Pillow founder was at the White House yesterday. A Washington Post photographer got a photo showing the papers he was carrying. Magical magnification revealed that they did cover the imposition of martial law. Any other year I would likely tell The Professor that he was overreacting, but not this year, or should I say "decade"?

Last night's sweet potato soup from the Instant Pot was delicious. Son #1 had the leftovers this morning and requested the recipe. I'll definitely make it again. I'll also make it using other vegetables which was actually the draw of the recipe. The recipe calls for "2 pounds vegetable or combination of vegetables of your choice." A lemon meringue pie is in the refrigerator. I'll do the meringue right before we want to partake of it. I've made lemon meringue pie before, but this recipe, from the book Pie Academy, was simpler. I expect I would use this recipe again, though I won't know for sure until we've sampled it.

I gave my lower back a bit more rest than planned, but today I went for a walk without the dog. This means I can walk faster and with no pauses for smell or bodily functions. I only went 1.5 miles and I did it slowly, but it felt good. I'm not going to rush my way up to the six or seven I was doing every day before the back issues started, but I am going to try to walk some most days now. There's a lemon meringue pie in the refrigerator for incentive.

The View from the Pandemic, Day 292

Happy New Year! Broken any resolutions yet? While I haven't made a pie or used the Instant Pot, I have decided on a fitness goal for January. It turns out I was wrong on what I thought the challenge set by my Apple watch would be, and the new, corrected one is doable. It's rack up 820 minutes of exercise in the month, or 26 per day. Now the watch times some activities better than others. If I swim, it gives pretty much the same time I get using the poolside timer. For walking, though, it seems to get confused by how fast I'm walking or where, and the time that shows up is not the actual number of minutes I was walking. I can put up with that and may even end up walking more one day.

The US surpassed 20 million covid-19 cases in December which just happened to be the deadliest and most infectious month yet. The stated goal for vaccinations given before the end of 2020 was 20 million. Attaining that would have been impossible since only 14 million doses were distributed. Only 2.1 million people were actually vaccinated, and states handled their vaccination programs very differently. Florida, for example, said they would vaccinate anyone over the age of 65, first-come, first-served. People showed up at ungodly early times, and the lines stretched so far people needed the chairs they'd brought with them. To add insult to injury, one person who waited all day in line said she would not be surprised if the wait in line ended up being a superspreader event. 

Should the government be handling vaccinations at the national level? I'm not sure that would have been better given that the level of detail required to set up specific programs is probably better handled at the state or local level. Whereas at one point I was anxious about vaccinations, worrying how I would document my underlying conditions, I'm now more they'll get to me when they get to me. They may have worked most of the wrinkles out of things by then. 

It's not clear whether the Olympic Games will happen in Tokyo this summer. They're getting the same surge in infections being seen elsewhere. In response to the new variant strain of coronavirus, they've now banned all non-resident arrivals. I know the Games would not be until July, but there likely are a number of details that would have to be set well in advance. I can't say I'd miss them if they weren't held. I actually find the Winter Games to be more interesting. 

Less than three weeks from Inauguration Day, the Secret Service is swapping out members of the detail that guards Uncle Joe and Dr. Biden. Evidently, some of those agents may be more in favor of The Lame Duck than desired. In some cases, agents have discouraged mask-wearing by people around the Bidens. The new agents being assigned to them are mostly senior agents many of whom were in the Bidens' detail when Uncle Joe was Vice President. 

It's been a quiet start to the new year. I did a wee bit of organizing and sorting. I copied about 20 posts from the blog view to a Word file. I figured finding something specific would be easier that way. That document is now over 300 pages long and contains more than 180,000 words. I don't think I'll ever print it out given how much paper it would take. I don't want to kill more trees than absolutely necessary. I can't use the excuse that I'm not doing much because we stayed up too late last night. We headed to bed at the normal 9:00 so as to get close to eight hours of sleep before the alarm at 5:00. 

The View from the Hermitage, Day 290

Yesterday we set another new record for the number of Americans dying of covid-19 in one day: 3,275. It's only going to get worse as 2021 sets in. It's three weeks until the inauguration given that there is no Wednesday surprise on January 6 when the House accepts the Electoral College results. January 20  could be our first day over 5,000 deaths. Republican Congressman-Elect Luke Letlow from Louisiana, who was to have been sworn in on Sunday, died yesterday of covid. Father of two young children, he was only 41 and had no underlying conditions. 

Google released data on things we googled during 2020. Excluding "coronavirus" and "election," the largest search of any single event was Kobe Bryant's death. The total number of searches for "coronavirus" over the entire year was more than 10 times the Kobe searches. And the spike in searches for "election" around November 3 was higher than any single "coronavirus" spike. My initial reaction to that was how could the death of a sports idol be more important than ... than ... I couldn't think of any other single event that might have competed with "coronavirus" or "election." It was a pretty weird year.

Workers are removing the parade reviewing stand that had been constructed in from of the White House. Uncle Joe will be sworn in outside, but it sounds as if there won't be the traditional inaugural parade and walk to the White House from the Capitol. It's going to be a mostly virtual day. I'm sure there will be complaints, but not from here. So much of Inauguration Day is for show, and this may not be the time for that. Still, I hope he and Aunt Jill, er, that is, Dr. Biden get to relax a bit and savor the day. I wonder if the couch in the family part of the White House is big enough for both of them as well as Champ and Major.

Argentina has legalized abortion up to 14 weeks in a pregnancy. I did not see that coming. And it's nice to see even if I don't expect many other predominantly Catholic countries to follow suit. I have not looked up how Pope Francis feels about this but probably well eventually.

We're taking down all the Christmas things tomorrow. Normally we do it on New Year's Day, but I'm in such a hurry to bid 2020 a not-so-fond farewell that I want Christmas 2020 over and done with before 2021 steps in. This means I need to get serious if I'm going to make any formal resolutions for the new year. Something other than get my hair cut and highlighted, call the hand clinic about my thumb and/or wrist issues, reschedule Monday's cancelled  otolaryngology appointment, go to the dentist, and so on. The life things put on hold for the months of the pandemic do not equal resolutions for the new year.

A Day Late and a Dollar Short?

I somehow got in the habit of posting my New Years resolutions here, thinking perhaps that it would give me more incentive to keep them. I do a half-year report on my birthday, which just happens to be six months opposite New Years Day.

I was not at all sad to see 2019 end. While the start of the year was particularly bright with fireworks in Tromso, Norway on New Years Eve, I'd just as soon forget May through August and am still struggling to stay on something resembling an even keel. I did manage to be successful on my 2019 resolutions to finish crafty-artsy projects and to earn the monetary award in my employer's annual wellness challenge. Get into good shape? I'm not sure I'm in any better shape than I was a year ago, but I am in no way in worse shape. I'm not sure I ever figured out how to slow myself down, though a month of pneumonia definitely helped. Finally, wasting less time evaporated after May. I know that my depression is drifting downward by how much time I can waste, usually on social media or computer games. While it is not one of my 2020 resolutions, I am going to continue the fight on this one.

So, just what have I resolved to do or not do in 2020? I started from the idea of centering myself, both physically and emotionally. I was doodling geometrically (think grid paper) and came up with a design that pleased me (photo below). Since that design lent itself to four things each containing two things, that's what I worked toward. The four ended up being Health and Fitness, Carbon Footprint, Emotional, and General. You can probably tell which one was added because I couldn't come up with another specific category.

I did not want to put "get in shape" or "lose weight" or anything like those under Health and Fitness. I've failed at those in too many years. I've been saying lately that I should drink more water, so that's what I'm resolving to do. Younger son has been a lacto-ovo vegetarian since Grade 5, and I've been thinking about this having read too many articles lately on the awareness or intelligence of certain animals. I thought about resolving to only eating meat only when eating away from home, but to be honest, that seemed as if it would be difficult on a daily basis. I fell back on resolving simply to eat less meat.

Carbon Footprint made the list because it's something I've been thinking and worrying about. Do not get me started on what the current administration is or is not doing. I've been carrying metal straws with me for over a year, and do not use any straws brought wrapped in paper or plastic. If I need a straw, I use one of my metal ones. There are plenty of times, though, when the drink I ordered is brought with a straw already in the glass. I will do my best in 2020 to ask servers to hold the straws. While many locations have banned single-use plastic such as shopping bags, where I live has not. I pretty much always remember to take my own bag(s) into grocery stores, but need to remember not to enter another type of store without a bag. I hope it helps to resolve to use as few single-use plastic items as possible.

I had to put Emotional as a category because that's where I've really been struggling. Something that is not at all important in the course of my life happens, and if I am alone in the house or car, I yell my response which typically is less than polite. I over-react and/or react too quickly. And, yes, the over-reaction often removes the possibility of dealing with the matter appropriately. I'm calling this resolution mind before mouth, and really hope it works even a little. Of course, the shouting mentioned just now disturbs the natural silence of the day, so my second emotional resolution is to seek serenity in silence. I need to calm myself and enjoy the sound of nothing happening.

Finally, there is the General category where I somewhat extended two of last year's resolutions. First, I want to work at remembering that slow is smooth. Most of life can happen without split-second responses being needed. This obviously relates using my mind before I open my mouth. Finally, to take the advice of Neil Gaiman, I would like to make good art. I would like to extend what I now do comfortably and risk that someone's reaction to what I make might not be positive. One can learn a lot from failure, whether that failure be real or perceived.

It's now January 2, meaning it's time to get working on these. I wish I could promise that my next blog post will not be the one in six months in which I discuss how well I might or might not be doing with or learning from these goals. After all, quality aside, writing is definitely making art.

Resolution Time Again? Really?

We interrupt this regularly scheduled vacation for a dose of reality otherwise known as resolutions for the new year. I do this every year and every July 1 birthday in between. Some resolutions I keep better than others. The first real "this is a resolution I am making" resolution I made as an adult was to get the laundry put away every night. I've kept this up for at least two decades now. Oh, if they were all so easy to keep.

Back in 2014, before my first torn rotator cuff flared up, I was in better physical condition than I had ever been. I was doing okay working my way back into decent shape when 2016's second torn rotator cuff appeared. Damn! Okay, I can come back from that one and, silly me!, the pain in my right knee got so intense that only a replacement would help. Approaching nine months later, and I'm still in close to the worst physical condition I've been in as an adult. I start to work on coming back, and my too competitive nature bites me in the ass and things other than the knee start to hurt. Resolution Number One (the biggie) then is to get back into some sort of reasonable shape and to do so without hurting myself further. I haven't worked out all the details yet, but I'll get there.

Next, I find myself bumbling from one art thing to another to a third and so on. I'd like to do or finish one project each month. This could be start from scratch and finish it, or it could be finish something I started whenever. I already know what the first two are going to be. I have two quilts to get ready for the guild's show in April, and I have someone emailing me monthly about a needle felted possum I'm supposedly working on to replace the one my cat tore to shreds. If I can get one similar to the original made, this person would like to buy one.

Each year I score some extra money by completing challenges in one of the university's wellness programs. I already know what my goals for 2019 will be, so the resolution is to keep them going and get the monetary reward at the end of the year. This year's goals include an exercise program of cardio and strength training balanced by meditating 20 minutes once each day. The way the goals are set, I won't necessarily be doing those every day but would instead do them at least a certain number of times each month.

Tying back into the whole physical stuff, injuries, etc. I want to work on going at my own pace. I'm the kind of person who feels she needs to speed up if the person behind her wants to walk faster. My problem with walking faster is of course, that the knee tightens up, or I don't pick up one foot or the other and trip, or otherwise suffer negative consequences. So this year I want to work on being comfortable with how slow or fast I should be doing things, and not let myself get caught trying to keep up with anyone else.

Finally (I had to end this list sooner or later after all), I want to waste less time. This has relevance because wasting time helped me, a few years ago, talk to my doc and finally get on some anti-depressants. Playing spider solitaire or another computer game for most of each day (seriously, hours) was not what I needed to be doing, and it took a while to admit that. I now have no games on my computer or phone other than the NY Times crossword on my phone and an Australian cryptic crossword on my laptop. Still, I find myself doing old crosswords or, possibly worse, spending too much time on social media. If all the people I want to stay in touch with were on one social media outlet or another, I could just quit all the rest. But some friends are on Facebook while others are on Instagram, and even others, well, you get the idea. I feel the need to visit each outlet to keep up with one friend or another. I may let myself look at a particular social media site once daily or for some total minutes each day. As with getting into better physical shape, I'm still working on the details.

So, lots of things to work on. Some will be easy; some won't. Some will get done; some may not get started if I want to be honest with myself. Writing them down helps, and making them public helps a little bit more. I'll check in with myself on July 1, and see how I'm doing.

And so Happy New Year! May 2019 be a good one for all of us.

It's Been Too Long

I really should try to update this blog more often. An entire year between one post and the next does not make me happy. As I go through the day, a thought here or there is followed by another thought that I should write something about the first thought. You can see how often I've gone through with that. It's mostly because somewhere, possibly folded in the emotional baggage some of us carry, is the thought that keeping a blog or journal is a waste of time. I need to work on changing that. I like to write and therefore should write even if it is just for myself.

My six-months-from-New-Year's-Day birthday means it's another new year, this time a new year of my life. According to the horoscope in today's Washington Post, here's how that year might go:

This year, optimism becomes a given in your life. You will see concrete results from this attitude change. If you are single, you have a strong personality, so you probably will need someone a little less intense for a partner. You will have several potential sweeties around you. If you are attached, this year offers many romantic moments. Aquarius teaches you how to express your feelings.

Do I have to be single to be strong? Does that mean I am not strong having been married for a third of a century? I'm also not sure how being married relates to the "several potential sweeties" angle. If I skip those thoughts and go to the next line, not passing "Go" on the way, "many romantic moments" doesn't really seem like much for a whole year. How about some excitement on a front other than the romantic one?

About those "concrete results" from being more optimistic, well, there might be something to needing to be more optimistic. My 62nd year had more than a few rough spots. Several people I know got medical diagnoses of a less-than-positive nature. The results for most have, however, been positive. While I do have pretty much the dream job (part-time, from home), I'm still adjusting to the retirement of my boss of several decades (and the only reason I went back to work when asked to). Even after more than a year, there are new things to get used to with a new boss. Even though it was the right time, saying good-bye to our canine companion Biscuit still hurts much more than a little.

And my own physical condition leaves a lot to be desired. While I feel so much better after April's knee replacement, to get there I had to give up several things I loved doing and that kept me in great physical condition. And let's not talk about the more than 15 pounds I've gained as a result. I went from being in the best physical shape I'd ever been in to being in worse shape than at any time since childhood. Would being more optimistic help here? Probably, but it's not necessarily easy. I am working steadily at getting my strength back while also dealing with knowing that more of my weight gain may have come from emotional eating rather than lack of exercise. Having lost 30-plus pounds at one other time in my life tells me that I can do it. It also tells me that it won't be easy. Note to self: Try to feel more optimistic about succeeding.

Should I offer resolutions for this new new year of my life? Would "be more optimistic" count? Would "blogging more than once a year"? Spending less time on social media and more time in creative pursuits? Keeping the house and environs neater and more organized? All the resolutions that come to mind are based on improvements, suggesting there is a lot that needs fixing. Which I know, when it come right down to it, there is.

So let's start small, with putting up another blog post before 2019. And add a photo or two next time.

Another Year Counted

I've been pondering the passing of time as I think of something from my past and realize that it was 40 or more years ago. When I was a kid, 40 years seemed an eternity. I could not imagine myself 40 years later. Heck, I couldn't imagine even turning 40, but then I grew up with Jack Benny's always turning 39. Jack Benny? Talk about dating myself! Watching Mitch Miller on the black-and-white television. Listening to Andy Williams or Bobby Darin on the huge stereo console with speakers on each side and on which one could stack multiple records to be dropped and played one by one. Damn! Those things take me back, forget 40, but 55 years.

And I think I'm old when I ask if someone remembers the Caravan (Home of the Humpburger) here in Charlottesville. Or the Chinese Dragon out Fontaine Avenue Extended where a friend learned to tell the gender of an unborn child by whether the mother's face changed during pregnancy. I was abroad for my second pregnancy, but said friend nailed that older son would be just that, a son. Those things only take me back about 30 years.

If you've visited this blog before around this time of year, you've seen that with a birthday six months away from New Year's Day, I have a tendency to think I should evaluate any resolutions I made six months ago and/or make some birthday resolutions for the six months that start that day. Of course, my New Year's resolutions have fallen off in recent years. My sole resolution for 2017 was somewhat fuzzy in that it was to try to live up to the sentiment on a Spartan race t-shirt I got for Christmas: TELL ME AGAIN I CAN'T. I guess I was hoping that in 2017 I would be brave or braver, set goals or higher goals and, whatever, accomplish more or accomplish it better. I'm not sure why I might have been feeling that way, though it could well have been that I was feeling lazy about resolutions  and using the shirt was the easy way out.

As for birthday resolutions, I noted in last year's birthday blog post that I was going to keep them private. That suggests that I made at least one, but if I did, I've now forgotten it or them. That's actually a good strategy--keep them private even from myself. Or, more pessimistically, there are said to be some memory issues with aging, not that I am.

Resolutions to keep for the next six months, written down so that I can hold myself accountable? I'm in a work wellness program in which I can get $250 if I continue to eat the amount of protein I should 20 days each month and do something creative for eight hours each month. The challenge ends in December, so keeping with those could be one resolution. I'm registered to run a half marathon in November, trusting the sons who say that if I can run a ten miler as I did in March I can run three more miles and make it a half. Let's make that a second resolution. Given that these cover just six months, two seems a reasonable number.

So much forbirthday eve musings. Tomorrow, I'll get to see what the coming year holds according to The Washington Post's daily horoscope. That's sometimes good for a laugh.

Resolution or Re-Solution?

Over the years, I have often posted resolutions for the coming year--the calendar year or the year that starts six months later, on my birthday. I've done better with some sets of resolutions than others. The past couple of years falls into the former. For some lists, I'm sorry I publicized them here so that I or others could remind me just how few of them I accomplished. Here's my sole resolution for 2017.

I'm not sure I can explain what I mean by that, but if you ask, I'll try to come up with something.

About Those Resolutions ...

Can I have a mulligan for recent resolutions such as those I made a year ago or six months ago? A do-over? I don't even want to look back and see what they were. I just know I didn't meet the ones I remember making. I came close on the "run the Charlottesville Ten Miler" one, and I did get a very special medal for running the Jean Ten Miler, but that's only one of several. Oh well (said with appropriate inflection).

Back in March, I reflected on how this has been far from the year I expected. It has since occurred to me that expecting that what I want to happen or do will happen or will get done is perhaps more than a bit conceited. Who am I to tell the deity(ies) that my will be done, not theirs? So let's just say that the year from last year's birthday and the six months from New Year's Day were not what I wanted. I certainly did not want a do-over on rotator cuff repair, especially when it appears that this one was a total tear. In terms of a positive side to the surgery, being unable to do some things I never really got back to after the first shoulder respite is making me realize how much I do want to get back to them, that I miss them more than I had thought. As before, shoulder rehab is making me slow down, but I'm not sure I want to put that forward as a good thing. Slowing down because one has to is far different from slowing down because one wants to. The biggest positive has probably been the reminder of how strong some of my friendships are. I just hope those friends know that if they ever need anything from me, to ask as freely as I may have asked them. That's what friends are for, right?

I go back and forth about whether I should do any sort of resolutions this year. Sixty is something of a milestone birthday after all. I'll potentially have to check one box down on a survey-type question of how old I am. I should be eligible for a wider range of discounts should I remember to ask about them. (I had to show my ID once to prove to the clerk I was over 55.) I don't expect I shall feel any wiser. What besides wisdom is supposed to come with growing old? Nothing immediately comes to mind. Wait! Isn't forgetfulness age-related at least stereotypically? Perhaps that's why I can't recall any other accompaniments of aging.

So, if you're waiting for some resolutions about which you can nag me throughout the coming year, they aren't coming today. I'll still be 59 tomorrow and the next day and even the day after that. Three whole days! That seems plenty of time to go back and forth a bit more.

Hello, Birthday, My Old Friend...

I'm heading to the gym for some shoulder rehab and my post-workout shower. If you show up on your birthday, they give you a coupon for a free smoothie. After that, I could, if I wanted to, pick up a free pastry at Panera and a free coffee at Starbucks before heading to the quilt store for 20 percent off my entire purchase of regularly priced items. All of those are good all month long, so I don't need to pack it all into one day.

As for the day, I'm not at all sure how to interpret The Washington Post horoscope's "if today is your birthday" item. In case you don't get or read the Post, here it is:

This year you might find yourself on the fence. If you jump off it, you can see how to merge opposing ideas by focusing on the root of the issue. There will be a push-pull in relationships. You will need to establish your boundaries and deal with issues suck as resentment and guilt. You will appreciate the process when you look at the results. If you are single, you will meet someone of importance after August. Get ready! If you are attached, you will be sharing more of yourselves with each other.

Sounds like a pretty ordinary year to me, but ordinary can be good. So can adventures, but they run more of a risk than ordinary does.

I usually spend some birthday time assessing whether I'm meeting the resolutions I made seix months ago for the birth of the new year. I looked, and I didn't really make any, which means I'm right on track to meet all of them.

For my 49th birthday and the advent of my 50th year of life, I made a list of 50 things to do. I managed to accomplish most of them. I'm honestly not sure if I could come up with a list of 60. I decided, then, to go for quality rather than quantity. A dozen things, or one per month, seemed a lot more doable in both  creation and execution. Because the first dozen I jotted down were all in the artsy-creative vein, I decided I need to expand my horizons with four things in each of three areas: Artsy-Creative, Physical, and Not Artsy-Creative nor Physical. So here they are. Making them public makes me accountable for accomplishing them or having a good reason why I didn't.

The Artsy-Creative things are all things I haven't really tried before. While I have needle-felted and felted items I knitted or crocheted (technically, this is fulling, not felting), I have never wet felted. This means starting with fleece and finishing with felt. This seems like a good year to play with that. I would like to make (bind) a decent book. The few I've done weren't really bound; the pages came from folding and there was no binding. When I reorganized my studio, I realized just how many wine corks and labels I have saved over the years. I'm going to have to do something with them. I also have a box of things I have picked up, mostly on trips. A lot of them are spoons. I kid you not, I found a spoon in the street just about everywhere we went in our 2009 adventure in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Europe. I'm thinking I should make a sculpture.

The Physical areas is where I reserve the right not to do something if my shoulder will not permit it. The two that fall into that category are doing a pull-up, just one, though more would also be nice. I'd also like to climb a rope, which can be done mostly using one's legs. Still, if doing it would be shoulder-risky, it's not gonna happen. Younger Son suggested that I climb to the tallest point in the three states in which I've lived. Granite Peak in Montana is a technical climb and carries the warning of possible death. No, thank you. The one in Kentucky, Black Mountain, is on private land and requires a special permit. Too much trouble. I'll stick with Mt. Rogers in southwest Virginia. It's supposed to be doable as a day hike. Finally, I want to run the Charlottesville Ten Miler in the spring. That should be very doable if I can manage to run through the winter without injury.

Not Artsy-Creative nor Physical things start with reading (for the third time) George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire, aka Game of Thrones. I'll probably do this late in the year, though if a release date is given for the sixth book in the series, I'll time the re-read to lead into the new book. I am almost embarrassed to say that despite being a second degree black belt in Myo Sim kendo, I've never watched Seven Samurai, Sanjuro, or Yojimbo, three classics. We actually have all of them on DVD, so I'll be watching them this year. I do like writing but do not make time for it on a regular basis. I'm going to try to put up one blog post per week and include with it a photo I've taken. Yeah, we'll see how many weeks I make. Finally, I have The Art of Zentangle, a book with various zentangle exercises. I may not manage one per week, but I will manage one for each month. You can see what a zentangle is here. I know that these last two are perilously close to the idea of Artsy-Creative, but it's my list, my rules.

And now, after a quick proofing, I'm off to the gym!

Delay of Gratification

I'm still waffling about the whole resolution thing. Part of me wants to curl up and hide because the responsibility of keeping any resolution seems far too heavy. Part of me disagrees. So I'll make it short and sweet. Since I have been saying that physical things I'd like to accomplish such as run a half marathon, do a pull-up (some people say I will still be able to try; others, that having torn a rotator cuff I kiss pull-ups good-bye), or use the OCR jungle gym in progress in the yard will wait until 2016, I resolve to be ready in 2016. This means lots of things, mental and physical, certainly enough to fill one year.

I have been bad about including photos lately. This is the OCR jungle gym mentioned above. Since this photo was taken, crosspieces have been added to one side for climbing up to the top. Said crosspieces are about three feet apart. The cargo net that will occupy another side is underway in the basement. The whole thing had better be done by 2016.

You Say You Want a Resolution...

This is the time of year when I traditionally look at last year's or July 1's resolutions and consider how I've done with them. Then I make a new batch or propose a new direction in which to live. I'm just not in the mood for that this year, chiefly because the past half year has been a wee bit or more crappy. The last good, full workout I got was almost exactly six months ago. In no small part because of that, I can no longer wear most of the pants I fit into six months ago. Although I have somewhat gotten used to asking for help, it sucks still to be doing it on a more-than-daily basis. I tell myself that there's no direction in which to go save for "up" (there's no comeback without a setback), but really, truly believing that is more difficult. Still, there are some hours left in 2014 and 24 in January 1, 2015. I may still be able to wrestle my angst into something useful. As the song I started out with ends, "Don't you know it's gonna be alright." Resolutions or none, I imagine it will be.