Loot

Assumption Abbey Fruitcake

A couple of weeks ago someone in the family was soliciting Christmas wish lists. I usually have a hard time with such requests, being as I don't need anything, or I want something unobtainable, like a rocketship. I don't know why but this year I didn't have a problem, fruitcake was at the top of my list, and my family delivered. It's delicious. Nobody else in my family likes them, or maybe they've never had the opportunity to try one. Am I willing to share? Hmmm. I dunno, maybe no one will ask for a piece. Kind of a problem since I am trying to lose weight, but if I hold it down to one slice a week I should be okay.

These cakes are made in the Ozark mountains in southern Missouri. The monks have a page about their operation but it is a bit spare. Looking for more info, I found a wonderful story on Feast. Therein the author mentions one Jean-Pierre Augé who:

"was teaching cooking classes in St. Louis and working as the chef for Mark Twain Bank."

Mark Twain Bank

Why does a bank need a chef? And where did they get the name? Did Mark Twain eventually become a banker? What the heck? Turns out the Mark Twain Bank operated from 1976 to 1997 when it merged with a bigger bank. Near as I can tell there is no real connection to Mark Twain the man.

MODCONS - Microwave Oven Timer

Emerson Microwave Oven

MODCONS - Modern Conveniences. Real Estate jargon. I've got a microwave oven I use for basically all my 'cooking'. The only thing I really cook in it is scrambled eggs - 2 eggs, a splash on milk, whip with a fork for a minute and then 2 minutes in the microwave. If I put in a bit too much milk the bottom of the eggs is still wet, which is better than when I put in too little and the egg gets cooked all the way through but sticks to the bowl, and cooked egg is the devil to get off. Scotch Brite scrubber and elbow grease does the trick. I keep thinking I should get some anti-stick spray or something but it hasn't happened yet.

Anyway, the timer that runs the microwave oven. If you want to heat something for 2 minutes, simply shut the door and press 2. If you want less than a minute, or anytime that is not exact number of minutes, you need to press TIME, and then the digits of the number of seconds (and minutes) you want, like 3, 0 and then you press START. If you really want the oven to be a modern convenience it should have something like a 5X or 10x button. Press the 10x button and 3 and you get 30 seconds. To do minutes and seconds maybe a + (Plus) button. Press +, the number of minutes, then press 10x and a number and off you go. Of course it adds two more buttons to the control panel, but there are already a bunch of buttons on there I don't use so they could go away. Until I need them.

New Things

I'm Nervous About This One - Massey Clutch Rebuild - Instant Reverse Part 2
Watch Wes Work

I'm posting this because of the comments Wes makes in the first minute. He likes doing new things, not doing the same thing over and over again. Looking back I have to say I am very similar. As to whether other people enjoy doing the same thing over and over again, I can't say. It's an alien concept. Oh, I can do repetitive work, but only if there is a goal in sight. It might be months away, but as long as there is an end point I can apply myself. Or maybe I just never found a repetitive job that engaged me enough to keep after it. Trouble shooting computer systems kept me engaged for ten years or so, but it was hardly repetitive. Every problem was new. I would have kept on but I was never able to connect with anyone who wanted my particular skills.

I enjoy watching his videos, not sure why. Maybe because they are comforting. I used to do mechanical work before I got into computers. I'm certainly not going to try and tackle any of the projects he takes on.

Sidewalk Dream

I'm walking up the street on the sidewalk. The street slopes slightly downhill towards the river. I am on the left side because there is no sidewalk on the right side. I want to cross to the right side of the street as I am facing uphill. I get to a traffic light but it's a complicated intersection and the lights don't give you enough time to cross the street. People in cars going downhill sometimes unintentionally get in the left lane but they want to go straight so they switch lanes in the middle of the intersection which is unnerving if you're in the middle of the crosswalk.

While this dream was going on, I was sure I knew where this street was. I was so sure of this that when I woke up I pulled up Google Maps to see if I could locate any such place in Portland, because I was likewise sure it was in Portland. But the more I looked and the more I thought about it I couldn't think of any such place.

Kind of strange that I had three vivid dreams within 24 hours. I was feeling kind of puny the last couple of days so that may have something to do with it. But I wasn't running a fever, least ways not enough to notice. I don't know what it was, but it seems to happen periodically.

Walking the Dog

Dog Water?

I have upped my walking to 30 minutes. It's been a year since I got my new artificial hip joint installed and while I could walk comfortably since shortly after the operation, walking for a few minutes would cause the joint to start aching. After a while I was able to walk around the block (ten minutes), but this summer I have started tackling longer distances, like three or four miles. Great achievement, but it left me so wiped out I would need a couple of days to recover. Sad, very sad, as the great and benevolent Donald likes to say. But now I've been doing 30 minute walks every morning and all is well.

I go early in the morning, before breakfast and before I've taken a shower because if I wait till those two chores are done, life takes over and a walk takes the back burner which means it doesn't happen. While I am out, I will usually see about a dozen people, some are working (roofers and landscapers mostly), some are just out walking and about half of these are walking their dogs.

Today I noticed this little puddle adjacent to a paved walking path. Been by here every day for a week and today was the first time I noticed it. It looks like someone deliberately made this hole for drinking water for dogs, but it has a definite brown tinge from the adjacent asphalt paving. Doesn't seem like a good idea, but if it was really bad I suspect dog's wouldn't drink out of it.

Talking to Jack about his dog Ruthy yesterday. It seems like Ruthy likes to eat cherry pits she finds on the ground. Jack's neighbor has a cherry tree that hangs over the fence, and there's a cherry tree at a nearby school where they go for walks. So what's the big deal? Dogs eat all kinds of garbage, that's how they get that wonderful dog breath. Well, seems cherry pits are full of cyanide. If you just swallow them whole it's not a big deal, but if you crunch them up it doesn't take more than a dozen to send you to your maker. The crunch is the key, but dogs like crunchy things, so, yeah, you wanna take precautions.

Wasn't there a tune called Walking the Dog? Yes, yes there was:

Rufus Thomas - Walking The Dog (1964)
Reelblack One

Happy Birthday to Me

Faucet Aerator Thread Gauge

Wednesday July 3 went to Cafe Nell for lunch. Had an order of huevos rancheros, my favorite dish there. It's kind of a foo-foo place, but I've gotten old and slow so I enjoy it. Stopped at older son's compartment and his kitchen faucet had gotten kind of wonky, so we walked half a mile over to Ace Hardware where they had a rack of about hundred different aerators. They also had a thread sizing gauge very similar to the one shown above. I swear every one of those threads was something demented. One was like 55/64" by 27 threads per inch. The Amazon blurb reads: "Identify thread pitch & diameter for 20 of the most common aerator sizes from 1/4-18 to 15/16-27". I think ours ended up being something like 15/16" by 23. It took a while to sort through the selection but we eventually found one. $10. I cracked wise that back in the day they probably cost 15 cents, and it turns out I was about right:

Curent Price of Gold	$2,300.00
Price in 1970	$35.00
Ratio	65.71
Price of Aerator	$10.00
Equivalent 1970 price	$0.15

So I had a nice meal, went for a walk, explored the arcane world of kitchen faucet threads, fixed something and got to complain about the gummint. All in all a pretty nice day.

Misfits Rule

My dream died, and now I'm here
Sabine Hossenfelder

I enjoyed this video. I feel we are somewhat kindred spirits. When I was working with computers, I was only interested in making them work which mostly involved debugging code and connecting wires. Since there was no end to the supply of problems, I thought I could keep on doing it indefinitely. Turns out wasn't the case. Looking back, I think I was like the guy who fixes up old cars because he can, but meanwhile the world is churning out new cars as fast as they can, so there are fewer and fewer old cars, and more importantly fewer and fewer people who are willing to pay to have them repaired. Everybody wants new cars that don't require the services of a mechanic.

Charlie Horse

The Song That Doesn't End It Goes On and On My Friend - Who remembers ?
WR

I got a charley horse in my right calf in the middle of night last night, and something weird happened with my right hand around the same. I'm not quite sure what it was, my leg had woken me up from a sound sleep, so I was pretty groggy, so 12 hours later 'something weird' is the best I can do. I mentioned it at lunch today which led to talk about the difference, if any, between a muscle spasm, a charley horse and a cramp. I don't think there is any, really, but to me a muscle spasm is a momentary kind of thing, a charley horse lasts longer and is annoying, and a cramp is painful and disabling.

Anyway all that led to Charlie Horse, the character on The Sheri Lewis Show. That's him being the ring leader in the above video.

Gloves

Old Gloves

I threw my old gloves away today. I was proud of those gloves. I've been using them for years whenever I had some work to do. Admitted there wasn't a lot of work, not like I was putting in 40 hours a week. I'd pick up a little project, or my wife would decide something needed to be done and I'd put my gloves on and go tackle it. I dunno, it was probably 20 years ago when I realized cuts were taking longer to heal and maybe I should start wearing gloves whenever I am working with tools, and so I did.

If you, or least I, don't take particular care of your gloves they will wonder off into the weeds and the next time you need them you will spend so much time looking for them that you will decide to just buy another pair. What do leather gloves cost these days? $20? Shoot that's lunch money. So I started taking care of where I kept them. Right now my newer gloves are in one of the pockets of my jacket. My knit hat is in the other.

I like leather gloves. I've tried plastic and rubber gloves a couple of times and I can't stand them. Can't explain it. I would rather get my hands dirty and risk getting a cut than wear rubber gloves. I can tolerate dishwashing gloves because they aren't skin tight. I still don't use them.

Most of the finger tips on my old gloves are missing. Still, they comforted me. I am sad to see them go, but I have newer gloves and they are only missing one fingertip and I wear them. I probably haven't warn my old gloves in a couple of years. Time to let them go.

Under the Weather

Under the Weather

I was feeling pretty rotten yesterday evening. I drank a couple of cans of ginger ale and I was able to get some sleep. I am feeling a little better today, not 100%, but better. The only reason I mention this is that it seems to happen every couple of months and I thought I ought to start keeping track. Yes, I could put it in my calendar, or in a separate log somewhere, but the next time it happens I would need to remember where I put that note. If everything is in this blog, then there's only one place to look for anything and that's right here, so here it is.

Coincidentally I saw the doctor yesterday for a Medicare 'wellness checkup', which mostly asks a bunch of questions like 'are you dying?' I suspect they feed this into their great computer which will chew on this data and spit out some recommendations, which the yahoos in charge will turn into some kind of political propaganda. 

They drew some blood and they will test it, but I expect that all they will find is that my potassium is low, as usual .

From The Wager by David Grann, we get this bit about the origin of the phrase 'under the weather':

(When ailing seamen were shielded belowdecks from the adverse elements outside, they were said to be "under the weather.")

 

Scavenger

Rhymes with Orange

That's me.

Aorta

Aorta
The Aortic valve is the exit valve from the heart

Twenty odd years ago I ended up in the hospital because of atrial fibrillation*. Doc prescribed some meds, things calmed down and I went home. I've been taking the drugs ever since and my heart seems to be pumping along just fine. Doc also discovered I had an enlarged aorta. The risk is that a larger blood vessel is at greater risk of bursting due to high blood pressure**, so I take drugs to keep my blood pressure under control and I go in for an echo-cardiogram to make sure the aorta hasn't gotten any larger.

I had an echo-cardiogram today and the exam seemed a little more extensive than usual. She's running the probe over my chest, but then she goes around my left side, up to my neck and down towards my stomach. I always thought the aorta was only a few inches long and adjacent to the heart, so now that I'm home I gotta look it up and I find that the thing is a monster. Huh.

The first part of the exam was to check on a specific area, but the rest of the exam was 'protocol'. It makes sense, I suppose, if you are going to all the trouble to set up the scan, may as well make it complete. Who knows what kind of other potential problems you might encounter, especially on an old dude.

Old is relative. A friend of my wife went to work for a guy 20 years ago. The guy is 88 now. Who'd a thunk that starting work for a guy who is 68 years old could turn into a career? Still going, I dunno how strong, but still going.

* as opposed to ventricular fibrillation which is generally fatal.

** if the aorta ruptures I would be dead within minutes. Good way to go if you are going.

Draft

I've put up 517 posts so far this year. There are also a couple dozen posts I started but haven't gotten around to finishing. Problem is that some of these posts require a well functioning brain. Many posts don't: steal a picture, write a caption and a couple of sentences about it and move on. Some require more than two brain cells in order to communicate what's going on in my head, and if my head is foggy, that doesn't happen, so those posts become drafts. Very sad. Maybe things will improve now that my hip joint got replaced.

Anti-Fudge

I've been lying low since last Wednesday's incident and my hip joint has apparently recovered. I was worried there for a couple of days that maybe I had done some real damage, but apparently not. As a bonus I tripped over the Peloton in the dark and fell down. That didn't seem to bother my hip at all, so that's good. My foot is now all kinds of technicolor. It's is a real conversation starter whenever I run into someone when I am not wearing my shoes, which is pretty much all the time now since it still hurts like a sum-bitch to put them on.

Fudge

I feel like I am back to square zero. I started going for walks around the block, ten minutes, last Saturday. Everything seemed to be fine. Wednesday I am just finishing my walk, I'm about 100 yards from my house and my hip starts hurting. When I got back to the house it was hurting like it was before the joint replacement surgery. Two days later and it still hurts like a sum bitch. Fudge. 

Tuesday

I walked around the block today, third day in a row. Takes about ten minutes. My daughter says I haven't done it in a couple of years. I don't recall. I do remember talking to my wife around Christmas that my leg was getting worse and I should probably do something about it, and then for the next six months it got progressively worse to the point that walking out to the truck parked out on the street was an expedition. Anyway, the new hip joint seems to be working.

Firemen Carry

My wife recorded these short videos last month when they hauled me off to the ER. For your amusement.


Hauling me away to the ER part 1


Hauling me away to the ER part 2

Suburban Life

I don't know why we decided to remodel the kitchen while we both recovering from joint replacement surgery. It was my wife's idea, but I went along with it. I mean it sounds insane, but do you want to be inconvenienced by three separate disasters, each of which is going to consume two months of your time, or do you schedule them all for the same time and so get all your suffering compressed into two months of extra-strength suffering? We are both getting around pretty good, I would not be afraid of trying to walk from the parking lot all the way to the back of Home Depot, something I wouldn't even consider before my surgery. I was in pretty bad shape then.

So why am I telling you all this? Well, I will get to it, I hope. So after months of planning and discussion, the actual hammer-hits-the-nail remodeling will begin in a week. We wanted to clear out all the furniture from the upper two floors. We did this for two reasons, one it gets the stuff out of the way of the mechanics who are going to be doing the work, and we don't have to worry about it being damaged while the remodeling operation is going on. (Damage I can live with, it's the endless recriminations that I don't want).

So when you empty two floors of your house, where do you put all the furniture and stuff? Do not underestimate the amount of stuff. We've been here 30 years, more or less, and boy oh boy, do we have stuff.

What we did is we hired a moving company to shift the furniture in the house. All the stuff on the main floor goes to the basement, all the stuff in the top floor goes to the main floor. The upstairs remodel isn't externsive, paint and carpet mostly if I recall. It should be done in a week. Then the stuff on the main floor can be moved back to the top floor, leaving the main floor clear for the remodel.

So the movers came today and shift everything down one floor and now the basement is cosy, to put it mildly.

Since the last surgery I have been sitting in an office chair to watch TV. It's not nearly as comfortable as the recliner I usually use, but I was trying to be a good boy and follow the doc's instructions and don't bend my hips more than 90 degrees and getting out of a recliner usually means going into a crouch when you rock forward to get out of the chair.

How-so-some-ever, when the boys shifted the furniture, the office chair I had been using to watch TV got shuffled off somewhere (who knows? how did we get so much stuff?) so when I went to look at the TV in its new location and contemplate having to connect all the cables, I bethinks to have a seat while I mutilate on this job and I plop down into the recliner. When I realize what I have done I immediately think 'bad boy' followed instantly by 'this seat is pretty damn comfortable'. Later on I found myself at my desk with no memory of how I got here. Blame that on not getting any sleep last night.

Anyway, while I was reclining I also thought about how one could get out of this chair without bending more than 90 degrees. You might be able to do it by just getting up in the normal manner, I should try it. The other way I thought of would be to slide to the floor and then roll onto your hands and knees, crawl across the floor until you reach something you can use to pull yourself up. I have used that method before I had surgery. That hip wasn't good for much.

Aches and Pains

Just some observations on my life in the recuperation lane.

Every since my surgery last Friday little aches and pains have been showing up in various places. This may have been happening since my first surgery just over three weeks ago, but my memory of that time has been lost in an anesthetic haze.

Sometimes half of my hand or foot will fall asleep. My hand or foot will be divided by a line that runs between the third and fourth digits - i.e. the outer most two digits and that side of the appendage will fall asleep and I'll get that tingling sensation you get when an arm or leg falls asleep. Diligent flexing of the affected appendage will generally wake it up and the tingling will go away.

Occasionally I will get a cramp in my legs. Before my first surgery cramps in my calves were  becoming more frequent. Since then they have diminished considerably. Now and again I will get a mild one in the back of my left thigh, the one that didn't cut into.

Last night I got a muscle spasm around my right hip joint. This was almost in the same place as when my hip dislocated itself a week and a half ago. That was a bit concerning. The pain hung around for an hour or so but this morning it's gone.

Yesterday I got a pain in my right shoulder. That was weird, why should I be getting a pain there?

Cramps are more intense versions of muscle spasms. Neither one is under conscious control, but cramps are intense, painful and will get my full attention. Muscle spasms are more like little curiousities - huh, look at that. Cramps can generally be cleared by stretching the affected muscle, though sometimes it takes a lot of work. Muscle spasms generally go away by themselves after a few seconds.

Oxycodone

It's been five days since I've had a shower and my wife tells me I'm getting a little ripe, so we're going to try and get rid of some of the stink this afternoon. I've had very little energy which is not surprising given the second round of surgery, but I also haven't been getting much sleep. Pain is negligible, but sleep is elusive. Two nights I tried going without an oxycodone, but it didn't work. I finally gave up around 3 AM and took one of these prescription opioids. That allowed me to sleep but I wonder what's going on. Am I getting hooked on this stuff? Insidious is what it is.

I suppose I'll need to keep taking it until my hip has healed properly just so I can get enough sleep. Then maybe I'll be able to tolerate going without sleep for a couple of days until I relearn how to sleep without it.