Before You Call Them A Worm....

A lot of us are pretty polarized these days, politically. Pretty much all of us think we have a good reason for our point of view. I'm not going to debate your views with you, at least not here. I have my own, and they're strong. I see little point in arguing about a disagreement with anybody who insists on an opposite viewpoint. But lots of ugly, mean, insulting words are getting tossed around. Yesterday I heard somebody I have absolutely no respect for being called a worm.

I found it unfair to use that term.

Consider this: most of the worms you will ever run into are either useful in some way, or are on their way to some kind of adult form. The person in question has shown no signs of being either.

Do you really want to insult worms that way?

But Who Expected It Would Explode?

It's fall gardening time. It's so much earlier than last year, when I ordered a bunch of bulbs that had to come from Holland, meaning they went into the ground about a month later than I'd wished. They did very poorly too. So this year, when I started thinking about replacing them, I picked a US source which promised two day delivery instead of two month delivery. It seemed especially important with all the mess with tariffs slowing imports down even further.

The two days turned into nearly two weeks, but that's our mail system these days, slower and slower and.... But that's another blog post. Or seven.

I had looked for bulbs in the stores, including the one I bought some in both last fall and this spring. I think I ran into the same idiot clerk I did last fall, who stoutly insisted they did not keep such stock, nor were they about to. I reminded her I'd bought some there last fall, and had originally asked when they would be coming in. Nothing exotic, mind you, just daffodils. She still insisted they weren't going to stock them, their garden department was shutting down, and conveyed her insistence in a tone that found me stupid and rude for daring to disagree with her however mildly. Since it was still mid August when I asked, I mentally agreed they were shutting down their summer nursery stock, but also decided some people just aren't worth arguing with. The fact I'd bought them there last year hadn't changed her opinions from the first time she opened her mouth. If I were still on the hunt in a couple weeks I could stop back in. Either the display stand would be up and fully stocked with fall bulbs, or it wouldn't. Other stores would have some if needed. Maybe the mail would come through more promptly.

And meanwhile I mail ordered 75 daffodil bulbs, one pack of 25 in solid yellow, and two packs of 25 in nearly every variety I've ever grown. They arrived last week. Well before I was ready to plant them.

Or should I say before my shoulders were ready for the movement required? My new pain meds were finally in my hands, though not not yet built up in my body. Now they are, and while not a perfect solution, they have changed my ability to actually do my physical therapy. MY therapist was delighted with my progress last week. As was I.

My son stopped by a few days ago with a bunch of daffodil bulbs he'd flagged for me last spring when they were blooming. I do mean literally flagged. I'd picked up a bundle of stiff wires with bright pink 3' x 3" flags on the top and we'd gone around his yard together. He pointed out places where they were overcrowded and heading out into the lawn, and I generally agreed with those choices. If they weren't all favorites, at least they liked the climate here. It was finally time for him to dig them up for transplanting into one of my flower beds. Even though he'd scattered a nice batch of scilla seeds in another one in early summer, he also just brought a bunch of bulbs from a solid patch of them under and around two cherry trees. By solid patch, I mean he truly has a blue lawn in about 5 different expanding patches in his yard, first thing every spring. A couple weeks later he has purple lawn patches when the violets bloom, and later yellow from dandelions. He had no problems digging up a bunch of scilla bulbs for me at the same time.

He planted, I watered, cut more rhubarb to keep the rabbits out of the lilies, and sent him home with a huge bag of various leaf waste for his compost pit.

I'd made note exactly where he left spaces for more bulbs to go in, since I also had ordered scilla bulbs along with the daffodils. I'd originally thought to put them in a different garden, but over the summer it had thrived with all the rain and the daylilies are doing that rare thing, reblooming on new stalks. They're also rapidly expanding. Even though I'd been busy weeding and deadheading over the summer, I hadn't quite realized how much their foliage had thickened until I had to find room to plant a few new iris in that same bed. No room for anything more there! In fact, I think I'm going to have to move out the iris already in there next summer for their own bed away from the daylilies, which means digging out half the rhubarb patch. I'm already giving one huge rhubarb plant to a friend this week, so a spot is opening up for them to move to. I'll still be keeping some for keeping the bunnies out of the regular lily bed, and the rhubarb is so prolific I may dig out even more.

Yesterday I went out and planted the last of the fifty fairly fat scilla bulbs, leaving room for the daffodils to go in. It is, after all, almost a 30 foot long raised bed, with a full third of the front empty this summer. There is room, and the daffodil bulbs have been mixed together so the all yellows are a random part of the mix.

I just wasn't ready to plant those after digging in the scilla bulbs yesterday. It had gotten hotter even as I worked this south-facing bed, and my glasses still need another rinse and wipe to clear the rest of the salt off the lenses. But I did need to do what I'd been doing with the other bulbs as they were planted - water them in well.

The hoses hook in to the faucet at the far other end of the house. First is a standard one, then one of those stretchy things which grow in length as they fill with water - so long as you keep the end capped. Otherwise the hose barely reaches the first part of that bed, nevermind the full length. I made a mental note to water the daylily bed as well once I'd finished, since we hadn't had rain for a week now, with none immediately expected,  and it had new plantings. The short hose reaches that bed just fine.

I was stretching out the zig-zag expanding hose so it would reach the end of the just planted bed, getting ready to keep a tight hold on it because once it opens and the pressure eases off, it starts to shrink. I have to be stronger than its need to shrink as soon as the end opens or the far end of the garden patch won't get any water. I planted my feet, gave a last tug to give myself a bit more advantage in that battle with the hose, and reached to twist open the brass fitting which opens it.

POW! The whole fitting and hose exploded in my hand! Of course I dropped it in reaction, giving myself the beginning of my post-gardening shower for the day. As the hose slunk away across the grass, I picked up the fitting and followed it. Of course I went all the way to the faucet on the house and shut it off, then went back to uncouple the two hoses.

Or tried. My hand strength wasn't up to the job. I tried again a few minutes later, just to be sure it wasn't the shock of the event that was stopping me. Nope. It needed stronger hands. The stretchy hose was simply not fixable either, fabric totally separated from fittings... by about 6 feet, aka the distance I held them apart.

The solution wound up taking the rest of the day. I ordered a new standard kind of hose, along with a standard spray attachment for the end, packed the tangled mess of old hoses into the car, and once my son was home, drove the mess to his house to unfasten. Bless strong young guy hands! The stretchy part is in his garbage can. The new one is now in my possession, but the work stopped last night at freeing it from it's packaging. Those plastic straps took a wire cutter to cut. Locating said cutter took half an hour. The old standard hose is on the parking pad, waiting to be hooked up to the faucet. I did bring the new spray nozzle into the house last night... somewhere.

I was going to look for it this morning. I decided that since Mother Nature woke me up with a two hour shower, I could wait at least till tomorrow to put it all together and haul it across the lawn. 

Sometime after planting some of those daffodil bulbs seems like a good time to take care of it. That job has been moved up a bit more than I'd planned. It seems, since no rain had been forecast, that the box with those bulbs in it had been left out on the porch. It's a covered porch. But the box was under the one spot on the porch where the downspout delivers a full roof's worth of rain to. (Interesting in winter with the ice, eh?)

They are now drying out on top of folded towels on the counter. I got this morning's unplanned shower about a half of a minute after I realized where they'd been left. 

Upon reflection, I find a warmer one with soap and safety bars much more refreshing. I think I'll stick to those in the future. 

If I can....

It's Building Up...

I had a recent consult with my primary doc last week.  One shoulder was getting much worse, which I'm told can happen as range of motion is restored. The amount it can move around partially depends on wearing down those places in the joint which are irregular. Yes, it's way more complicated than that, and I hope you never have to know all the details. I wish I didn't. They hurt - literally. Just note that as those places get worn away, it becomes easier for the joint to become out-of-joint. Dislocated. The resulting pain contributes greatly to reluctance to continue physical therapy. The required starting treatment, on which future medical decisions about procedures rely, actually becomes counter-productive.

Have I mentioned that my primary has seen my x-rays now and was very... uh...impressed... with the deterioration. (So much for working 29 years in a "man's job". Or better known as getting a living wage.)

Much of my discussion with this doc was to ask for a specific prescription for pain. I don't want a narcotic, or not yet. They can be great - for a while - post surgery while healing takes place. After that, they interfere with life. In my case, they rob this household of a legal driver. I've been the sober designated driver - whether circumstances need one or not - since I got my license. And I mean totally sober. I could tell a tale of a major drunk-to-the-point-of-sick from college days, but nevermind. I wasn't driving yet anyway. For some years after that I might have a couple sips here or there, but it was no hardship to give it up. In fact it was a blessing not to have to even smell it. Narcotics are a great help when I need them. But if I don't, my body has this quirk of reacting to them as if I were allergic. Once I need them again, not a problem. It drives docs and pharmacists nuts.

I've been living on ibuprofin in high doses during various long periods in my life. Recently my shoulders have driven me back to them, and as long as I take them with food, my body is fine. (Lab work agrees.) Mostly the pain is lessened. Lately however this wasn't been working as well as hoped. Steroids don't do a thing. And as stated, I'm not ready for narcotics. Steve's doc solved that problem. 

I go into the exam room with him, partly to be his memory of past history, partly to become memory of future instructions, and partly just for support. This doc offered a pain treatment that is doing wonders for Steve, described by this doc as super-ibuprofin. It's called Meloxicam. One pill (instead of up to 16 in my case) lasts a full day, is stronger during that time, and builds up in your system over a week of taking it daily. I tried just one of Steve's and decided to ask for my own prescription. 

Yes I returned one of mine to him, which tells you that my doc approved them for me. So much for spoilers. But it had been a terrible week when I saw her, so bad one arm was essentially useless for normal stuff including just keeping still, not to mention it's totally preventing PT. I had PT Tuesday where, after finding out how much backsliding has occurred,  my therapist found some new range-of-motion exercises I can actually do despite the pain because the joints don't self-dislocate while doing them. Not a total preventative, but still doable exercises.

Wednesday I called my pharmacy to ask why the delay on my pills.They said according to their records I'm allergic to NSAIDS.

SAY WHAT? I explained how many I currently take with no problems except for my needing something stronger to avoid narcotics. I'd just had this discussion with my primary because her computer flashed when she tried to put the order through during my visit. It seems there is one med I took way back in 1985 that had side effects, and I note I never want to take it again to all my doctors. It's called clinoril, and in a month it caused depression. Stopping it had me emotionally bouncing off the ceiling for a day until it wore off. My doc way back then claimed it didn't have that side effect, but switched me over to Motrin. No problem ever again... until now, when somehow it's categorized as an NSAID and stupid computers think I am allergic to ALL NSAIDS. Nope, just one... if you call that an allergy. I just know I'll never take that particular medication again. The pharmacist changed my status in their computer system while we spoke, and within an hour I was picking up my pills.

Every day gets a little better. Driving for a long day of errands, as Steve and I discovered, is not pain free. Not remotely close. But the PT exercises are getting easier, aka less painful. The muscle loss is going to take more time and work, but now I'm actually back to working on them.

There are two offshoots from needing better pain control. First, I called my son to stop on his way home from work so I could drive him to the local store to help me pick up, transfer in/out of cart and car, a new microwave. Yes, we already have a microwave... up over the stove. It's been excruciating to lift a simple mug of water up into it to heat for my morning instant coffee. Now that one is "resting" though still technically functional. The new one is on the counter by the toaster, and some things are rearranged to accommodate loss of counter space, or converting the top of the microwave to substitute counter for, say, the instant coffee or paper towels much used with the machine. Still in basically the same location, easier to cook with. Steve did have to locate a single multi-plug now that one outlet needed to support three appliances, already at capacity with a toaster and light. Don't worry, we don't use all three at once.

Second, I got a referral back to my orthopedic guy. The appointment is early next month. Both my primary and PT people think it's time to start discussing next steps. According to the "system", that would be steroid shots into the joint, before considering surgery. I fully plan to refuse the shots. Steroids do nothing for me. I had them as injections for my knees, and as pills before starting PT. Useless! As if that weren't reason enough, once one starts those, surgeons refuse to do anything until after 4 months have gone by without them.  Hell no!  

I will need to check on whether those pointless steroid pills count in the 4 months requirement. Even so, if they do, by the time surgery can be scheduled it's likely that the required time will have passed already. By the time I see the orthopedic guy for the referral, 6 weeks will have passed anyway. That was the end of July.

Meanwhile I have a few exercises to do. Even when the shoulder dislocates now, the pain eases off in 20 minutes or so. That was yesterday, of course. We'll see if the medication has built up enough more to cut that back a bit.

A Litle Exploration

Well, the Crex photo contest is over for the year, and some very excellent photos won. I was inspired to try for some new ways of getting better shots for the next time around. Since entries are limited both by location and category, I definitely need to get out more, not a hardship in the sense that it's my favorite place to hang out with my camera anyway.

One restriction was that they need to be taken within specific boundaries. I discovered I hadn't quite realized where those were, and how far reaching they went. I picked up some maps of the locations to expand my horizons and opportunities available for scenery and wildlife. I've been missing a whole lot of territory, basically because I've been hunting for  locations holding my favorite birds, the greater sandhill cranes. There's a lot more out there.

A new category opened up this year as well: night skies. I hadn't realized one could get galaxy shots and their reflections in a lake. I also had no idea how many different people got aurora shots as well, something that the latest smart phones capture very well. In fact much better than the human eye can perceive. All but one of the entries in that category were auroras. (How does one choose between those? I mean, really!) I'm still not tempted to get a smart phone, but the lack of variety of submissions got me thinking in new directions.

I have been experimenting with thunderstorms at night from the house, mostly video so far. It's been a very stormy summer. Just the attempt has made the benefits of digital photography apparent, since no film is wasted and all the mistakes are free. I have a particular idea in mind, requiring  a fairly wide expanse of open lake and just the right storm location relative to that. Yep, I want lightning reflections. I found the lake for it to set up a tripod from, where the only access faces east across the water,  so I can set up after it passes but is still active. Or at least that's the plan. Another lake I didn't know existed until this week has a great vantage point looking north.

Why am I thinking I need new lakes? I want a lot of open water. Even the largest lake I was familiar with is covered in blooming waterlilies, rice, and cattails. Reflections of the sky are a pipe dream. One can only get large areas of clear surface water in the early spring after ice out, and that's just too early for thunderstorms. Great for those galaxies and auroras though, when conditions are right. I just don't have the right cameras.

                  Reflections of the sky? In this? Sure! Uh huh. Riiiiight!
 

One disadvantage of the stormy season this year - if I'm not making all the wrong assumptions - is a dearth of young birds. Adults are scarce enough, though they are around, and usually way far away from what a modest camera can capture. I have yet to see a single trumpeter cygnet this summer. As for baby cranes, aka colts, the grasses are tall enough to hide all but parental heads when they rise to watch for danger, at least in the refuge. Around the local roads where we live, they have been sighted from the car when foliage is low, such as early cornfields or soybean fields, and even a construction site or two before the machines get noisy. At least this year I haven't seen any as highway roadkill. Come to think of it, I haven't seen possums splayed along the margins either, just coons, a single skunk, and the seemingly requisite number of deer.

My scouting trip yielded a few shots, as it was a rare blue sky day - no Canadian fire smoke - and a few puffy white clouds did double duty both above and below, with just enough landscape details to make the shots both identifiable and interesting. A lot of other shots were just the kind I take to remind me by, say, a sign, exactly where I was at the time of the shot. Which turns do I take to get back there? One also had the sign clearly rising from a nice swath of poison ivy, just in case I might be tempted in the dark to get closer.

These are both shot from the same spot, one nearly straight east, the other more to the north. Pleasant enough for now, so long as I avoid the poison ivy, but with interesting possibilities in the right weather. By the way, tonight has been forecast as a possibility for storms. These also have the advantage of being next to paved roads and a fairly quick, straight shot from here to the highway. Most of the refuge roads are gravel and dust coats the rear of my car before I leave. One rear wiper blade and a squirter gives me some visibility, but I'm glad the hose easily reaches the back where it gets parked, saving me a car wash each visit.

 Because they look east, I also have started to make note of full moons. I have hopes for a nice bright orange one rising from where the top picture is aimed. I know my camera has no problem getting a rising full moon and its reflection as it clears the far shore. I've done it in another location a few years back. This is the only place that shot would work inside refuge boundaries. The road to this spot is problematic enough I wouldn't consider it in winter conditions, but a harvest moon approaches.

On the way back, at full highway speeds, I was blessed with two interesting sightings, much closer than I've seen either since both were just a few feet from the pavement and unfazed by speeding traffic. First was a fawn, still fully spotted and huge ears for its head, looking as if it was planning to cross, with no understanding of how the process of transforming into roadkill was accomplished. I slowed a little despite almost no warning of its presence, and spoke a warning to it as if it could hear through my closed windows and understand. Just before I came even with it the fawn got sensible and darted back into the woods it had presumably emerged from.

I do hope Mamma was on that side of the road so it wouldn't try crossing again.

Just as I was getting over such a close deer sighting, up ahead at the very rim of the pavement was an adult sandhill crane, very dark from a recent dirt application, head down to the ground, leaving me with a first impression that somebody left a dark silhouette sign at the edge of the road. Then it moved, tugging at something I couldn't see which appeared to be caught under the pavement edge. My car didn't alarm it a bit. Was it a snake perhaps? I had read that they ate small reptiles and amphibians when available. What else could be stuck there to interest a crane?

It was still tugging as I passed, and safe in the glimpse from my rearview mirror.

Just as safe as my camera was, zipped into its hardbody case while I rolled by. Sigh....

The Epstein Memorial Ballroom

By now you've likely heard about tRump's "improvement" to the White House Rose garden. You know, the part where he buried it and most of the accompanying lawn under plain concrete and threw some picnic tables over part of it. No flowers. No trees. No grass. No shade. Just, well, tacky.

Perhaps you've also heard about his "improvements" to the interior of the White House, covering everything he can with gilt.You know, because nothing personifies his values like a thinnest film of gold over whatever he can hide under it. Again, tacky tacky tacky.

Does it even bear mentioning that he hid the portraits of our recent Presidents up a staircase and along a hall where only very special people with very exclusive clearance are even allowed to set foot, never mind set eyes on them for who knows how long into the distant future? It can't be claimed to be political, exactly, since both Republican and Democratic Presidential portraits have been thus relocated, as if anyone who still lingers in living visitors' memories for comparison to him must be as erased as much as possible, with only his own likeness worthy of being prominently displayed. Let's face it though: we have not had any President of his caliber in the White House in living memory. Twice impeached, narcissistic, unintelligent (thinks Alaska is part of Russia), vengeful, convicted of 34 felonies, he is truly in a class of his own! Or at least we hope so.

Now he's busy planning a huge - I mean really YUGE - ballroom as an addition to the White House. Such an addition, in fact, that it will dwarf the White House into obscurity. Go ahead, look at the renderings of what he has planned, see what I mean. We hear no justification for why we need such a thing added. Comments have been made that this is meant as a distraction from the Epstein scandal, something to distract the country from the likelihood of tRump having availed himself of the party favors in the form of access to underage girls, from his years long buddy Jeffrey Epstein at his frequent parties. I don't need to describe the sordid details further, right? We've all heard them, whether we choose to believe the worst or not. The point here is the likelihood of his using one tacky disgrace to distract from a deeper disgrace.

I'd like to pass along a suggestion I heard earlier. Let's start referring to that proposed YUGE disgrace of building a proposed gilded ballroom as a distraction from a much worse disgrace as "The Epstein Memorial Ballroom!" Let us never forget!

What A Difference Half A Day Makes

Yesterday afternoon was PT again. I've been working on putting some of the stretches into ordinary activities. For example, just to get my deodorant on, I've had to force my arms up along the door frames in the bathroom for years already, pulling them by climbing with my fingers, then stepping back a bit to make enough room for that little roll-on bottle. It makes it possible to do (so long as I keep gripping the door frame) which I'm pretty sure those around me appreciate. Now I even have to do the same thing without the bottle, once the hand is at a new level for as high as I can get it, not just step back but twist away towards the other door frame. I think the eventual goal is being able to reach the back of my head... comfortably? There are two of those for each arm, one high, one low. I can give it a go each time I head out of my bathroom - you know, the point in my life when I'm no longer in a hurry  -  and get that particular set of stretches in there several times a day.

So would you think it would be getting easier? The stretch a little longer? Less painful? How about if I told you I spent much of three days last week being pretty sure the right shoulder was self-dislocating again? Somehow that surprised my therapist yesterday when we were doing a bunch of stretches while I was lying down on her table. 

It was an interesting session in itself, partly because of the horizontal position, partly because there was a lot of stretching and pulling to warm my shoulders up so we could get the extension I got at my last visit. But I managed a lot of conversation to distract us both from what was going on. She keeps telling me these are not supposed to hurt, and I should stop her when we get to that point. I kinda figured if I stop when it hurts I'd never get past the situation I'm currently in. Pain avoidance is how I got here! I'd started it by telling her how one of the homework stretches was getting put to use during last week week when there was a bunch of planting as my mail order iris and daylilies arrived. There was also a lot of pulling out of dead leaves around the bottoms of the current daylilies, done from the sitting in a chair position and reaching way forward, which turns it into a more upward stretch relative to my back, which I need.  Those dead leaves pull out easily, but finding them all is a challenge. It's a long reach towards the center of the circular garden. Removing them allows visibility to find the newest sprouting of weeds as they show up against the newly bare dirt.

I plan to give her a pod or two of seeds in the fall, whether we're still working together or not. She was interested in my tall balloon flower plants. I can just drop them at the front desk with her name on the envelope. It should also include some names of varieties of other plants we discussed so she can look them up to see if she wants to locate her own. Ahh, the joys of finding a fellow gardener.

As a distraction, the topic worked really well during PT, and she managed to get me past the point where I'd start to try to pull back against her stretches, past the point where it hurt until I had to make it stop... but I wanted to finish my sentence first. Of course sometimes the "OW" just burst out.

There were times I needed her to move the arm being worked on back into normal resting position instead of me doing it. There was more pulling and tugging during the process and we made the joints stretch a few degrees past the last session, something they had to be worked on to achieve as they had tightened up again since then. But we made real progress by the end of the session. 

Now I would have figured I'd be aching all over the place last night, even just sitting in my chair watching TV. Lying down to sleep should have been excruciating... but it wasn't. My shoulders were pleasantly numb last night. I was greatly encouraged.

Of course by 3AM it was a whole different story. I'd wake myself up from the tiniest motions, like pulling the covers up a bit as the house grew cooler, or pushing them back down as I got just a bit too warm after a short while. Apparently I do this in my sleep, only now it was waking me up.

Rudely! It's even messing up my dreams!

Rather than being able to go back to sleep in my bed, I needed a more vertical position. This means relocating to my recliner, which is where I'm writing from. Each morning I need to take my thyroid pill an hour ahead of taking anything else - no breakfast, coffee, or pain pills, and not just because the latter need food to be consumed with them. Last week I learned for the first time since 1985 that my cast iron stomach allowing for up to maximum recommended ibuprofin intake was not a guaranteed thing. I'd taken some at bedtime but without food, trying to keep my blood sugar levels down in the morning. Minding the diet is easier than minding yet another medication. What I got in exchange for that slip was a very sour stomach. So no more skipping being mindful of enough food intake with the pills, as well as lower pill intake to keep it easier to juggle both needs at the same time.  The cost of that turns out to be less pain control. Ma-a-y-y-ybe a little less stretching homework.

PT shares the same roof as my primary doc. On my way out yesterday I stopped at her scheduling desk and made an appointment with my primary to discuss getting the same non-narcotic pill Steve is currently taking which is doing wonders for his pain control, which in turn does wonders for his mobility. Some days he even ignores his walker! Of course that means he tends to overdo it a little and gets to endure a couple days needing it again, but I'm sure he'll get the new improved normal balance worked out. There has been so much time where we doubted he'd have any good days again.

My primary already gave me a referral to a pain doc. Unfortunately the online system they use for medical communications is a bear - to be very very polite. But since I'm not asking for a narcotic, because I want to try to avoid one of those until, say, dealing with post-surgery stuff, so I can continue to drive legally, I figure she can prescribe pain meds without that particular complication, without signed contracts to promise not to overuse and abuse the meds that going on narcotics would require these days. It's a bonus that a drive to her office is twenty miles shorter as a round trip than the closest pain doc. If my primary wants to just go for one bottle and reassess, fine.  But I know the stuff works because (shhhhh, don't tell) Steve let me have a single pill to try. One with breakfast, lasts the entire day, no needing a dozen pills to get through a full day and still not eliminate pain noticeably until compared with a full stop of pain meds.

My doc has an opening Monday. I'll be in after work.

Meanwhile this morning my body is overreacting to the extra stretches and pulls and pushes from yesterday's 45 minute session. By now the thyroid pill has had its hour to work, so I'm going to go get my morning pills, coffee, and breakfast together and have a real start to my day while I start proofing this for posting.

Owww..... But there's time for enough pain relief to tolerate going off to work.

An Accidental Repair

 I'm nowhere near as handy as I used to be. While I'm still fairly spatially adept, certain things that used to be second nature have now faded behind the veils of time and old age, not to mention the moderate brain damage that happened during a cardiac procedure some years ago. I'd thought for years the damage was mostly affecting speech, though that has mostly repaired despite words often escaping me for periods of time. At least when writing I have time to try workarounds and come up with what I was looking for.

But certain skills with basic tools are becoming more challenging, and I even include a computer keyboard among them. There are times I have to stop and figure out which keystroke will do what I need in terms of procedures. They still work well with basic typing, just the usual abundance of typos. But sometimes I just have to tell myself to stop thinking about the keyboard and just let muscle memory take over. Shut it off, turn it back on, and log back in usually reminds me which thing to hit where.

It's been photography season for the last few months. I've been managing with a slightly broken camera for over a year. A film camera would have been toast. I managed to drop the thing one day taking it from house to car, violating one of my cardinal rules: don't just rely on my ability to balance a stack of items. The camera has a strap, as does its case. When holding either one, at least a finger needs to be hooked though the strap. DUH!

Oops! I changed direction to open a door and heard it clunk on the pavement. The case of the camera body came slightly apart. Not enough to fall off, but enough to interfere with turning it on and off, since the process involves pushing out its telescoping lens, or pulling it bsck flat with the case. I quickly figured out that pinching it right in a line with the on/off button enabled those functions to work. I tried the same off to the other side of it but the case wasn't budging. It wouldn't come back together. 

I decided not to force it. Being digital, it's not like light flooded inside the camera body to overexpose  film. I still got OK pictures, or at least as OK as what I was actually taking. I'm one of those people who can easily take ten shots and sort through for something between acceptable and pretty darn good. As long as each shot was taken with a pinch in that one spot, the camera worked. It had made handling it interesting, nearly always a two hand production: one to stabilize, the other to shoot. I could still easily get this, shortly after the break:

Or this, one from last summer, also post break:

Or even this, from early spring this year, with enough detail to keep most everybody from recognizing it as pussy willow, all puffed out.

I'm not sure exactly what happened, but think I just got frustrated from being in a hurry and trying to work the zoom. My hand just clenched a bit harder then usual. The unfastened side of the case suddenly clicked, and even as I watched, progressively popped itself back together.

Could it be? I hit the on/off button. No pinch, just a tap. It clicked, shutting off. Another tap, it opened. One more and the shutter clicked. I looked in the back screen and, allowing for the glare from the sun bouncing off my shirt obstructing its view, the shot I just took was there. 

 So why, oh why, hadn't I gotten brave enough to do that on purpose before this?

Of course I know exactly why. I had no replacement camera. Just the day before I'd been looking for that exact model online. I found out three important facts. First, it was made in 2014. Second, only refurbished ones were available, if I trusted  the source to have done the wonderful job they claimed. I'd done it buying this camera when we lived in Arizona, and it worked perfectly. Now? No longer confidant. Third,  the price on even refurbished ones was much higher, but replacements remotely close to this model via newer cameras were close to a grand, way over my budget. Besides, they had more lumps and bumps and stuff to learn. I wasn't that desperate that day. Now I don't have to be! 

I had concluded that if I actually got that desperate, I might finally start considering getting a smart phone.

OMG! Not that!!!! Yes, I do know it's likely my only practical shot at getting photos of night skies. Galaxie shots, auroras, whatever, the newest ones have cameras which capture the light and colors very well. But I'd have to learn a whole damn new phone AND camera at the same time! 

I already have this unique talent for just touching Steve's smartphone, and killing it. I can't even get the swipe right to answer an incoming call for him, however important it may be. 

Go ahead, call me a luddite. 

Just don't drop my camera!

Can You Pronounce YOUR Medications?

I continue to be amazed at how many people cannot seem to pronounce certain medication names. Nor do they seem to care one iota, and this even includes some in the medical field. But a phone call this morning got me absolutely giggling. It's I good thing I knew the names.

My Part D insurance requires that my pharmacy is Walmart. Either that or I pay the whole amount. One calls in, and has to fight past the automated answering machine to speak to an actual pharmacist. I have discovered one sure-fire effective fib that works: tell the machine you need to "transfer a prescription'". The machine is programmed to "help" take care of all your issues without bothering an employee. Yelling does not help. Trust me on that. The machine won't hang up on a rude caller, which is almost more frustrating than if it did. "Pharmacist" or "speak to pharmacist" no longer gets you connected, but instead gets an inquiry from the machine as to why. But it's not capable - yet - of taking care of transferring something from another pharmacy, even a different Walmart one, because the number system on the bottles is different. A HUMAN IS STILL REQUIRED. Take advantage while it still works.

Occasionally it's helpful to bypass the human. One could be on hold for a while. My store's machine will call and ask me in its mechanical voice if I wish to refill something that its records show is about to run out... if I've been taking it as directed. It's usually phrased as "...beginning with the letters - - -". Usually that is helpful, as long as the letters are perfectly pronounced, the background noise is nonexistent, and there's only one thing starting with those letters.

I test my blood sugar once a day. Both the lancets and test strips start with the same three letters - their brand name. They don't come in boxes with the same quantity inside, of course, because Medicare hates giving me more than a 3 month supply. Lancets only come in 100 count boxes. They can't change that, but lancets are cheap. Test strips come in 50 and 100, but since I only test daily, the 100 count box is too many.  Those are expensive, so Medicare tries to limit me to one little 50-count supply. This means they get renewed in different schedules. When that automated call comes through, are they asking about the lancets or the test strips? I want a pharmacist!

There are times when the dosage I need for some reason is changed temporarily. Do I need the one the machine is pushing? Can I have time to check in my bathroom when I'm in the living room or even out in the garden?  I just say,"No." Nancy Reagan would be proud, right? 

While there are lots of reasons to avoid the machine, this morning I found a new one. Whoever programmed it never bothered to find a way to give it correct pronunciation cues. 

I started the call. I was going to be in the store later and wanted to check if my recently ordered refills were ready. There could be many reasons, but just knock it off to the grocery pick-up being at the totally opposite end of the B-I-G store from the pharmacy. I just informed the machine I wanted to check on prescriptions. It noted the number I called from, gave my birthday (oh-oh, could be security issues here) and asked me to verify it, and then did it's worst to pronounce what was ready.

First was my statin. Yes, I'm of a certain age where statins  are useful, and have been for a while. Any word with "statin" in it, including statin, emphasizes the first syllable. In my case, the product name has 5 syllables, the last two of which are "statin".  So the 2nd and 4th are accented. The machine accented the first, third, and fifth.

Good thing I remembered what I'd refilled, right?

I also take a drug with what seems to be the hardest name to pronounce in the country, metoprolol. It's so bad that I actually compliment medical personnel who actually can pronounce it properly. Not even all of them can. People see the word and break it up into sections... and do it wrong.  1st two make meto. (It sounds like meh - toe'.) Not "me too", something also chosen. People read a familiar word instead: metro. They borrow the "r" following the "p" and stick it earlier in the word for that particular gymnastic tongue exercise. Then there's no "r" for the 3rd syllable. Thus meh-toe-pro-lol becomes anybody's choice of four or five different mispronunciations.

The machine this morning assured me that two totally unrecognizable drug names were ready for pickup.

So yes, I hung up giggling. It beats swearing at an uncaring machine. At least the news is good.

I wonder if I could get paid for teaching a machine how to speak "medical". I figure almost anybody who did well in "speaking" organic chemistry at the U could do it. We won't discuss how "interesting" the lab-recipe part was, OK? But I do recall somebody pronouncing "acetyl" as ass'-uh-teal'.

If you need pronunciation help with that, go look it up.  Please.