There went another 11 months. Let’s face it. With no feedback, I’m not really interested.
Well
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Another Random Post
So I’m posting five months or so after my last post, which is a little better than I’ve been doing.
I’m pretty much having an idle day as I wait for the Postal Service to deliver my next junk Lifeline phone. This is the worst Postal Service route I’ve ever seen. I’m getting the email notifications about my phone and also the ones about regular deliveries (“Informed Delivery” for the regular mail). That’s a nice Internet thing, but it doesn’t mean all of it will be delivered. Yesterday, I don’t think the carrier came by at all. That wouldn’t be a big surprise. Other times, some of the stuff in the Informed Delivery images didn’t show up in real life. Delivery time is anywhere from 3 to 7 p.m. except when it’s some other time.
I’m living quietly right now. I feel a good bit better since the humidity went away. Adapting to the cold (20 degrees or so below average) doesn’t bother me, but I wish we’d had autumn. I’ve always liked that, but we only seem to get summer and winter nowadays.
I’ve been using some of my quiet time to work out ways to travel and/or go camping car-free and almost money-free. The travel part (such as going “back to the hills” for Thanksgiving) is easy by GoBus or Greyhound, so long as my family or friend has cars available to get me around. The next stage of that is to take my folding bicycle along for local travel, for example, if/when I go see the Smithsonian (mostly free) in Washington, DC. The challenge will be to go camping, but that’s probably not as hard as it sounds.
California is burning. That’s tragic, and one fire has killed over 40 people. They are more of a loss than all the property. Wildfires, in general, are making me think twice about moving west. I know that a dry climate is better for my lung ailments, but not if I’m downwind of a big fire even for a few days. Some of the people on my Facebook group for one of those ailments have benefitted from salty (ocean) air. Maybe I’ll think about that. It would be easy enough to take a Greyhound somewhere near an ocean and camp long enough to find out if that helps me.
Vote counting from the election a week ago (November 6) continues. I don’t believe immigrants or much of anyone voted fraudulently, but I’d like to see the Florida contests re-counted and investigated because the Broward County Election Supervisor, Brenda Sipes, has been shown in court to have cheated a Democrat, Tim Canova, out of many primary votes when he ran against Debbie Wasserman Schultz, then the chair of the Democratic National Committee. Despite that court case, she has kept that job.
I expect to eat a meal cooked by a real cook (my brother) at Thanksgiving. I also have a trip planned for a commemoration of the Gettysburg Address earlier that week. That ought to be a real change of pace.
Birthday Post
Happy birthday to me! I thought I’d post a picture without the glasses because it’s a lot more effort to get a good picture wearing them. I don’t feel like firing up the tablet and walking around or going outside to get a good picture that doesn’t show the screen reflected in the glasses, then transferring it to the laptop that I use to write. It’s my birthday, after all. I’m not working for it. After 45 years wearing glasses, they still annoy me daily.
Last year was a “round number” birthday, and next year is the youngest age I can collect Social Security (rather than SSI). This one is just another birthday, but people will want to mark it.
There’s a story on WeatherUnderground (.com)’s news feature this morning (by Linda Lam) saying that our weather here in Ohio will be near “normal” this summer. That would be different. We rarely have temperatures close to the average. This month, for example, every day so far has been ten degrees or more above average. Throughout March and April, almost every day was that much colder than average. “Normal” temperatures would be a great relief, but I’m not holding my breath.
I’d still like to have a car (hatchback, small station wagon, or minivan), but I’m not getting any momentum about looking for one. If you know where a decent-running one is for sale cheap, please advise. It doesn’t have to be pretty, but I can’t cope with rust that lets outside air or exhaust fumes into the cabin.
Re-posting Excellent Essay
Because she says it better than I can.
The Bureaucracy of Health Insurance
So I keep reading how poor people waste money. I don’t know those people, but I deal with health insurance that wastes both money and time. In my case, it’s Medicare, Medicaid, and Molina.
So this week, a good doctor discovered a mistake made by a not-so-good doctor many years ago that affects my breathing. I could complain about all the doctors between who have not paid attention to my issue, but that’s not my point here. The good doctor knows what to do about this. I need relatively minor surgery. I easily understood the problem and solution, and I agree. So why did we not schedule that? Insurance! It is necessary that I take a course of antibiotics, even though there’s no infection. Otherwise, the surgery will not be approved. That makes no sense in the real world, but some bureaucrat doesn’t trust my doctor nearly as much as I do. Or maybe someone, somewhere, just insists on making a few bucks for a pharmaceutical company whether I need the product or not. What really worries me is that this puts my approval for the surgery off until next year. Health insurance is a politcal football, and I hope I don’t get kicked around by some new rule.
It’s been a long year
So, as you can see, my appearance has changed since I last wrote here. I have glasses I like much better, and I’m without a mustache (for more than a few days) for the first time in over forty years.
I don’t have pictures of my new bike here, either. I bought another folding bike, and this one is an e-bike.
That is, it has a battery and an electric motor to give my riding a boost. Given how I lost endurance in the humidity last summer, I felt I needed the help, and I got my hands on enough money in August. This really helps! I took the pictures above in a park about ten miles from home, and I rode the bike both ways!
I decided to deliberately buy a low-end e-bike as a “starter” unit (they’re not nearly as cheap as a low-end “regular” bike), and that’s what I got. That’s okay so far. For anyone who has trouble riding up hills or going longer distances, this is a game changer. I’m sure that what I have is not the best e-bike a person could own, but it might be enough for me. If you want one, I’d be glad to talk (or email or DM or whatever) to you about the topic. The biggest point I can make so far is the same as it is with other bicycles. Make sure it fits.
I continue my work on health issues. I finally changed my primary care. The new doctor (nurse practitioner with a doctorate in that) is, at the very least, much more willing to actually do things. She also communicates, in both directions, better than average and is not afraid of me as a “complex” patient.
If you ever saw my mother’s hearing aid, you’ll recognize this.
That is the “demo” version of a hearing aid I’m working toward getting. It’s a lot like Mom’s hearing aid because it’s a bone conduction aid, which is the right kind for my hearing loss. I can tell you from having the demo for a week that it does me a lot of good, even in a big, loud crowd. Those cute little in-the-ear units you may have seen advertised on TV are not what I need; this is. Here’s the twist. That band holding the aid to my bone is outdated. Nowadays, the unit is called a BAHA, or Bone Attached Hearing Aid. It uses a titanium “abutment” that is implanted in the bone behind the ear. That’s what causes the delay in getting these, but also what makes it so much better than the old ones. I’ll have surgery the first of the year. After three months for the unit to bind to the bone, I’ll get the aid and a remote control. That would have been a fantasy for Mom.
My breathing improved immediately when the humidity dropped, as it always has. That gave me a nice break for a couple of weeks, then the Ohio weather changed, as it always does. Now that it’s colder, I’m still breathing well, but my sinuses are doing their usual winter antics. I’ll make a point of it that this is easier than the lung stuff. Anyhow, there’s more.
I have finally been diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, or at least a “high A1C” (same thing). I am using medicine for this and trying to drastically change my eating habits. If you know me, you know the bad news is that I have a big job ahead with eating better. The good news is that I feel better a good bit of the time. For right now, I’m improvising. My eating is stranger than ever for right now, but the job of improving is under way.
On yet another topic, I’ve gone back to work on my family tree. My 23andme DNA test came back 100% Northern and Western European, about half of which was British Isles. I find that hard to believe. If any of my close relatives have had that test or have it in the future, I’d love to compare results.
The Kind of Thing I Think About–Repost
The Samaritans spark a linguistic debate
This kind of thing gives my brain something to do.
Be Happier by Studying Happiness
Happiness seems to be on everyone’s mind. Yes, we’re on a quest to be happier and we’re trying to game the system. No, it may not actually be helpful to overall happiness, who knows. But we’re curious, right? I decided that I will start this post as my one stop shop for all the quality […]
via Happiness research: everything useful we’ve managed to gather so far — Thinking Clearly
New glasses
I thought this pair was smaller, but now I see they’re not, at least not by much. I picked the new ones right after the doctor dilated my eyes. I couldn’t see much and my eyes hurt bad. This is what came of that.
Where I’ve been
Sitting right here, half awake
Incidents and Accidents 