Two Hearts, New Hook-ups

No, not that kind of hookups. I'm talking cardiac monitors and connections to some machines in offices somewhere in the world which keeps track of how they are doing.

I've had my hook-up since my pacemaker went in years ago. It gets regular check-ins via either a cell or a wi-fi signal on a regular basis - they never told me which - plus I can also send a signal outside of regular times if something seems to be going wrong. So far the only things going wrong are in the programming itself. Twice now I've been in the cardiologist's office getting a light reprogramming of its works. Once it was sending out a test pattern which I actually felt as an extra semi-beat and worried that the ablation surgery had failed to last over the long term.  That got reprogrammed last year. No flutters since.

This year my specific kind of pacemakers are all going through a reprogramming by their manufacturer in order to extend the life of their batteries. Both times I simply sat in a room with the tech who did things across the room with her computer which made the changes without ever touching me or my pacemaker. It was followed up with them mailing me a new monitoring box that sits next to where I sleep and checks in automatically at night on some schedule. Or, I still have the option of hitting a button and forcing it to send a recording right now of whatever is going on if something seems weird. It looks almost identical to the old box but a tiny bit bigger, and is needed to work with the new programming. 

It isn't costing me a cent so I don't care, but I did make sure, since with my shoulders I can't spend my nights in my bed but half sitting in a recliner, that the monitor is plugged in next to my chair. It does come with one new instruction however. It can't be within a foot of any electronics. Of course that end table by my recliner holds both my laptop and cell and their chargers, with enough other stuff in, on, and around that finding a place far enough away and have it still be plugged into the same power strip without being a tripping hazard was a challenge. It's a very electronics dense part of the house between the normal electronics Steve and I both have, and the extra stuff Steve needs like his lift chair, his back heater/massager, and his fall alert necklace charger. He has other medical stuff he charges across the room. Our chairs are close enough together that we can hold hands when we want and we share the reading lamp between the chairs. We have 3 power strips for just two wall outlets. I did get it working in the new location eventually. The company monitoring them called me back to confirm it when the new one came on line... after my 3rd try.

My change was just a little surprise. Steve was the big surprise. He'd gone in to our primary doc for his needed are-you-well-enough-to-have-hip-replacement-surgery physical. He was extra wobbly just stepping off the scale that day, and they fetched a wheelchair for him so he wouldn't fall. His checkup included an EKG, and his pattern was irregular. Our doc said it looked a lot like A-fib. You know, like my diagnosis. So no, his hip replacement surgery will likely be postponed until the cardiac issues are fully diagnosed and dealt with. He can't get in to see a cardiologist for two weeks, the perfect amount of time for him to wear a cardiac monitor so there will be a continuous record of what's going on with him through the day he walks into that office.

While he waits, he's been put on Eliquis - a hideously expensive clot preventer. There is a coupon making the first month free, but his Rx insurance doesn't cover it, and it costs a big chunk of his income, thought not as bad as when they put me on it post Watchman implant until it grew closed. If he does need to deal with that, we're going to push for his getting a Watchman ASAP to prevent strokes instead. Surgery, at least, is covered with a modest co-pay.

Meanwhile he is now wearing a cardiac monitor, stuck to his skin for two weeks. First you have to shave - male or female, most of us have some chest hairs - then abrade the skin to remove loose or nearly loose  skin flakes, then wipe with alcohol to prevent infection from all those little scrapes you just inflicted on your chest. Once you stop hurting from the alcohol and have air dried your skin, the adhesive clear plastic patch with all kinds of embedded electrodes visible and leading to a central button that's pushed onto your newly raw skin by rubbing the entire unit for 4 minutes, to stay for two weeks. So that shower you started with better have been a good one. And you better not be self conscious when your shirt looks like you just grew an enormous extra nipple! Of course if you do get embarrassed by that kind of attention, it had better not stop you from hitting that button when needed even if it does look like you've discovered a weird new kinky way to have some fun. If you are feeling light headed or perhaps suddenly out of energy, that tap will get you an immediate call/report after being examined by a professional who can respond as quickly as needed. 

He's lucky his is so thin and lightweight. I had to wear two different ones at different times back in Arizona, and we found out life can be complicated and interesting. Mine were clunky, and one of the monitors wouldn't communicate with the office from inside either our house or the rec center. I had to stand in a particular spot or be outside. Concrete wall construction as the standard down there was not helpful.Three surgeries later and two medication changes and I'm fine... except for all those other things of course.

I Surrender!

 I finally broke down and made an appointment to get my taxes done by a pro. In this case, it's a company which works out of the local Walmart with an introductory customer fee of $49. My goal is for them to show me exactly how to interpret governmental gobbledygook so I can (hopefully) do it again next year. I want a hard copy of everything to bring home, not least of which for signing before mailing. I can buy some large envelopes while I'm there.

I expect most of you have somebody else do your taxes, or have very simple basic returns, once  basic income and deductions are entered, zip - zip and it's done, either in the mail or sent online.

Those who know me well enough should be shocked that I have resorted to this. After all, I did my own self employment (aka independent contractor or IC) taxes for almost 30 years. It involved the usual forms plus schedules C, SE, and B, plus keeping all receipts for each year, and I do mean all. Each year's expanding file folder was about 4" thick. I claimed mileage deductions, and easily averaged 80 thousand in any given year. I put over 2 million miles, all told, on a succession of cars before I retired. Some of that was personal miles, so those had to be sorted out. Then there was gas, uniforms, car repairs and maintenance, and even the fast food bills proving I actually was in such-and such a town at time x and way the hell over elsewhere gassing up again. (I couldn't deduct the actual food.) I kept all that in case of an audit. Let them have the headache if they wanted to quibble. (They never did.) I learned very early to just go by mileage deductions, which eventually wound up at $.51 per work mile. But I did it all every year because I knew what I was doing due to company training on IC taxes, and the only change each year was how much per mile times number of business miles for that part of it. It was just a matter of having the paperwork, a log for each day, and sitting down for a couple of hours. 

It was predictable. The instructions made sense.

One might think with retirement that all would be much easier. I have to fill out forms that don't apply to my life these days, I have to read instructions that don't make sense, like if number X is larger than Y, subtract X from Y.  OK, that gives me a negative number, which now I'm now supposed to do several other things with just to find out how much of our Social Security is taxable. Math gets a bit weird when working with negative numbers. And why not subtract the smaller number from the larger instead of the reverse? Did somebody hit their head on the corner of the table when they tried to stand on it upside down when writing the instructions? 

Note that even last year I did our taxes with X dollars of our SS not taxable. It was a finite cutoff for how much was tax-free, suitable for everybody, and any other income and deductions were calculated in later. It even included a report on capitol gains which I'd never done nor needed to, but the instructions made sense and one wound up with a set amount which you either made more or less than, period, and that determined how much tax needed to be paid.

Then there will be state taxes as well as my part time job with some withholding, and interest payments. Somewhere in there one also has to deal with property tax paid out of one's rent. That's new to me since one has to pay it over a full year and this is our first full year in paying rent. In our case the lot our home sits on is rented and we get a form mailed to us about how much of our rent is taxes. A tax preparer will be figuring that part out this year for us. And they damn well better be explaining all this new crap to me so I can take notes and do our own taxes again next year!

Steve and I have both gotten fed up with my fighting with the forms this year. They can't just  say $XXX is tax free, but all the rest of your income is taxable. Most years they've done that and only the numbers change. Now it's like the circus performer spinning a dozen plates on top of sticks and keeping them all in the air at the same time, except somebody threw in bowls instead of plates here and there.

Frankly, I'm convinced they (DOGE???) have deliberately made it as complicated as possible just so they can force us all to hire a tax preparer. If it's this bad next year, I'm going to hunt out one of those people who helps out Seniors for free. You just have to find out who and where and get in line early. 

For now, there's a book that's calling me. I'm ready for a distraction.

No Kings Day, Chisago City, MN

 First, it's not misspelled. It is NOT Chicago City, but Chisago City, much as my spell check tries to insist otherwise. If you head north out of the Twin Cities, whether on 35W or 35E, they come together into one just before US 8 peels off heading northeast  to Wisconsin.  On a map of the state that diagonal line becomes horizontal as 8 heads through a series of small towns, the first of which is Chisago City, which has the biggest park along the highway. That is where today's demonstration was held, despite the blustery 41 degrees weather. (In contrast, tomorrow is forecast to be 65 and lovely.)

There's a nice statue in the park, plus lots of trees, grass, a picnic pavilion, and restrooms which were inconveniently still locked for the season. The highway is on the other side of the monument, but there is parking on the three other sides of the park, plus a large lot next to it, and a gas station that was likely getting a lot of use this afternoon, though not necessarily for automotive gas. The group gathered next to the stairs was led by a couple women singing a wide variety of songs, like "This Land Is My Land" and "If I Had A Hammer." There were more I had never heard but enough of the group had that their music carried well.

This gives a better idea of how wide the park is, as well as how much open space it has for celebrations and regular events like a Friday evening Farmer's Market all summer, hosting all kinds of booths spread out with all kinds of merchandise depending on the event. When this was taken demonstrators were about 5 deep along the highway on the end away from us, with the singing group and its audience filling our end more deeply. The far end sports a stoplight for cross traffic from a county road. The walker shown in front of where my friend and I were sitting was not the only walker, and others brought folding chairs as well. We were about halfway back from the highway in the park.

A couple of people brought their dogs along, neither of which I managed to get a decent shot of. One may have been a schipperke, maybe just an adorable mutt, whose owner had prepared it for the event with wearing a torso-covering padded vest. I didn't see it after about 5 minutes as they disappeared in the crowd. The second was a golden brown full sized poodle, recently groomed. I thought its owner could have waited a few more days to take the coat down that far. But hey, at least its ears and tail were warm!

Right under the state flag somebody is holding, to the right of the stoplight, is one of those inflatable costumes that have become so popular since Portland demonstrations last summer. The No Kings demonstration I was at last fall in a different town had several people wearing different versions of them. Considering the wind and the cold, I had thought to see more of them today, since they would be perfect wind blocks for the person inside. Alas, this unicorn was the only inflatable this time. This zoom is kitty corner across the whole park.

We left early due to getting chilled despite dressing as warmly as possible and bringing a blanket. Had we been walking around it might have been different, but for my friend the cold turned rapidly into pain, and I was her driver. We made up for it by leaving along the length of the park on the highway, me honking all the way and her with the window open (car heat blasting on us both of course) waving and yelling encouragement to all we passed.

I just hope the next one is held in warmer weather. You hear that, Indivisible? Maybe the expected huge crowd down at the Capitol can keep the folks in the middle of it warm, but some of us can't walk half a mile to get there and then stand a round for an hour before walking back, not to mention the drive. Small towns are it for us, and there's a lot of wind blowing across fields and lakes out here.

Gardening Already?

 There have been milestones noted. Yesterday morning's rain finally erased the mound of snow and ice left by plows and shovels north of the house. Frozen lakes have gone from a few inches open water to several yards of it along lake edges, decorated by Canada geese and trumpeter swans already paired off. Temperatures bounce between chilly and warm enough to be outside for a bit, and brown lawns are allowing peeks of green and promise. The piles of rabbit droppings are not counted as spring since they were there on the snow most of the winter. Oddly, those piles were in the same locations the winter before.

I knew it was time to check the unseen garden, meaning the one on the south (back) side where sun gets the longest play, and where last fall culminated in a heavy planting of early spring bulbs, followed by rows of hardware cloth topped with rocks and boards to keep hungry pests mostly out. If the bulbs were sprouting already, I'd better scramble. Of course, if I was removing the critter barriers, I better also bait and set out a live trap.

Dressed for a cool spring day, I turned the corner of the house, and... OOPS! Everything for spring was not only sprouting leaves but also pushing buds through the holes in the mesh. After pulling the long lumber strips off and removing a few spare rocks assisting in keeping everything in place, it was time to gingerly lift off the hardware cloth. I didn't plant all those bulbs just to rip the tops off in my hurry. Once those were successfully relocated, the hardware cloth was rolled up and... 

Oh, you thought I was going to say they got put back in the shed, didn't you? Have you met me? No, they are on the ground next to the shed waiting for more time in my schedule. I did all that work in a few spare moments before heading off to my PT appointment, figuring I'd be too achey afterwards to even consider doing any yard work. I've firmly put on my to-do-later list digging out 2 of the three rhubarb plants to send to their new owner, and by doing later I do mean by my son, of course. He'll have to tote the bags of topsoil I'll need to bring the level back up for moving more plants in over the summer. I've decided the iris will be getting relocated to their own bed... sort of. One remaining rhubarb plant will have to learn to share, that's all there is to it.

Besides there was one more little thing that desperately needed doing before I left, hopefully to distract what's left of the local population of squirrels and rabbits from the garden: I baited and set one of the live traps off to the side of the emerging flower bed. I'm sure the dropping off place I used last year is open to more arrivals this spring. If this afternoon is nice enough I'll clean out the other trap of the wads of last summer's grass clippings that somehow crawled inside it over the winter before bringing it into the house to be baited and set it out as well.

Then I have to find some time outside to spray paint some cardboard white so a friend can make her own sign for No Kings on Saturday. It needs to be dry before she can write on it, and the writing needs to be dry before it goes in the car with the rest of the stuff we're taking over. We're not marching, just sitting holding signs, me in a folding chair, she on her walker. There'll be enough walking from parking to the small town park. And I'll be toting a warm blanket as well. I remember having to leave early last fall due to a cold breeze. If we sit close I can share the blanket.

Some Silly Things Can Change Your Life

It has become a standing joke in our house. Not a hilarious one, but guaranteed to bring smiles. It started back on our honeymoon trip, when we drove down to Sun City to see and hopefully buy a house I'd found online. Our plan was to become snowbirds if we found the right one at the right price, which of course happened.

On the trip, we were in Albuquerque for one night, and heading down the hill the next morning to pick up interstate 25 for a southern leg to a wildlife refuge,  Bosque del Apache, before heading west again. I was busy noticing the bridge sides painted a lovely shade of turquoise while Steve was busy noticing what was traveling on the road we'd be going on: a caravan of identical black SUVs in close formation, 8 in all, lights flashing "clear the road!" as they sped south and quickly out of sight. They weren't marked police or highway patrol, so we identified them as FBI, and entertained ourselves briefly speculating what might be going on. Big drug bust? Another Ruby ridge? Illegal immigration problem? We never had a hint, never saw them again. Or at least could never tell if the ones we saw were the same or different. The plain solid black and close formation might as well be a uniform. It has never again been as many at one time, however.

However, now whether on the road or on the TV, whenever we see a parade of unmarked black SUVs, whether it's only three or some larger number, we both smile, look at each other, and crow "FBI!"And after congratulating ourselves on presumably identifying their origin we also smile at the memory of that moment in Albuquerque on our trip... as well as all the good memories we've collected since.

Fallen Giant

 My state park sticker from last year still has a month or so on it, so I popped into the state park just south of Taylors Falls both Saturday and Sunday. Saturday's photos were full of cars, people enjoying rare warmth, and super-contrast subjects. Not being what I wanted, most photos got trashed once viewed on my laptop. So I went back the next day, much colder, very cloudy, and thus empty of visitors early in the morning, the light offering much better photos. The one exception to that was green lichens on tree bark which refused to show up green, even with encouragement in editing. However details were sharp and clear, and subtleties in shading showed what I was shooting rather than lumps of black and tan.

A single tree had fallen over the winter. The base was clearly hollowed out, and the standing part was itself in two stacked chambers, with recently live wood and rotten wood pieces scattered around its base.

 

 Branches lay scattered behind it, while its enormous top lay in branching pieces nearly all the way to the top of the river bank.

Almost everywhere you looked the formerly healthy wood bore huge sharp splinters, pointing in all directions as if to guard the remainder of the tree from any further mischief.

Formerly spreading large limbs broke and compacted as they tumbled to the ground with all the force of the weight of the giant and the winds toppling it to the ground.

It had managed to avoid its neighbors as it yielded to gravity, but continued breaking with each additional impact of piece after piece after piece.

Finally all that was left dropped into a jumble of tangled pieces, ready to trip the unwary or poke the foolish.

For those who could appreciate it, now at eye level were the patterns in the bark, formerly out of reach, and only now disturbed enough to reveal the colors beneath beneath the outer layer.

This tiny section of an otherwise bad photo at least picked up the colors of moss and lichens from Saturday's excursion. I have no idea why all was blurred in most of them, or why the camera wouldn't pick up pale or olive greens in cloudy weather, But I'll happily swap the white bark from that day for the soft grey in the shade, just for proof it was there.
 

As warmer weather becomes dependable,  the sound of chainsaws and wood chippers will fill the park. The pieces will rightly be considered a hazard, and removed from a high traffic area. Some will become firewood for campgrounds, other small pieces scattered through the forest away from paths to nourish  current and future growth.

Soon enough the bushes lining the riverbank will leaf out and the biggest attraction will return to being watching the paddle wheelers head down river and return with their next load of tourists while others count their money to decide if they can ride the next one. No one will notice whatever scar remains to claim a fallen giant once dwelt here while they pick out their picnic tables and fishing spots. A few will hike the paths to look for trilliums, jacks-in-the-pulpits, and other protected treasures along the way, dip their toes - or more - in the flat calm of the river's edge, whether to swim or board a canoe to paddle downstream, or even hike under the highway to climb the cliff behind to the old railroad bed and hike into town.

Spring! Kind Of

Back on March 6, I visited a favorite spot along the St. Croix River, checking to see if there were signs of spring showing yet,  It's been a cold and very snowy winter, and a melt reliably gets followed by more snow, more melt, with temperatures which can't decide from one day to the next whether to be warm or cold again. My most recent blog showed a somewhat buried car from snow. I'm delighted to inform you that it's no longer buried and has been back on the road running necessary errands.

Yesterday one of those necessary errands involved taking the camera, new battery included, back to the river I visited weeks ago. There have been changes.

Where before solid ice covered the backwater part of it from bank to bank, now the near edge has melted enough to produce reflections.

Some of last year's grass along the bank managed to survive the heaping layers of snow well enough to still stand erect, while its neighbors matted up, waiting for enough steady warmth to sprout again.

Ice still extends most of the way across. In rare spots it still bears weight enough for the foolish attempting fishing to walk out and drill holes. In other spots it locks fallen branches in position, waiting to see if enough water rushes through to lift and scoot them downstream.

 The view downstream on the backwater side seems to show very little progress in melting...

until it joins with the main channel, which is ice free from bank to bank, except for the occasional floating chunk still riding the current until finally melting without trace on its journey to join the Mississippi and eventually the Gulf of Mexico.

Some of what it passes will likely remain close to shore, like the remains of a dead bush or tree, waterlogged and weighted down, waiting to snag miscast fishing lines and hang onto them until eventual rot and high currents have their way sending it out of sight.