Adventures In MN Driving

 Let's just start by saying yesterday was a bear, OK? I'd had Paul over the night before to shovel us out after several inches of accumulated snow/ice accumulation, plus everything the plow could shove across our access to the street. But I had a doctor's appointment, and needed to be on the road by noon. Paul had left the car for me to do, and considering how cold that night was, and how much he'd shoveled, it seemed the sensible decision.

I started dressing for the job and was outside by 11. He had made sure the doors to the car were not iced shut, so I could get in to access the scraper and the jug of super-purple, super-deicer to -25 stuff for the windshield squirters. They often freeze solid with the plain blue stuff you get topped up during your oil change. Minnesota is tougher than that. He had put some purple in the week before for me, but I'd never get anywhere with that little a dose. I planned to slosh it over the outside of all the windows while I left the car running to warm up.

It helped a tiny bit, but there was so much ice on the windows and wipers and everywhere else that it did not do much good. So I wound up with the broom and the scraper doing what I could in the half hour it took my idling engine to produce enough heat to start to affect the windows.  Yep, that's right, me and my shoulders. Stretching and pushing. "Fun." Two weeks out till surgery, and that's still best possible case. Oh yeah, and one morning Tylenol, because that's my limit on pain control. Except by the time I finally got the car legal to drive, I needed to head back in for both a hot shower and another Tylenol.

Of course when I got back to the car, I had to run it again because what had been clear had iced over again. We were getting freezing rain. OK maybe just freezing drizzle, but it sure accumulated back on the windows fast, and on the wiper blades, and kept me working them and the squirters the rest of the day until suppertime. I had more errands to run, non-negotiable ones, because I'd been keeping inside for days, and both a needed medication and some live culture yogurt, also needed, had run out. 

By the time I got out of the doctor's office, which included a stop at the lab for blood tests, the freezing deposits on all the windows had started the scraping process all over again. Uff da! I had a 15 mile leg to my next stop, and that included both up and down a steep river valley. I turned the car on again to get heat, and grabbed my scraper. Lucky for me, the lady in the next car had time before her appointment, and stepped out with a monster scraper and made quick work of the accumulation, though she was shocked to find it had all built up in a mere hour. (I guess she had left from a garage to get here.) My shoulders and I thanked her profusely, and we both went on our ways.

Back on the highway, with a lowered 50 mph speed limit, I waited for a long pause between cars  - never to happen during evening rush hour with commuters returning!!! - and pulled out to do 40... then 35... then 30. The plow and salt trucks had been by because I'd seen one on my drive to the doc, the side of the road I was now on. Going through the next town, I slowed from limit of 30 to 20 on those messy streets, and once I hit the limit of 45 signs I advanced to 30 and kept to that till the next town. A couple SUVs passed me at about 45, thoroughly expected. I kept noting a large truck well behind me and waited for the driver to close the gap and exert mental pressure for me to please-lady-for-gods-sake-hurry-the hell-up-I-have-to-get-moving-here!  But the driver stayed way back. Nobody passed him in order to pass me either. Bends in the road showed a long tail of cars collecting behind the truck, but he kept his distance. Some of them pulled off to go elsewhere at the roundabout, but the rest stayed in line as we went down the steep valley, where I did have a few moments to appreciate the lovely but very heavy accumulation of snow/ice on every tree branch along the road. Exquisite!

I wondered how many of those would be broken come spring. All that snow and now more ice coming? 

A bit further, before the town where I turn to cross the river, I saw lots of colored flashing lights, red, yellow, and blue. I slowed down to pull way over to the shoulder to pass both the stopped snow plow and the oncoming traffic which had to detour into my lane a bit to pass safely. Note on my way back nearly an hour later it was still there, but with another plow on either side of it, front and back, working on some kind of maintenance issue. Then I was the one edging into the oncoming lane and those drivers were on the shoulder.

Even when  everybody was slowing down and the end of the line behind was out of sight behind curves, the truck was still keeping a good distance. I marveled at the driver's patience and good sense. Up ahead was the turn to cross into Wisconsin, and the highway grew to four lanes. I always pull into the right lane there and keep to the speed limit while everybody rushes on their way. Cars passed, and more cars passed. The truck was still keeping a distance to let people pass, but when the crowds left us behind, with now well-salted roads,  I was still doing just under the limit and it slowly climbed the hill and finally passed me.

I waved a salute he'd never see as it passed, especially as I finally read the identity of the freight it was hauling written in huge black letters on the back end of the tank: OXYGEN.

Oh you betcha! Thanks, whoever you were! Much was suddenly explained. If I had a clue who you worked for, specifically, I'd be on the phone singing your praises.  Have the happiest of new Years!

I carefully returned home at suppertime, climbing the hill to finally find the ice had stopped accumulating and the pavement was good for much closer to the limit. By the time the car was emptied and I was sitting down, I was exhausted.  No hauling the garbage bins to the curb - let them wait a week. Nothing was going to stink in this weather and there was room in them for more. I asked Steve to cut the drumsticks off the roasted chicken for me that I'd brought home, too tired even for that. I  had realized that I hadn't eaten since breakfast, and somehow made it through some good ol' Minnesota icy driving, the first like that since we'd moved back north, since last winter was easy.

That bedtime Tylenol couldn't come soon enough.

Binging Hallmark Movies, But......

We only do it this time of year.  So many regular programs are either off the air or repeats. BORING!

Yes, the movies are pretty schlockey, but these days we're up for some romance and happy endings. You don't get to criticize.  11 1/2 months of the year it's cooking shows and bass fishing tournaments for Steve, and news and crime dramas for me plus a bunch of informational things on PBS. And of course we both watch All Creatures there this time of the year too. It's the only season they air it. In addition, since Netflix started airing West Wing, Steve's watching it through for about his 7th time. We had the CD set but that was played so often it got glitchy. For that matter, what they're showing on Netflix is a bit glitchy too.

While I enjoy some of the Hallmark movies during this season, I'm not above being critical of a very badly made one. Last night's was so bad in one way I spent some time online this morning fact checking. The movie is "Christmas Under Wraps." If you can tolerate a bunch of physical impossibilities and a predictable ending - not just the romance part - it's OK. Nobody's going for Oscars here, so just OK. It's about a woman doctor who doesn't get her first/only choice of surgical fellowships, and "settles" for an opening as the only GP in a small Alaska town, 300 miles north of Anchorage. Over Christmas.

If you've never been in cold weather, you might miss the first flaw, not having the visible breath actors exhale turn white as its moisture freezes. I do applaud the very rare movie or show that gets that part right, and of course people's faces turn a bit red along with that. Can't spoil the pretty actress's face and makeup, I guess, so almost NOBODY gets that part right.

Coming from somebody who was driving through St. Paul when Jingle All The Way was being filmed there years ago - in summer - and saw the cotton batting they laid out for snow along sidewalks to cover grass and on top of the green hedges next to the city's library, and almost had an accident from laughing about it, you might not be too critical of the part in this movie where white stuff hung in long fuzzy streamers from green branches. In fact, there was green everywhere in any outside shot, with really bad snow imitations  tossed all around. I'm not talking conifers here, I'm talking fresh green leaves all over the place. However the conifers had their own problems with their coloring. While they do stay green in winter it's not such an electric green as the ones portrayed in this film, and the bark on them isn't the spitting image of a fat poplar tree either, but dark brown and irregular. 

The part of the movie that really drove me nuts was when the Doc's alarm clock went off in the morning and there was full sunshine pouring in through her windows. Now she had to be in the hospital by 8 AM, and she arrived nicely dressed, spiffy clean, hair and makeup done to perfection. We'll presume she had breakfast too, and even had time to stop in at a local shop for coffee and a chat about what kind of milk she needed in hers. So the alarm went off easily more than an hour ahead of her arrival - walking - at work. Yet, full sun. In Alaska. Around winter solstice. 300 miles north of Anchorage.

So I googled the closest town to 300 miles north of Anchorage, went to Weather Underground, and looked up their list for sunrise and set times, in all of 4 categories. They're very thorough. Yes, 300 miles north of Anchorage is still below the Arctic circle where there is a period of no sun (now) and one of no dark. But today the sun would be rising some time around 11, though there would be enough light to see with, about the time this Doc walked into work.

Heck, even here in Minnesota, some few miles north of an imaginary line through the north metro's extended area, so just over 45 degrees north, we almost get a peek of sun just before 8 AM and only on days with no clouds, which incidentally would be our coldest. I'm still waiting for one of those mornings. The clouds have been relentless lately. Yes, light enough to see where the car is, but no sunshine pouring in the windows this early this time of year. Try us in March.

Meanwhile, guys, please don't make such stupid mistakes with your movies. It's put me off Hallmark movies now for a very long time. Maybe even past next holiday season.

I Parked Where?

Steve's new real glasses were finally ready. We're not talking "cheaters" here, but prescription bifocals. He already had 5 cheaters of more or less quality (guess which?) scattered around the house and in the car. Since his cataract surgery a few years ago, when he chose distance vision for his new lenses, he's needed them for reading. He does a lot of reading. Oddly enough with that many pairs, any particular one is not particularly noted when it is set down and where. So of course, they're always "lost", at least long enough to be annoying.

Somewhere in the logic is the assurance that adding three more pairs to the list, being "real" ones, means they will be better kept track of. At any rate, he was approaching the end of the year with insurance money to spend on vision needs. His eye exam was a couple weeks back. It cost less than it might have, leaving a nice pile of insurance funds to spend on glasses before year end. He picked out three frames, each with a different kind of lens. One is for indoor use, clear glass. A second has transition lenses, where he can wear them inside and the minute he steps outside they darken into shades, and back again. The issue with those is they are triggered by UV rays, which auto glass filters out. They always disappointed me when I thought they'd be useful for driving. The third pair was sun glasses in RayBans  frames, great for while in the car and nicely fashionable to boot. When it's not your own money you're spending, and nowhere else it can be spent, it's nice to splurge a bit to look good.

He actually got the notice they were ready for him to come pick up over a week ago. The problem was winter. I mean snow, ice, cold temperatures, my reluctance to poke my head outside with my cold not improving and my need to stay as healthy as possible in order to not delay surgery. Of course there were the seat belts to make usable as well. We almost picked out one day to go the next morning but that turned into my dental appointment. 

We had to be choosy and be sure to get there in early morning. This store is notorious for having a tiny number of motorized shopping cart/scooters. Back when I had to use them to pick up my Dad's medications, before my knees were replaced, there were only two. I had to walk. And of course complain. Now this store has a whole four. It's still hard to arrive any time after ten and plan to find one available and charged. Since they have one entrance on one end of the building and the vision center on the far other end, Steve needs a scooter.

We arrived by 8:30 despite the vision center not opening till 9. Better not to take chances on them being already in use. I usually pull up to the front door, let Steve out and go park in handicap parking which he qualifies for. In good weather he'll scoot out to the car and I'll drive it back into the store. Winter is an issue we've avoided pretty much. Despite it being deep into the x-mas shopping last minute rush, the parking lot wasn't too full when we arrived, and Steve pointed out a really close parking spot, right behind the wide curb on the other side of the road separating parking from driving, so I aimed for that spot. That was the first mistake.

 One of the flaws with my low seat in my car is the vision on the passenger side to where the car aligns with the stripes. I tend to park nearer the passenger side than the driver's side in any given parking spot. Mostly it's not a problem as I'm usually alone in the car. I get plenty of room that way, though occasionally I need to back out a bit and move over. I had that feeling when I'd pulled forward, and asked Steve how I was lined up.

He pronounced my position to be perfect. That was another mistake.

After he stepped out, he shut the door but not completely. Turning back to the car, he reopened the door, shut it harder, and next thing I knew my car felt like somebody had just bumped it with their car! A quick look showed nothing out the rear mirrors, and the truth dawned on me. Steve wasn't showing either! He'd fallen, between the curb and the bottom of the car!

I got out as fast as I could, no thought to me of bad shoulders or how hard I stepped while needing refreshed arch supports, knowing only that two men were directly across from us in the opposing handicap spaces, and  were possibly heading into the store and away from us. The door was barely opened before I was yelling, "Help!" One of the two had seen the fall, and the other's attention was drawn as we converged at the front of the car to see Steve lying on the pavement, wedged between bumper and vehicle.

One pulled out his phone to call 911 as soon as I said he'd need help getting up. (Yes, we'd done this fallling thing before, just not so dramatically. Both of us need an informed lift.) The store staff were the first to emerge, as numerous shoppers went in to sound the alarm there. In that short amount of time we all saw the 8" patch of ice covering the pavement from the bottom of the bumper to the wheels.  Steve had been right when he claimed he had room to get out, just not room to move from that. Neither of us had seen the ice. He didn't have a chance, especially once he'd turned to slam the door harder.

The crowd was growing as we waited for assistance that would do more good than harm. We both informed the gathering crowd that he could not get up on his knees, period. The police were early arrivals, asking where he'd been hurt. At the moment he could pinpoint that he'd hit his head, hard, on that curb bumper. Later he was able to notice one knee was hurting, and the next day noted an injury to his forearm. He was a bit dizzy and the mention of his head made everybody extra cautious in moving him. The ambulance siren was audible in the distance and everybody deferred to them, waiting for them to actually find us and pull up.

The real problem was, as I saw it, not so much that he'd slipped on ice, or even hit his head, but that as the minutes passed he was stuck lying on the icy pavement... the still very cold icy pavement. It wasn't 9AM yet. 

 There was a throw blanket on the back seat of the car, and I brought it out for the police to cover him with, which did nothing for all that heat seeping out of him into the pavement. Or was it the cold creeping up into him from the ground? 

Once the paramedics arrived, it was finally decided he needed to be up off the ground. I needed to back the car out without driving over him. (Ya think?) A combination of people pulled the blanket under him and over him so both sides of it pulled together would snug him up on his side to that bumper. Note they didn't lift him another 5 inches and off the ice. I was directed by a cop exactly how far to crimp my front wheel and when to back out and how far. It was executed safely, and with everybody avoiding the ice now with dry places to plant themselves, got him safely sitting up on the slightly higher ground. Feet still on ice of course, to be fixed later.

Meanwhile, after the same cop said for me to park and never mind where I left the car,  I jockeyed myself into the neighboring spot, this time right along the space separating handicapped parking spaces so he'd have ample space to get into the car without ice, either with or without heading into the store to complete picking up his glasses. It hadn't been decided yet if he needed medical care, especially with the head bump. Everything he was saying indicated he was going to turn down a ride to the hospital and get his glasses, so I started asking the last store employee, who was still hanging around to see how it resolved, if she could possibly head into the store and see if there was an empty, fully charged scooter for him to make his trip in. She brought one out shortly before all the official helpers dispersed. I had to give them his name and phone number before they let us both go. I was (warned?) that somebody might call us later to check on how he was and whether letting him loose was the proper call. I understand their concern. Nobody wants to find out later a subdural hematoma was overlooked with subsequent damage.

I sat in the car with it running, working to keep it warm for Steve to climb back into after his chill. One of the men who'd been across from where I parked returned from his shopping, and detoured over to me concerned that Steve had left in the ambulance. I reassured him he was inside shopping, and thanked him for his help earlier. The man was ten years older than Steve and had his own experience with falls. We   briefly compared our particular needs when getting vertical again. None of us are independent.

About a minute later Steve's scooter emerged from the doors of the store. He sat there and waved, and I didn't blame him. I pulled out and maneuvered the car over to the entrance so he could climb in as easily as possible. Once he was belted in and settled, we both decided we'd go back to dropping him and picking him up at the door in the future. At least while I could drive, anyway, so maybe we just stay away from that store, say, after my shoulder prevents me driving while it heals. This store was mandated by his insurance. The new year is a different pharmacy, and that store now lets us pick them up at the drive-up with our grocery orders.

Once home our primary concerns were getting him warmed through and how much did each part hurt? There are three points of impact. The head hurt more the first day, but the surface was a very minor abrasion, no bruise showing even now. Still, poke it at your peril. The second, and only other obvious point through the first day was one knee. It's a larger abrasion, and more tender bruise. He doctored it with adhesive heat patches and Tylenol. The third and weirdest point is on a forearm, where there is a black spot on his skin. I had never noticed them, and his docs always said they were/are nothing to be concerned about. Only now, one looks like a vein is trying to push up from below, a prominent thin bulge about two inches long and deeply black. This is the most painful for him, and being peculiar, the most worrisome. It's the reason three days later he's still taking Tylenol. We'll be keeping an eye on it, hopefully to watch it disappear.

By the way, for those wondering, Steve loves his three new pairs of bifocals.  (I still love my 3-year-old original one pair of trifocals, but then I'm the one paying for mine.)

Merry What-mas?

My mouth wasn't healing as I thought it should after the dental work. In fact, it was hurting more every day. They thought all the infection was contained in the extracted tooth, but I had my doubts, increasing in levels keeping pace with the throbbing after a week. I called and asked for an antibiotic. To my surprise, the pharmacy called me within an hour saying it was ready. Normal prescriptions take up to 4 days to fill. The roads were clear for a change, so no time like the present to head out and pick it up.

You know the store, one of those big boxes that does its best to fill all needs in one stop. My insurance requires that I use them because the prices are about as low as it gets. I've dealt with them for years. and for several years they had the same glitch, charging a small amount too much at the beginning of the year and winding up mailing me a check to make up for it. They run somewhere under $2 a check. Not exciting, but.... Procedure has been to spend them in the store, and within 180 days of the check date. Some years I've had two to deal with. I'd recently changed out my pocketbooks, and noticed a folded piece of paper tucked away, forgotten. It was one of those checks. Time was running out, and the day I was in the store my calculations said I had 3 days left to spend it or forget it.

But important stuff first. I picked up my antibiotic, and had a chat with the pharmacist since I hadn't used one for ages. Turns out it's another thing on my ever increasing list of things that messes with my gut, like every single thing that eases cold symptoms, still nasty since the first of the month. I need to get live culture yogurt to go with it, twice a day as long as the pills last and then several days after.  Since that's already a recent staple in my diet, for whatever imaginary good it seems to do, I knew exactly what I needed and where in the store it is. May as well get milk too, and a couple other things, and while there remember to use that check. That means no self checkout but find a line with a cashier. I'd figured a Monday morning would be easy checking out. 

I forgot how close to Christmas it was.

After my long wait in checkout, I handed the check to the cashier. She was puzzled. I explained why I had it and what I'd done in previous years. So she asked for my drivers license and started plugging in numbers and numbers and...  REJECTED!  Say what?

She now needed a regular card, finished the transaction,  and pointed me over to customer service. If I hadn't already had proof of the holiday rush, there it was.  The line was long enough that they'd set out portable stanchions and straps making a corridor to funnel customers through so nobody could butt in line. At the counter was a single employee. The line stretched beyond the stanchions long enough to block the restrooms, so we did our best to allow spaces.

By the time I got near the counter a second employee stepped in to assist and the line moved faster. There were only three behind me when it was my turn. I handed the check over and explained - since they had no clue - why I had it, noting it had a few days left, that previously I'd just used them to to start paying for a purchase, but this time it had been denied and nobody knew why. They had a conference, looked up something on their machines, and told me they couldn't just cash (which wasn't what I'd tried to do, just spend it on their merch) it as it would cost me $4 to do so and it wasn't worth half of that. I tried to ask when and why their policy had changed.  They had no information on that, but told me I should take it to my bank and deposit it.

I didn't bother explaining that my bank is so far from there that my car would use about 4 gallons of gas on the trip, even worse than their $4 charge. I had groceries to put in the fridge, pills to start taking ASAP, was exhausted by this time, and had no inclination to follow their suggestion. They didn't need to know all that. I just said I couldn't go to the bank right then. They repeated it like I hadn't heard them or something. I repeated that I couldn't go to the bank. I wondered aloud when they'd changed their policy and why they hadn't passed on the information, both puzzled and frustrated, ready to head out of there and give up, maybe sending the company a scathing but useless email. (Yes, I do understand the "useless" part of that plan.)

That's when the second cashier pulled a couple ones out of his pocket, slightly wadded up, thrust them in my hand, and complete with attitude oozing "get out of here!" and a loud voice, said "Merry Christmas"! 

It was more than the check, and not his job to pay me, but the message was clear. I replied with a genuinely surprised "thank you" and my own "Merry Christmas" before I left. I actually meant mine.

Next year when they send another check, I'll try to remember I have it, and when I'm near the bank, make a point of depositing it. I'm sure there will be another one. Whatever is causing the overcharge, they haven't figured it out in 4 years. Why should I expect change?

Is It A Solution? Or Just A New Problem?

I can answer this both ways.

We got the new seat belt extenders in the mail for the front of our car. I could no longer connect or disconnect mine. Solutions ranged from a thousand dollar install of a new pair, to we aren't allowed to help you because reasons, to buy a new car. Hogwash, all. I went online, found a site that matched my need to my exact make/model/seat locations. The price was reasonable, shipping cheap and speedy. Today Steve went out and installed them both, easy peasy. A bit later I drove to the store and back, and they were smooth as silk... though much sturdier, of course. I'll be able to drive alone both now and as soon after surgery as I'm allowed to bend my arm in that direction.

Verdict: definite solution.

While I'm getting ready for surgery, there is a long list of doctors to see, tests to have run. Yesterday was number 3 on my list, a trip to the dentist to be cleared, meaning no infections in my mouth. Except I knew I had one, a minor annoyance. The result was three hours of care, removal of a bridge before removal of a tooth which was abscessed, replacement of the bridge after changing it from a 4-tooth one hooked into two pieces, to a two-tooth bridge and separate 1 tooth (now) crown. The bill got more interesting with every new discovery, starting of course with full x-rays,  ending with grinding down the surfaces of the replaced crowns so I could close my mouth completely again. The numbing cocktail was very effective, so mostly I felt pulling, and thunking as they hammered the bridge loose, not pain. But there was a bunch of hard labor on the part of the dentist to extract that one tooth, enough that a second one had to be called in to assist.

By evening, the cocktail had worn off. OY! I'd been verbally cleared of infection once they had examined the bad tooth as well as the hole left behind. But apparently there is a lot of bruising, both tissue and bone, from all the forcing, pulling, pushing, tugging, yanking. By bedtime I was on maximum Tylenol. Repeated this morning, and early afternoon, and now at bedtime. It almost helps. I find myself wondering if some infection slipped the leash and is making a new home, or if this is just how bruised bone feels. The pain is a kind I've felt before, difficult to locate without knowing exactly which tooth is involved since it wraps around to both bottom and top, making one side of the face throb. No antibiotic was prescribed for just-in-case, and in a couple more days if there is no change, I'll be calling and asking. I know my immune system is still struggling after the pancreatitis with the lingering cold, and I need to be completely clear next mid-month, or they postpone and reschedule.

Right now this solution feels like a new problem rather than clearing an old one.

I recall a record I bought when my kids were little, Marlo Thomas singing "Free To Be You And Me". A song on that was about helping each other. One kid baked a pie and the other kid ate it. "Some kinds of help are the kinds of help that helping's all about. And some kinds of help are the kinds of help we all can do without!"

"I'll Have What She's Having'"

 RIP to the Reiners. May their family find as much peace as is possible in such a situation.

And may Donald Trump keep his poisoned mind and words out of your view and awareness.

I don't usually say RIP to famous people. I never knew them, only heard what got publicized if it was totally unavoidable since I don't follow that kind of breathless news. Who dates whom? Divorces ahead? Plastic surgery mistakes? Irrelevant! Will never change my life. Even when they die, I might miss whatever they created, like certain folk singers from back in the Viet Nam war era whose music I grew up with, formed opinions from, miss what a different future extending their creativity may have given us all... who were paying attention. That's about the time I started paying attention beyond myselfwe all , started growing.

By now I'm sure everybody has heard something about the murders of the Reiners. If you've listened long enough, what you heard may have changed, with all the jockeying for recognition for being the "firstest with the mostest" news. Depending on your age, you are likely aware of at least some of the creativity coming from decades of the brain of Rob, from Meathead on"All In The Family" on TV to the wide variety of movies he directed and produced. Look up the list if you haven't been hearing it repeated every couple hours in somebody's latest update.

My most memorable moment comes from "When Harry Met Sally" in the restaurant. You know it of course, when Sally publicly shows Harry just how easy it is for a woman to fake a hu-u-u-u-uge orgasm. Rob had the brainstorm to put his mother in the scene, watching the demonstration, after which she deadpans to the waiter, "I'll have what she's having!" It has to be one of, if not the single most famous quoted line from any movie. 

(Wouldn't we all like that to be real for us?)

What I absolutely won't have is the sh#t the current resident of the White house thought it appropriate to say about the Reiners, particularly Rob, since a wife apparently deserves little acknowledgment beyond a name. He made the entire comment about himself, claiming the murders were  ...  "reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME..."  He continued on, spewing his sick venom to anybody who'd read it and fall for it. You may feel free to go look it up if you care. I won't make it easy for you by providing a link. 

Just know nobody deserves that kind of send-off, with the possible exception of those who find it appropriate to denigrate others they know/fear they are unequal to and think they have to tear them down in order to put themselves above. The tragedy is not that he wrote it, because he always does. The tragedy will be those influenced in any way to believe a single word of it.

Reiner family, I wish you well in this terrible time. Your loss is our loss. We grieve with you. No sane human would wish to have what you're having, and we all wish we could take it away from you. May you all somehow find your way to peace.

"Mortification", a guest post by Steve Brundy

 As I get older, I become surer that everyone has those times. You know the ones I mean, the ones between being slightly embarrassed and totally mortified. This story is about the time I was absolutely, positively the most publicly mortified.

It was a long time ago. Thanksgiving day, 1962 to be exact. The Greeley High School marching band had been asked to perform at the Denver Broncos half time show, playing against the New York Titans.

For this appearance I had been assigned to play sousaphone. I was my band teacher’s utility brass man, playing trumpet, baritone, french horn, valve trombone, and even flugelhorn. It was a matter of pride that he had chosen me to be his utility man. It took a lot of work to achieve this status.

Our uniforms were tuxedos with white overlays and tar bucket hats, brand new that year and a source of great pride to us.

The day was extremely windy, as only the wind can be, roaring off the front range of the Rockies.

We marched out onto the field and got into our formation. When we were called to attention, I raised my sousaphone and knocked my hat off! Being at attention meant I could not move, at risk of incurring my band director’s wrath,  so the wind caught my hat and blew it away. I could only watch, mortified.

This was a long time ago, and the TV networks did not cut away for commercials as they do now. Instead, a cameraman, seeing my hat blowing down the field, followed it and kept shooting. So my hat blowing down the field made national TV. The cameraman was nice enough that after the halftime show when we were back in the bleachers, he caught up with my hat and returned it to me, being kind enough not to laugh too hard. Our band teacher was cool enough not to embarrass me any further.


By the way, and just as a side note, did you know the bell of a sousaphone is a great place to keep a bottle of Seagram’s Seven?

You Want Me To WHAT????

 Yes, I'm a geezer. Mostly happy about it. There have been a lot of good things in my many years, and I like to think I've learned from the ones that weren't, so much. There comes a time however, when you just can't add another thousand pointless changes to your life skills, and have to draw the line. Especially when adopting those changes adds a heck of a lot of unnecessary costs to your life.

OK, I know that generations of you have been taught by persistent marketing that you "need" the latest piece of electronic gadgetry. Item J does one thing better than item I, which did two things better than item H, which wasn't better than item G but did everything two seconds faster. You didn't actually need  H, I, or J, but "everybody" was bragging about having them and showing them off.  My much older "D" is good enough and does what I bought it for very well. Still. After all these years. Even better, I'm familiar with how it works, and by now, when the brain gets distracted for a mental hike around the block, muscle memory can take over and manage things just fine.

A letter brought it back in today's mail. That philosophy can apply to a lot of situations. In this case, I got a new credit card. Not an additional one, but a replacement for one that received a bogus charge. I called the card company, they deleted the charge and canceled the card, arranging to send a new card with new numbers on it. 

The letter it came in started out by telling me to use a tiny QR code to find out how to start the new card. Say what?

Is anybody reading this surprised to learn that I don't "do" QR codes, never have, don't have the app, never plan to get the app, and tend to get annoyed when others assume "everybody" communicates that way?

I pulled out my cell phone and called the customer service number stored there for many years for the credit card company. I got a machine. A helpful machine. It asked for the last 4 numbers of my card. I gave them - from the new card of course. It compared those digits with the number I called in from, informed me they matched their records, and I could now go ahead and use my new card.

It doesn't get any easier than that. Who the hell needs a QR code?

There was also a reminder to destroy the old card. I had been putting that off... it's been hellaciously busy these last few days, complicated by a nasty cold. Who needed extra stuff to keep track of? As soon as I ended the call I put the new card where it belonged and pulled out the old invalid one. It felt amazingly sturdy. 

I tried bending a crease down the middle, my usual go-to for destroying one. It sort of had a gradual bend in it. Not good enough. I repeated a dozen times, added teeth to try harder to crimp the bend, and looked at it again. Most times by this point damage was visible, some crack showing, even possible partial separation.

Hmmmm...now what? I have no cutting tool sharp and sturdy enough to create separate pieces. So-o-o-o not planning to ruin any good scissors. Normal hardware pliers didn't do it after jewelry quality tools also failed.  I so had been hoping to put one piece in a bag of trash for this week and the other in a bag of trash for next week. I figure the odds of any individual piecing them together out of a whole landfill are negligible... enough.

I came up with one more destruction idea, but it would take careful prep, the "just in case" kind. I decided to burn it!

First, I located a pair of jewelry pliers that would safely and securely hold it. I made sure it would grip, not slip. I pulled a small stainless steel bowl from the cupboard and filled it 2/3 full of tap water, setting it next to the stove top. After turning on the closest burner, I got a tight pliers grip on the card and held the part where numbers showed on the flame for about 5 seconds. Warping happened, a tiny flame appeared, and I dropped tool and card into the water. Looking at it several seconds later, numbers were mostly obliterated. 

The other side however still held the bright symbol logos looking perfectly OK.  Oooh, goodie, another chance for some damage! A repeat from the other angle did both color changes plus more card warping. Nobody would ever be able to slide that card through anything! But now in warping both sides in different warps, they melted together along the middle seam I tried to bend in two for separation. Not only hadn't it separated, but the miniscule flaws where a layer had been dinged a little bit were now fused together in a fat ridge, completely rigid, and not just sort of unbendable but unbendable squared!

OK, time for news, weather, a TV schedule and some food. Oh yeah, and don't forget the big double fleece lap blanket. Whew!

Minnesota Backyard birds

 This is also more photos than prose. Reason? The internet was out ( we had been warned of maintenance) and no TV either, my cold wouldn't let me sleep because for some reason I preferred to breathe without choking and I had to stay vertical for that. About the only thing to keep my interest was going through my photo library, which doesn't need internet. There is an easy way to order the files to be presented in order of first entered to last entered, one long solid block of - currently - something over 4,500 in the library. I had/have many more on thumb drives, but I wasn't up to fighting those to check out the damages from sitting in a hot PODS through part of an AZ summer. (Bad packing organization!) Some other day, more energy.

In the last couple days, for various reason, I've been going through various ones, sometimes finding what I wanted, sometimes not, but occasionally certain organizational themes popped out. If you read the three previous posts, you know what I mean. A lot of birds popped out along the way, and I separated them into two major piles. The first are from the back yard over the many years in Shafer. The second will be birds from either travels (when I can locate them... so just a plan at the moment) and depending on success it may or may not combine with Arizona birds. Fair warning: my bird identification guides mostly got purged with the AZ house library in a sale for the move, so not all may be correctly identified. Oh well. C'est la vie.

I'm starting with bird feeders. Winters require suet and seeds, maybe some fruits. Insects and worms have long gone dormant, but the environment often provides some varieties of sustenance, and humans who love watching birds (closer!) fill in the blanks.

This is our smallest woodpecker, the Downey. I love attracting them for the bit of red color. It's only in the males.

The female doesn't have it. Same feeder combo, different days, judging from amount of suet. On some quiet days, one can hear them rat-tat-tatting in nearby trees and know there are insects spending what they thought was a sleepy winter under the bark.

 

The nuthatch , a tad smaller than the Downy, hangs around where food is provided, and offers just a hint of tan color.

A larger bird, identified by its crest and beak color, is the female cardinal. They harvest fruits and seeds still clinging to branches out in the yard, like cranberry or cherry bushes, but usually are shyer about coming in close to the house.

Cardinals also like a platform feeder far back in the yard with a spread of seeds like sunflower, easy in/out for safety, and a good view of who's around. The males are a rare large spot of red in the winter, with their bolder color. If these shots were taken at the same time they might be a mated pair, but I only saw one here and another there, and they never confided their personal life stories to me.

Robins have been known as one of the first spring arrivals, and that has until recently always meant actual calendar spring. Perhaps 20 years ago I could spot some in winter around large company buildings which kept sidewalks heated to melt snow and ice.  A few years later we could spot some in the yard once the snow melted off the cranberry bushes. The year we stopped snowbirding and moved back north for good they were already in the yard along with the snow. The cranberries had died out and not been replaced, but robins appeared in the tops of birches like this, where perhaps their seeds were useful.

A common suet feeder visitor in winter is something we very rarely see in summer, for whatever reason. When the trees were leafing out it was a surprise to see this junco duo up in the branches.

Chickadees are another common winter guest at the suet, and again, we tend to not see them in summer. So it was a surprise in the new place just after moving in around mid June that year to find a pair of these inhabiting a run-down bird house, using an attached second house as a perch. It was at the end of our parking spot so I'd just sit and watch from the car if there wasn't ice cream melting or something. This one had just arrived, on a day I actually remembered my camera, with a juicy yellow worm/caterpillar in its bill. It tried to juggle it a bit when landing, but it dropped to the ground. Oops. This is it looking - I like to think abashedly - at the hole just barely showing in the upper house where hungry young are waiting, before flying off to try again. The family was around about another three weeks. The post the two houses were attached to was rotting, so we removed the whole thing and gave it to a friend who wanted to repair/repaint it and set it up more securely in their own yard.

The old back yard was/is full of a variety of fruit trees and bushes. It should be no surprise that a frequent spring visitor is the cedar waxwing. It's also fairly shy - smart bird! - and often hangs out in a flock of robins and cardinals, all after the same leftover small fall fruits like cranberries when they first  arrive in spring.

They stick around to purloin cherry and apple blossoms off newly blooming trees to ... help thin the fruit? Sure, that's it, thin the fruit to help the trees.

Summer birds have more resources, and while we know they are around, it's harder to find reasons for them to be close to the house where we can observe and shoot them. In recent years the back yard has been fairly neglected, unless it was being set up for a family party / bonfire / brats and s'mores roast. It used to be where family dogs played safely fenced, but none accompany us now. What does happen there is branches get collected, either to stack in piles for later burning, or one year just pile up loosely on a large plastic table, to be ignored till needed. So nobody realized what was happening there until one day when we were looking out the window and saw flashes of color.

 

I apologize for the quality, but some days it is all you can get. A story is its justification. There had been several young Baltimore orioles under the branches, and most were ready to fledge. A parent flew the short distance to the chain link fence, then another short distance to very productive bush cherries. It then flew back and forth, calling, encouraging the young to fly over to get their own food. First one followed, then a second. Meanwhile from the house, we were watching, trying to get photos, hoping not to scare everybody so we could continue to watch the fun and see how the parent was trying to teach a valuable lesson to its young. We humans got about a ten minute show until something or somebody startled them into disappearing. Only two young had approached, one stopping on the fence, but the other perched on a branch and was plucking at the fruit before it all ended. 

We didn't see them again. At least the chipmunks in the yard don't scare that easily.

On the north border of the back yard has been a raspberry patch for many years. It's fenced, and on some of the poles we put up wood houses. Tree swallows took over the first few years, then wrens for a bit, then nobody... until one year we had a bluebird family! 

Note that the boxes were too large, the posts too close, too urban, too... not bluebird preferred. But here we were. We happened to be having family over for one of those bonfires. The kids were kept back from that part of the yard - the s'mores were more fun anyway - and my camera caught some of the action. They are so rare in the conditions we offered them, that I just kept shooting. I'll let the sequence speak for itself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once this family fledged, as far as I know they never returned either. But we had the joy of them for a short while.

What more can you ask?

Hoarfrost

 Another gift of a cold climate, usually a preface to winter, but still showing the previous season's life, is hoarfrost. Some years we get some, others... well.... say what? These are a compilation of several years past.

It can hang from thin branches still holding catkins snuggled up tight for the following spring when they unfold and fly, starting new lives in neglected spaces.

It can hang from still-green leaves and undropped pickable fruits, like highbush cranberries, just an accent to shout, "We're still here!"

 It can find blossom petals clinging to coneflowers to wrest every iota of warmth and growth before season end, putting it to its long sleep.

It can cover the upper extensions of a cedar branch, and once done, leave it still green to decorate all our seasons for years to come.

It can decorate the dead opened seed pods that were long overlooked but now a multidimentional work of art, pointing out every curve, hollow, niche...

but only now can you see how different is it from its neighbor.

 

It can draw your eye to the sky with its subtle tricks with the light.

But every so often it clings to flat bare places, growing out from them unpatterned to revel in its own heretofore hidden glory!

Minnesota Winter Ice

I used to get out and about for work early, regardless of the weather, the snow, the ice, what have you. Sometimes I'd pop right back into the house, grab a camera, and steal myself a few extra minutes to get somewhere. It's a love-hate relationship with winter , though after snowbirding for over 10 years, more hate than love these days. I suppose an older body also has something to do with that. Back then there was also the fact that early morning light, or night-lit scenes, often had more to say to my eye.

The sun rising across the street was great for making ice on ice/snow stand out. Our entryway back then formed icicles at the end of the gutter down spouts, shortened once the long drain tube was removed. Or maybe it just fell and broke in the cold, or was simply moved. Who remembers? One year several icicles dropped off, standing up in the drift made by shoveling the driveway. 

My bedroom window also faced the sunrise. Being in the more humid indoors, sometimes the cold even came through from the storm window and Jack Frost had some fun.

A few minutes later, a different slice of glass, a new photo begged for attention. They seemed to be thick, beaded if you will, so I guess it was humid, either inside or outside. I wasn't about to open any windows to try to find out, just enjoy the differences.

Other mornings, different conditions while I slept, and new formations appeared. 

 

There were times I had to head outside to the car and find out what had been painted on them while I slept. Yes, some of you will remember my car always had to be white. But I got a deal on a slightly used model which wasn't. I got clearance from corporate to drive it as a temporary if I got it painted as soon as weather allowed. Meanwhile more fun ensued, looking like snowflakes in design rather than frost.

Obviously this is neither my red or newly white car. I have no clue who drove this one or what it was, though my best guess would be something my son drove. He was going through a lot of different cars back then. Snowbanks, deer, raccoons, or whatever,  seemed to really hate vehicles he drove. (Yeah, I'm going to stick with that excuse. He's a really good guy. Sometime in the far distant future he may actually read this.)   Anyway, something spent a lot of time forming these,very 3D in reality.

Alaskan Ice

OK, I've been sitting here bored and frustrated by the cold, both outside the front door, and the cold clinging to making my body as miserable as possible. I can't/won't try to get out with my camera and find something to shoot. But I can sit in a warm. cozy recliner digesting breakfast, and between coughing fits go through photos and pull out some to share. It's winter here, but I sure can find the same (kind of) thing from old summer shots from a long ago trip to Alaska(2007) with my youngest son and my granddaughter. These date back to my very first digital camera, the only reason I still have them. Actual paper photos had to be purged by the wastebasket-ful for the last move as all the colors had shifted and/or vanished.

You'll never get this photo again. It's Exit Glacier, then at its foot, showing that lovely blue of deep pressurized ice among the accumulations of dirt from age.  I saw a recent photo and it keeps living up to its name, exiting back up the mountain slope it used to descend from. Even on the hike in, wayyyy back in those days, we passed sign after sign as we left the parking lot showing to what point the glacier had covered back in which year. It was a long - but flat - hike back then. Now it climbs way past this point, and had almost vanished at the very top in that recent photo.

One of our adventures was rafting down a river to Turnagain Arm where chunks of old glacier were breaking off and floating with us. Our rafts each had a guide keeping us safe. I liked this one because the foreground ice looks like a long eared dog enjoying some sun. The blue in each piece indicates the thickness of the formerly glacial ice, much larger than our rafts, though the "dog" was just a bit larger, except for its flat surround, mostly hidden underwater, as floating ice is.

A boat trip out from Seward took us along the Kenai Fjords coast to see, among many other delights, a glacier actively calving. It did so often enough that eventually I caught one huge chunk just hitting the water with a  big splash. We stayed far enough back that our boat got a gentle rocking from the spreading wave. A couple smaller private boats were more stupid but apparently survived. Our captain would have had to react if they hadn't.There were many glaciers along the way that no longer reached the ocean, and I doubt this one still does, but it was well worth a very expensive side trip.

The glacier melt has to go somewhere, and when it's not directly into the ocean, it forms what are called "braided rivers".  This high viewpoint my granddaughter shot gives a better picture than from along the road. The grey land  was "recently" scraped of vegetation by the weight and movement of the glacier which sat on it.

Bush planes are a staple of Alaskan transportation. One can, on clear days, mostly in summer only very early in the mornings, get a great view of mountain near the ocean. If memory serves, knowing where we flew, Cook Inlet is on the back side of these from our perspective, and this kind of view is quickly smothered by clouds and fog. The flight, if one is willing to rise early enough for it, rewards you with this very rare summer view:

Mount Denali! No matter what somebody else calls it, this is Denali!  Out the airplane window of course, and over the wing, but for this you take them where you can get them. Ten minutes later we were in clouds and stayed there until we landed just outside the Park for a guided bus excursion. In two visits to the park, this is the only time I saw the mountain it was named for. Usually when you ask your guide where it is, they point to a cloud bank and say it's off in that direction... maybe. (I guess they tend to sleep in as late as they can in the mornings.)

Note: this is also my granddaughter's picture. I archived her Alaskan trip photos on my computer way back then, later giving her a thumb drive with all of hers. You can tell the difference at a glance because my camera shot rectangles and hers shot squares. She sat in front of the plane with the pilot and caught a much better view than I did.

 

Fun With Deliveries

Do you catch a whiff of sarcasm with "fun"?

This morning a Fed Ex truck drove slowly by our home. OK, no biggie, they normally do that several times a day. So does Amazon. And repair companies. It happens to be a Sunday, which often translates into new or substitute driver. This Sunday also happens to be very cold with recent subsequent snowfalls covering most everything. Including my car, because with my cold I haven't been out to deal with it. I'm not even going to work to share my cold with somebody who doesn't need it. I did call Paul to come over to shovel for us a few days ago post another snowfall, but the current addition barely qualifies for removal. I'll have to head out later in the week for a drive into the metro for a doctor's appointment, but I still won't be digging out the car since Paul will be driving me. As clogged as my head is right now, and having seat belt issues, I'm relying on a different driver. I'll navigate, he'll drive, I'll pay for gas, and his company will pay him for using accumulated PTO. He's valued enough that they let him set his own hours, within reason. This is the shoulder surgeon so hopefully we may repeat this before too long.

All of that is by way of saying there was nothing near the street-facing steps off a tiny porc to indicate they were ever used. Almost enough snow covered them to disguise the step edges.  FedEx knows to bring packages to the covered porch, where the sidewalk and steps are walkable. They are supposed to have that information as part of our address. The regular drivers do it without question. 

They are also supposed to take a photo of the delivery site, send an email, ring the doorbell so we know something happened. But stuff is supposed to land on the large porch platform, under the roof and where nobody inside has to figure out how to haul deliveries up stairs. Most stuff isn't that heavy these days, but when we do expect something heavy we arrange for assistance if needed. Most of that came just after we moved in when I could still handle it.

I got around to checking email around lunchtime. Head cold management these days requires a fair amount of regimen before facing the day, and I spent some time looking up arcane facts about OTC medications and side effects, among other things, first. Some emails had to be answered while I was thinking about them. I gifted myself with a bonus morning nap between breakfast and dressing. You know, all the various stuff that gets one ready for trying to cope with the day. 

Anyway, last thing on the email list was a notice of a delivery. By then I was dressed for keeping warm and comfortable inside, not for the cold or being seen publicly outside. These days that's a 10 minute job... on a good day, when Steve is around to help with  getting extra upper layers pulled on and adjusted.  Cloth has an amazing amount of friction you don't notice until you need to. Before  going to that trouble, I poked my head out the front door to see what had been delivered - I just might take one step, pick up a tiny something, and pop back in again.

Nothing was there.  ???

I glanced down towards the street and there were huge boxes stacked alongside the driveway, not even on the steps, much less at the top of the platform, however covered in snow. OK then, start the routine. Who the heck ordered what this time? I knew we were waiting for a variety of packages, some for months now and likely stuck in customs somewhere... or totally lost and money wasted. There was also a box of boots for winter Steve ordered, though when he checked back on the order details last week they said they filled the order with size 6 instead of size 10 boots! When that arrives he's to take it straight back to the PO and refuse it. Supposedly they'll either refund his money or send the  correct size. Who knows these days? 

There is also a small box I'm waiting for, likely via the post office, for an unusual tree ornament from Smithsonian for somebody on my gift list. I had to call them yesterday to see what happened. I ordered it in early October, ready to wait through the shutdown for it, but I was starting to wonder where it was. After a pleasant chat with somebody in a supervisory position, they had no record of my order, though they had my delivery address and phone number in their records, and showed the last 4 of my credit card that was used. Nothing else.  I asked if they were informing me I'd simply made a donation to them last fall? I'm not saying they don't deserve it, but I did want to find out what was where and why. Was it ever coming? Did I have to reorder? I'd almost forgotten the order after all this time, but the same ad has been in their magazine for the last three issues, reminding me. Since it was identical, I had the item number, price, and description, along with their phone number. It's been so long I didn't have a confirmation number - if one was ever sent via email. I checked my various email boxes. Nada. I did have the old credit card charge for that price, giving me the date of the charge, but it didn't have any tax added or shipping costs. It hadn't occurred to me to miss those at the time I called that order in. Or since. Life got a bit too interesting back then. The woman I was talking with promised to look into it further, since it was a combination of my proof of payment and their their total lack of record. I wonder how many other order glitches happened during early in the shutdown. Are they even finding out yet? Or were others, like me, exercising patience and only now figuring it was time to start asking questions?

I'd actually like to add the extra fees if needed - tax and shipping - and finish the order to get the gift. It is so perfect for the recipient. I might even consider a complete new order and consider the first a donation. (Would that screw up their accounting? Awwwwww. I pity the tax accountants.... sort of.)

All of this was being considered while I was getting dressed for the cold. I've totally lost track of what's been ordered, what is likely sitting down some rabbit hole in some port thanks to tariff confusion, what might still be expected to appear, "popping" into existence as if borne by some genie. (Yeah, magic needed for that job by now!) When I got to "the" huge  box at the bottom of the other steps, I found it was really three boxes! At first look, one had morphed into two but then became three.  THREE? OK, now I really wanted to see who had ordered what. Before any lifting, since all were heavy, I started checking labels. The smallest was definitely for us, so I carried it back and up the steps to where Steve was waiting for it, and handed it off. 

Then back to check out the really large and heavy ones. From my standing position, I had to read their labels upside down. Wheee. Wait...... uh-oh, weird name on the label, and no house number. Not ours then. We have close to 50 sub-addresses in our location. Still, our problem for a bit. I've seen boxes like these before in the mail area. Everybody who goes in for mail checks out large boxes left scattered on the floor when they don't fit in the lockers with a key left in with your paper mail. You never know, right? But the ones with no unit number tend to go to the big old house in the middle of us all, formerly the managers of the place, now still living there but having turned over management to a company. Their adult daughter I know since she mows our lawn weekly for us. We chat a bit while I hand over her pay, and I found out she was in teachers' ed this last year, now graduated, and last news was looking for a place to finish a term where a previous teacher had to step out, say, for a new baby. But a "real" job instead of mowing lawns. (Hey, mowing lawns is REAL WORK! Trust me!) Point is I have her phone number, so I explained the packages to her. No way would I be hauling them to their house - not even up our own stairs, thank you very much - but she'd send family over in their car to pick them up. Oddly enough the names on the label were just a bit off, both last names and even first, so she guessed which family member they might be for. Either way, a few minutes later the car pulled up, boxes went in the trunk, and they went to their house or were left in the mail area.

I returned to the FedEx email and saw they wanted feedback on their delivery.

Oh boy, was I ready.......!

Steve was impatient to open our real package. Once I heard it was obviously a Christmas present in a box that gave every indication of being food goodies,  and it being by now a bit past lunchtime, I sat and watched.  Oh my! We divvied up the things I currently can't eat and the things he can't eat, and after having a snack on the spot as a reward for our work, we put the rest in the fridge for the next few days. Really, food that good needs to be appreciated immediately! None of this nonsense about saving it for under the tree or something! Right? Some will be snacked on, some cut and added to yogurt, some cut and microwaved with cinnamon or honey....... YUMMM! 

(And thanks! Yes, I know you read this. )

Not Your Best Pick-up Line

Sometimes at mixers people just can't quite get it right.  Did he think he was being clever? Too nervous to say what he tried? I overheard this on TV:

 He:  Has anybody ever told you I have the most beautiful eyes?

She just turned away to talk with somebody else. It wouldn't leave me. There should have been a comeback.  Perhaps,  "Awwwww, no, but maybe someday you can pay someone a big enough bribe to actually get them to say that about you."

I Hate A Cold!

 Lucky me, I've avoided getting one for years. Yesterday I woke up in the middle of the night with an extremely sore throat, enough that my muddled mind started inventing causes for it. None of them made sense. I take that as a sign.

By morning it was a fairly normal sore throat, with the bonus that my voice had dropped a good octave. It was enough that anybody hearing me who knows me were immediately alerted to what's going on. Steve knew without my saying a more than "Good Morning". My PCA client over the phone immediately agreed that I should not visit her and share it - she has plenty of health issues without any assistance in acquiring more. My only concern there is there is up to a 3 day incubation, and I was there Monday, feeling fine, but possibly contagious. Or possibly I picked it up later.

There's the usual stuffy nose now, with kleenex boxes  in high demand. I'd shopped for a bunch over a year ago, and it finally looks like they will need replacing before the weekend. Of course there is a huge supply of fast-food napkins in the car door pockets I could grab, but it's DAMN FRICKING COLD! out there today, as cold as we're had since moving back north. The lakes are even iced over - lightly - but early. Probably safe for squirrels to walk on if they are stupid enough to emerge from snug nests, but everything else recently on it - swans and geese - has flown south. The throat isn't so sore, thankfully, but the voice is still low enough for gender confusion over the phone with a stranger.

Coughing has started, light so far. The good news there is I make a habit of stocking up on sugarless cough drops, and just opened the first of 4 bags this morning. There are still a couple of emptied pill bottles stuffed full of them for easy transport in a purse without spilling all over creation... but just currently not in my purse. Where? Sigh.  Our pharmacy provides fatter bottles for larger pills, great to reuse for cough drops, and ones I can actually open. It takes Steve's hands to open his pill bottles so I don't use them, except to dump collections of sharps in to throw out where they won't cause any problems. I have all kinds of uses for smaller pill bottles I can actually open, once the labels are peeled off.

On the plus side for this cold, I have been getting more sleep, eyes drooping earlier and opening later. Just to stay warm, and avoid struggling with my shoulders, my PJs currently are sweats and polar fleece, since without them plus a blanket I'm chilled and don't warm up. I'm sure they'll be rank by the time I'm ready to go out in public again, but that'll be a few days. I promise I'll change by then.

I have to call a few people I've had contact with the last couple of days, pre-symptoms, just for a warning. They are all younger and should brush it off without problems, but one is caring for a parent just post surgery and may wish to take precautions. I did give her a hug, after all.

Meanwhile I'm not even heading out to bring the recycle bin back from the street, despite strict rules here for doing so. There's a fresh inch of snow that fell yesterday and still sits on everything here including stairs and car, no footprints anywhere, so somebody might figure out we have a reason for leaving it another day or so.

Meanwhile this has been a 5 tissue, three cough drop post, and I'm ready for a nap.

A Different Kind Of A Problem

 This one is totally new to me. In all the years (29) where driving was my career as an independent contractor (IC) I bought so many cars new, straight off the lot that I've mostly lost track. The company I contracted with required undamaged vehicles, no rust, or any thing else which might give their customers reason to believe we weren't trustworthy. Their solution was to mandate replacement after 5 years. With the amount of driving I was doing, that often involved well over 300,000 miles on a vehicle. Total driving for the career was over 2 million. One car went to 400,000. I turned that car over to my sons, and one promptly rolled it. Oh well. His loss.

Minnesota attack deer took out a couple. The last replacement was after I got rear-ended by a school bus while I was stopped at a red light. (Go read Dec. 10, 2013 post for details. Or not.) School bus insurance companies have really good insurance! I still drive the replacement, 12 years later.

Cars age two ways, in my experience. One is accumulated damage, rendering them eventually undriveable. The other is the toll of age (without shelter). Rust, dust, sun, cold, wear on the parts... all get their chances to attack. A car can simply sit and eventually fall apart. This current car only had about 65,000 miles on it before I retired. After that, it went south in winter, north in summer, and otherwise did a whole lot of sitting and very short drives, whether in wet northern summers or in dusty southern winters. Haboobs and hot sun take their tolls, even if it spent ten years avoiding ice and snow. Arizona is hell on rubber. One result is oil leaks requiring expensive replacements. 

I'm not sure of the precise cause of the latest issue, whether something rusted, got gooped up, cracked, or what have you. My seat belt has been getting more and more difficult to click and release. The part coming from the frame by the door has gotten stubborn, requiring me to pull it out enough to slip my shoulder in it, then rock forward, unwinding a bit more belt, rock back to take up the slack, and repeat as long as necessary so I can pull the buckle pieces together. I'm sure anybody watching is thinking about some oversized butterfly nets for the crazy lady.

If that were the only issue, no biggee. But getting it into the buckle between the seats has gotten so difficult that (my bad shoulder of course) has a royal struggle getting it down in to latch. When I have Steve next to me, he can do it, but still with trouble. It does stay latched, and it is only a little less of an issue separating the parts again.

I called the dealership, asking for a price quote on replacing the two parts of the driver's belt. I'd read on line I should expect around $400 to $600 for the set. The dealership came back with $1000!!!!! Just for the driver's side!

No thanks!

Colder weather has settled in, making the  belt more of an issue. I was discussing it with a family member who - bless her - saw the issue more clearly than I did. How about getting seat belt extenders, put then on once and leave them, then hook into the new ends? 

DUH !!!!!

Now Steve has been suggesting getting an extender for his side of the car. I never even thought of doing it for both. But it's gotten more urgent now since I can no longer get my bad shoulder to exert the pressure needed to attach or release mine. I figure, put them on both seats, and the "working" parts will be new and presumably functional. Just put them in and leave them. I could even put tape around the part I want to be sure to remember not to use, like I had to with the parking brake a couple months back. It did take a while, but I actually weaned myself of the habit of reaching to pull the brake over the time it took to get the car into the shop. I can do it again! (BTW the habit to set the brake has returned. I do notice I'm doing it now however.)

I called a national parts chain with a local branch. They had lots of extenders but... none for my car. I called the dealership parts department... and the manufacturer never made one for my model. I went online for a search and found some cheap ones at Walmart... that don't look like the shape of my buckles. Hmmm, maybe too cheap is not the way to go. OK, I tried nationally... and found a site that asks very specific questions about year, model, and which precise location it needs to fit - one for every different seat in the car.They also offered two varieties, a short rigid one, or a longer flexible one, only 2 inches difference between them. This inspired more confidence. The fact that they gave color choices, black or grey, made no difference. I don't care about color, just safety.

I ordered a pair, paid for faster shipping. I don't need to be stuck somewhere trying to decide between safety by torturing my shoulder, or only going places where somebody can put the belt together for me on both ends of the trip. I did the latter last night, with Steve doing it at home, then meeting my son Paul at a Fleet Farm to buy warm winter gloves for him as an early Christmas present. He does come and shovel for us after all, and gets paid for it. He'd mentioned cold hands after finishing his own driveway first the other day. After getting him two different kinds of gloves, (quality check), I had him walk me to the car, get in the passenger side for a moment, and fasten my seat belt before I drove home. Even he had problems!

But I did manage to get out of it after some work once home. It beats having to ask Steve to get dressed for the cold and come out.

Now we wait....