Crex In Early May

 May the 4th be with you. Of course, that was yesterday, but it was a busy day, starting with checking on the possible need for a building permit for some specific repairs (no), waving at local union strikers, getting my super-short haircut before upcoming surgery when I won't be messing with it for a few weeks, and getting my spring oil change. OK, clowns, the car's oil change!

In the middle of all that I took a friend up to Crex to check out which critters had returned, what changes had been made since last time, and just taking a few hours to relax. I drove, she made lunch: chicken salad on a bun, swapping some kind of tater topper for boring mayo. Yummy!

Our first stop, as always, was the information center. It's always good to talk with staff and find out what's unique this day, as well as hit the restrooms before a couple hours without any access to them. Photos were different from last month's visit, of course,  with different cloud cover, high winds most of this visit, roadsides starting to sprout the tall grasses soon to lower visibility of water birds, and a very recent controlled burn of the oaks sprouting up so the needed prairie/marsh habitat could be maintained. It needs to be stable for certain birds, including my favorites sandhills,  among others, and an increasingly rare butterfly, the Karner blue. (No. I've never seen one.)

First stop was behind the information center, where a path and bridge always frame a different mood.  Mostly I love fall shots here. High summer turns the water surface green and mostly non-reflective. This day the water surface was clear and reflective, showing much of the cloud formations overhead. Ripples in the water were the most different this time, not just for their strong presence, but because the wind was moving them west to east. The stream runs east to west. A video - could I put one in here- would make you think it was two different locations. I'm not that tech savvy...yet. Maybe in a different life? Hey, I only recently found the trick to inserting a photo, needing to insert it between lines of text instead of just text ahead of it and empty space below. And even then it was an accident.

If the background isn't unusual enough to make the photo, sometimes just the water is. 

Somehow I never use the energy to follow the path in the first photo as far as it goes. I save it for driving and shooting as much of the rest of the 30,000 acres as I can, and by the time I near the end I'm both out of energy and time for the day. Or maybe just hungry and needing to pee? TMI. This view is always different, from the vegetation to the water, and I try to catch as much variety as I can before the block walk back to the car.

Weather can make a ho hum photo different, if one takes a second to look when weather doesn't seem to even be a factor, even if it includes a very boringly common pair of birds as the assumed subject, Canada geese. It's not the sky reflections that give this water its color. It's the fact that this little pond has been so churned up by the wind that the water is all a creamy orange tint, visibly impenetrable with the mud churned up. Ripples try to reflect sky, at least for the camera, while the naked eyes just catch the muddiness. The color lines up on either side of the wave ridge as each has different sky it faces.

Out on dry land, in the neighborhood of Dikes 4 and 5, there were clumps of sandhills hunting for whatever they can eat, which, being omnivorous, is practically everything. Most are too far from the car for my zoom, but we counted perhaps 40 in this general location, after having already passed pairs here and there and widely scattered clumps. Photos with a better bird count swap birds for dots: pointless pictures. You will notice browns and greys in their coloration, an indication of how much of which color dirt they had preened through their feathers to rid themselves of hungry mini hitchhikers before settling on a nest. Those we that did see nesting were so brown that one was actually mistaken for a deer in tall grass with her fawn, until its head poked up from the grasses. Yes, they are that big.

I did mention locations in the refuge by the number of a dike. The water levels are managed over the years by opening and closing the dikes at junctions with streams. Occasionally an entire area is allowed to drain almost completely, while other places are flooded as much as the weather and a pumping system allow. I asked once in my early visits why that happened. Phantom Lake that year was mostly mud, with sandhills strolling around where lake had been. Not that I minded the sandhills, but usually it's full of geese, swans, loons, ducks, and so forth. Even occasional strays arrive for a bit, like an ibis one year, while everybody with a tripod supporting a huge lens clogs all the shore space around for unrepeatable shots. That dry summer there were eagles, herons, and ospreys strolling through the mud or perched on branches formerly underwater. I was told the purpose was basically a change of habitat, mimicking natural processes  when nature doesn't cooperate. Apparently the same old same old for too many years isn't healthy enough for the variety of plants and critters needed in the long term.

That's why this sight  surprised but didn't shock me when I saw it. In early April it was a well flooded lake with beavers moving in. Most of the area trumpeter swans have collected there the last couple years, enough off the beaten path though managed by Crex, that numbers were way down in the usual locations. As such a big draw, especially with cygnets in tow, I expect numbers of visitors were down, meaning donations were also down.  This is the view yesterday morning from Grettum Dike Road, a few miles south of Grantsburg, and west of the highway. Strips of water remain, mud flats stick up here and there. Most years it's been solid blue water plus rushes from next to the dike road to the trees way in the background, with the swans way back against the trees, little white dots on the landscape, so far away that nothing entices photographers to show up. The two beaver lodges I saw last month were missing. Water was still flowing rapidly out of the lake to the point where a usual blue heron hangout across the road and lower, a stub of land where a gentle stream curved where it could stand eying passing small fish for its next meal, was flooded and washing out. No heron in sight. That was a dependable photo op. I'll have to be checking back later. I've seen deer watering there as well.

You might think those relatively close large white birds are the swans still choosing to be here and be closer to the road. It may be hard to tell the shape is wrong, the bellies too thin, the necks too short. As more birds flew over, some settling in, some passing, I didn't manage to get much of a decent shot of the several I tried for. Once cropped it was easier to know what they were, even more so when I had to turn the car around a bit down the road where a nicely filled pond exploded around me in startled birds, white, black, and pinks, chaotically filling and setting off the clear blue of the sky to the northwest at that moment. Actively driving through that turn, I had no chance to capture them, a major disappointment. I memorized in my mind the image missed forever, grieving the lost chance as I drove on.

I had to wait for my laptop at home to do some severe cropping of the best of the earlier shots to capture a few of the hundreds or so, now identified as pelicans which were formerly strangers to this part of the refuge.  I'm not going to argue the dike system of property management Crex uses. 

I will be heading back to try to locate breeding swans, however. Maybe next month when I'm legal to drive again and Steve is more independent after his surgery. Ever notice how things flip after retirement? Before, you have bosses who pay you for things needing to get done. Afterwards, we pay the docs for things needing to get done.

Why Haven't I Read These?

 In the move two years ago we went through the entire home library, three walls of shelves floor to ceiling (or window in one case) and sorted out the ones to keep from the ones for a garage sale or donation. There were boxes and boxes of them packed up for the move, though they turned out to be a minor fraction of the books we had collected through the years. Mostly I selected by author: who did I want to read again and again, especially when they wrote with a continuing character or set of characters. If I hadn't gotten bored with the author, often by a character's failure for any personal growth however badly needed, as did happen, the books were packed for the trip north. The unpacking took a while, not just from higher priority items topping the to-do list for sheer comfort and practicality of setting up a new home, but also because the old shelves had been built in, so left in place as part of the home. Buying new shelves was something put on the back burner with all the other needs of a major move.

Eventually we purchased a new shelf unit once we had our furniture arranged in new spaces and could tell what we needed that could fit what space was left. Most of the shelves had books crammed in them until they were hidden behind a front layer of books, either by the same author or by the same topic. There they sat.

For those following this, you are aware it's been a very inactive winter for us. It's been a fairly boring one in terms of TV offerings as well, with many favorites getting discontinued, a plethora of new sitcoms trying to impress us with stupidity as something funny (epic fail in this family), and a super-abundance of sports programs spoiling the way our timers were set to record the shows we have enjoyed watching. We still get timers that are supposed to adjust for actual air times but pick former times to record, or even when the timer starts later the sport program delaying their start lasts even longer than planned. Who cares about half a program when it's a mystery and you want to find out who-dun-it and that last half is lost unless it pops up in reruns... if the DVR system even records reruns, or the program hasn't been replaced by something else for the summer, some breaking news, or permanently?

Back to the library then. Pick a favorite author, dig out a list online showing what order the books were written in, save the list, rearrange the books to match, and start plowing through from the beginning. One such set is the Hillermans' series, started by Tony and continued after his death by his daughter Anne. If you get the right TV channels, you can find newer stories (to us, not the timeline as they go back before the books started) under the title "Dark Winds". There are deviations from some of the characters' story lines from the books, some cultural mores lost, but they're still enjoyable, and a great encouragement to dig back into the books, in order written of course.

Another favorite set of books (with no TV spin off that I'm aware of) are by Dana Stabenow, mysteries set in Alaska, with Kate Shugack as the primary character, Mutt as her loyal dog/wolf hybrid,  protector & problem solver with her sharp nose and teeth, together in a community of continuing characters throughout the series... with the caveat that some die. They are set over a number of years, have some elder characters, and even without a crime or mystery, old folks do what all old folks eventually do. Every death has repercussions of course, from needing to solve a mystery, or learn history of the area and how it made them who they were, or the story of how those left behind need to heal and adjust... or don't. The mysteries change in every book as do the people dealing with them, and I highly recommend these to those who haven't had the pleasure of reading Stabenow yet. If you can, read them in order. I've read the first 20, and still find some parts of them hilarious, especially "Breakup" where certain logical consequences are unforgettable.

What surprised me in going through them this time was finding several books I had managed to collect but never read. I don't know how that happened, but it turned out to be a gift! For a few weeks there were new Stabenows to discover. I know it wasn't that I'd read them and forgotten them, which can be easy enough with a lot of authors. But there was new-to-me history, new characters, different slices of subsistence culture I'd no familiarity with, changing challenges as traditions warred with western ideas of progress. And with mysteries the second run through, I usually know what the ending is in general terms, and along the way there recall who might have a baby or moved or found a new romance or a new career. For several books there were none of those familiar hints I'd been here before.

Today I ran out of her books. It's not that she stopped writing, it's somehow that I stopped buying. I looked at the book list I'd printed out.  I ran out with 6 left to go, to date anyway. I could hit her science fiction books, I also owned,  remembering I enjoyed them, but DARN IT! I was in this series and want to finish what is available.

OK, then: eBay! I looked up the missing titles, found and ordered them, and should have deliveries in a week or so. I won't read any till each is the very next one in order and in my hands. I promise! There is one new one this year I didn't order yet because I prefer the prices of gently used books. I will also have to look up another of her Alaska series with a different main character, but first have to decide where on earth those can be housed, or whether to just hit the library, put in requests and wait weeks for each next one to become available. Besides I could dig back into James Doss, or Rich Curtin, or see if Spider Robinson still holds the same appeal of decades ago.

I should have lots of time in the next few months for sitting and reading, despite already making some new changes in my small gardens. I'll still be able to pull a hose around in dry spells, pick up leaves blowing through, and bend over to pull some of the weeds out. I'm not sure yet about follow through on cutting back the huge blossom clumps on a couple bushes that invariably flop in a storm and stay bent till fall because some idiot bred that variety for flowers too big for their branches. The idea of cutting the huge ball of petals in half before they reach full size is easy. The need to reach up 6 feet to do so in time to make a difference so soon after my second new shoulder is daunting. Calling it a new variety of PT just won't make it any more likely to be successful this year. Maybe ask for help? Though the prime helper will be building a new set of stairs plus the replacement porch they attach to, since the furnace installation broke the anchor point keeping the railing sturdy and safe.

 I'll probably personally settle for reaching down to plant, relocate, and weed between ground level flowers - meaning the rest of my gardens - being more possible. I did just pull a dozen weeds and plant two pots of red tulips  - Steve's favorites - in a new spot earlier today, where Steve doesn't have to try to walk over uneven ground to the far end of our place to be able to even see them but simply step out on the front porch. Last year's planted red tulips, also blooming right now though much bigger than the ones sold in tiny pots, are quite a hike for him with the bad hip. Now he can still see some. In a couple weeks he'll also be able to see his favorite blue columbine next to them bloom, as they're forming buds already and lasted all summer last year. There is more space there for more ideas. After all, one can't read ALL the time! Not for lack of trying anyway.

Teleported To Waffle House?

 How do I get on that bus? Do I have to go get so drunk or otherwise impaired that I have a lengthy blackout while also managing to, say, take a cab there? Or walk there? I'm hoping you can really teleport there because I don't know where to find one anywhere near here and it might be fun to hitch a teleport ride.

Also, inquiring minds want to know, once teleported in, does that mean the food is free as a reward for the accomplishment? Or perhaps does that mean that such power bequeathed upon one means you also have the power to pick up all the tabs of the patrons present? 

If Waffle House claims that responsibility for you, first could you let me know in advance so I can go order something expensive I don't have to pay for? I'll happily let you teleport me once you've proved it works. There's got to be some fun to be had from such an experience, right?

Second, if you know how to teleport full bodies, can you adapt your machine or whatever it is to just teleport away all the thousands of extra calories one gets from all the carbs and syrups and butter from stuffing oneself with waffles? Be sure to leave the flavor in though.

Third, could you possibly get away with teleporting everybody's Waffle House bills out to the moon? Surely if so, there would be a team standing by to weave all the bills into a brand new flag to be put up where earth mounted telescopes could locate it, get photos of it, and publish them for the next generations of "smarter than their elders" disbelievers to scoff at? They'll be sure to claim nobody ever got to the moon to plant a flag, not the first time with that "giant leap" nonsense, not the next time when one got pieced together from Waffle House unpaid tabs. They'll argue that nobody can teleport, nobody ever did teleport, it's all CGI or AI, and after that nobody who claims they've been teleported to any Waffle House any place on any planet or moon can ever be believed about anything they ever say again just because the doubters weren't watching the TV themselves when - according to them - it was "supposed to" have happened.

Oh, and can I get strawberries in my syrup please? Maybe a little high quality chocolate as well? I mean, teleporting is free, right?

Missed Opportunity

You know there's never a camera around when you really really want one, right?

Like yesterday afternoon when I was returning home from a birthday party for a friend, for example. It was at a good restaurant, so I had a large bag with a couple boxes of leftovers in it. Across the top of those was my purse because I needed my driver's license and credit card, plus bunches of other stuff for "what iffs". The large bag I'd had to walk around the car to pick up since they were on the passenger side floor with the bag handles looped around the parking brake so a quick turn or braking wouldn't spill food all over. You never know what nearby idiots are going to do or when a deer might run out. 

Hmmm, I guess that might be redundant if one considers deer who cross a highway in traffic are by definition idiots. Puts true meaning into thinning the herd.

I was a bit tired from a non-stop day, which included a stop at a favorite garden center on my way home, just to see if they had iris in yet, and if so, what colors. Online searches the day before of a couple large metro garden centers had no iris listed yet, but this more local place I stopped at has always had a great selection of plants and whatsits, as well as helpful staff. After looking at the amount of walking involved in searching through tiny tags to see what species they even were, much less varieties, I opted for heading inside and talking to the woman at the counter. She looked up their inventory, showed a couple photos of current stock, and then offered to head out and bring me a nice pot of the one I liked best. She actually brought two pots so I could see there was a definite "best" in her choices. It's one of the things I like about these people.

The gallon pot of tiny iris leaves was, like all pots,  tippy, so she gave me a small box to put under it to catch any spilled dirt, which it did. I still had 25 miles left to drive home after buying it, and stoplights were included. So was a gas fill-up. (The pot of iris with seven separate tops poking up was less expensive!) I know you haven't asked, but the iris will bloom mostly pink, with a bit of white and yellow. Look up "Pinkerton".

Anyway, I was just loaded up and ready to lock the car doors when a neighbor stopped to chat. She was hoping I wasn't offended that she stopped by to look at my flowers. Right now there are lots of daffodils visible behind the home, but clearly visible from the paved path that goes between the streets as a shortcut to the community center. I assured her that not only was I not offended but I considered it a compliment! But my armfuls were getting heavier each minute and I needed to excuse myself.

Just as I turned, a little bird I was unfamiliar with hopped across the grass and up into my raised circle bed, looking for his next meal. Seeds? Bugs? The leaves from iris and day lilies are up about 6 to 8 inches at the moment. No clue what this bird was except it was startlingly different and gorgeous. And then gone!

I made a point of noting all the details I could in those ten seconds or so, before heading inside and taking care of what I was toting. Refrigerator for one part, water and a catch tray on the porch for a short time for the other until planting in a newly opened bed now that most of the rhubarb plants have been gifted away. No chance at all for any camera in all that activity, just trying to multitask by remembering the details of this strange bird.

Later I tried looking it up online. I knew what it wasn't. With no name to search for I started with colors and patterns. It was about sparrow sized, larger than a finch but smaller than a robin, mostly black with bits of white scattered through it. Had that been all there was to see, I wouldn't have looked twice. But when its wings were folded down, like they were when it was hopping across the ground, there was a bright stripe of a golden orange - or orange-ish gold - under the wing most of its body length. Not on the chin or under the tail. The effect was spectacular!

Google offered me a robin. Then a Baltimore oriole. I know those birds well, having lived with them most of my years in Minnesota, and as close as in the yard, a nest in a tree or over the front door, or even an oriole encouraging its newly fledged young to hop-fly over a fence and into the branches of a cherry tree for some yummy fruit.

Sorry, Google, epic fail! I tried other ways of describing this bird, different things to stress first, and nothing helped. Not a sparrow, a finch, a meadowlark either. Time to contact a human expert. Considering the time of year and the possibility this bird was strange because it was migrating much further north, I emailed my sister-in-law up in Bemidji. Between her and my brother, they know birds. Lots of other things as well, but between educations and occupations, if it's outdoors, somebody there will know. I just needed to do my best version of describing this bird and what I know it wasn't, however much Google might argue.

This morning I got a quick answer back, looked it up in sources with a lot of photos, and while I found a lot of examples with very inferior coloration (females?) I did find several good photos in the bunch, enough to verify that the bird stopping by was indeed a yellow rumped warbler.  Thank you!!!

But damn, I wish I'd had my camera ready! I might have gotten a shot in during those 15 seconds, right? Let's see, 5 to drop the bundles, or ten to do it without damaging them, 5 to pick up the camera if it had been, say, in an accessible pocket, 3 to turn it on, 4 to aim it, 2 more to zoom, and twelve to make sure it had already left the yard the second I scared it by dropping my armfulls.

Sigh-h-h-h......

Fixing the Repair Of The Replacement

I woke at 4AM this morning, chilled despite being fully under my very thick bedspread. I've been spending more sleep time in bed lately instead of all night in a recliner, something I consider a major gain, but soon to be offset by the second shoulder replacement. Knowing I'm tolerating it better gives me hope that about 5 months after the next one I might actually be spending whole nights there again. Being a side-sleeper puts all kind of pressure on new shoulder joints, hence the switch to recliners which keep me still while asleep and painful pressure off the new joints.

But it wasn't shoulder pain waking me this morning. The furnace had quit. My usual first stop is normally the warmest spot in the house, as the floor register warming my bathroom is just a wall away from the furnace... my brand new replacement furnace! It was really cold in there! I had no hope of a sufficiently hot shower without getting even more chilled while drying off.

Next stop was the living room to check the thermostat. It's completely unreadable except in full daylight except for the large numbers, which still need the overhead room light to read. While it was still set at 73 degrees, a comfy enough temp for two Arizona-adapted inactive geezers, the actual temperature was just 64. I tapped it up a degree to see if that kicked the furnace on. Nope.

At 4AM there's not much to do aside from get mad, dress in multiple fuzzy layers, and burrow in as many blankets as one can find, at least until one recalls there is a gas stove a room away, which, upon checking, works just fine. We have both working electricity and gas, so neither of those is the problem. No need to call the utility company. We just need to wait for the stove becoming effective... in a few hours.  I turned two burners on, and repaired to the family room to see what might have been recorded by the DVR overnight that might be worth watching until it's time to call into the recording in the office of the furnace company. The new one is barely a week old after all.

The well-recalled forecast is for a chilly week, and it's still raining outside, finishing what in daytime inspection shows as an accumulation of an inch and a half in the new rain gauge. Best estimate was a high in the low fifties or worse for most of the coming week with lows just over freezing.

I left voicemail with the  furnace company, giving my name and town, the failure of home heating (aside from the stove top), and my firm expectation that I would not have to pay for the usual fee to have one person come over to check things out. I was as polite as I could manage but didn't even pretend to disguise the tone of anger for this failure on such a new and expensive piece of equipment.

By this time Steve was up and came out to join me, both of us now dressed for winter and under blankets, plus in Steve's case using his back heating pad. He'd cooked an early breakfast for himself but I can't eat so soon after one of my morning pills. The burners on the stove were set back to a safer level than was needed for cooking while we moved to another room waiting for heat to arrive. In the meantime, there were books, laptops, and some TV to keep us entertained. My cell phone had become hard to hear ringing, so he looked it up online and figured out not only how to fix that but what I'd done to make it nearly silent. I've been missing calls lately. Now they are almost deafening! It's an improvement. Really.

The furnace company finally called back half an hour after they officially opened, assuring me there was no charge to come fix the new furnace, and one of their staff would be out some time between ten and noon. OK, not ideal, but we knew help was coming. He only arrived about 40 minutes late, but went straight to work testing everything that could possibly be causing the failure.

When we finally heard the motor come on, for a change not as loud as it had been when first installed, he poked his head in and gave the explanation that a pair of exhaust pipes had been angled wrong, and the recent rain had come down into the pipe from the roof and flooded it, preventing proper air exchange. Better no heat than CO filling the house. 

Oh yeah, and the floor was wet too. Did we happen to have a small pail he could borrow? Maybe an extra rag? He had a large pail but the furnace was already crammed into a very tiny space, so his wouldn't work. No problem. I handed him a steel bowl, which had gotten ruined during the first installation when "somebody" had decided when seeing it outside on the porch with some potting soil in it that it had been meant to be an ashtray and the metal had heated to brown in several places as the combustible parts of the potting soil had burned. I'd had to throw out the potting soil and ashes, now unfit for the designated garden spot they were intended for. I'd gotten sidetracked, that day it got set out, by the unexpected early arrival of the replacement furnace. Put a workman in my house and I stay inside with them. I'd had to leave for a medical appointment later, leaving Steve behind to mind the house, and returned to see a coating of white ashes on top of the soil. 

The bowl should still be useful for, say, catching dripping water, or more potting soil projects, though not for food. I mentioned it to this workman. He may have thought I was going to complain to the company, and insisted it couldn't have been their people who'd done it because "nobody smokes here". There had been no other visitors that day aside from the two who installed the new furnace, and no other explanation for what had occurred, but I chose not to argue the point. We have another steel bowl that size as well as a couple of plastic ones, remnants of combining kitchen sets over the years. It's not like I ever plan to buy another one. I just needed my furnace functioning again.

At any rate, after about three hours, he announced both the cause and his fix for it, and collected his things to leave. His phone rang, and in close quarters we can hardly prevent eavesdropping, at least not enough to miss he was talking to the boss about what was taking up his time. Despite his starting to pack up, he came back in, this time saying he was still concerned he'd missed something, and went back into the innards of the furnace for about another half hour. This time he informed us that it wasn't the angle of the exhaust pipes that were the problem, but he'd found the "REAL" problem, fixed that, and returned the pipes which collected the rain water to their former position.

The furnace was now running, much quieter than before, thankfully. He never did say why the next rain wasn't going to collect the same way it had last night and stop the furnace again. Fingers crossed, I guess. I also don't know how long we can allow for a possible fail of the same kind in the next heavy rain, should it happen with those pipes angled "wrong" like before, and still get them to come out without a charge for a diagnostic visit. If it happens, they will hear from me.  

Does Yelp offer a minus 50 score? One does want to be prepared, just in case.

More Redundant Forms (Rant)

 First, my medical stuff is in a particular medical system which covers a large chunk of Minnesota around the metro. It has been for years. Even when we lived out-of-state they emailed me reminders for shots or mammograms when they hadn't seen me for years. Of course we moved to AZ and a "disadvantage " Medicare system, insurance only good in AZ except  for emergencies, but quickly changed after a year of inconvenience. With the last and permanent move, we're back in the old system full time. My primary insurance is now standard Medicare, good everywhere in the country, and has been except that one year. I have a secondary insurance, also very long term. There has been a lot of use put on those cards since retirement. The home address has changed, parts of my health status have changed, which doc does what changes with each specific "what" we're talking about. But all the rest is the same as the last time they asked. My upcoming shoulder replacement is with the same doc as the last one, in the same hospital, with all the rest of my personal details the same, aside from some additional information from a battery of new kinds of diagnostic tests mostly because my primary has been paying attention to my advancing age and noticed some thing have never been done and somewhere in her training there is some kind of "but they should be, sooner than later" caveat affixed to each of them as time marches forward. Bone density is  one example. Apparently they're fine. Also not relevant to the upcoming surgery if they did the last one in January successfully without that test result.

One result of that is I keep getting emails requesting all kinds of data from me that are already in my records. I don't mind humoring them to a point. My name is the same, my birthday hasn't changed, my address is in their records along with my phone number, SS number, insurance numbers, husband's name and phone number. No, none of this is in any way related to some work injury or covered by company insurance. I'm still retired, and even though the wear and tear on my body has accumulated over the years, and somewhat attributable to working as hard and long as I did, none of it counts as a work injury any more. There was one of those back in '84 but it no longer counts, and I worked many years after that anyway for a different company. (Yes, that company fired me after I filed workman's comp. Best thing they ever did for me.)

All my medical stuff is available to me and my docs via computer. I can type in a question addressed to any of the docs and get an answer in a few days, whether it's a specific kind of answer like "change medication X to this amount" or "make an appointment for that in time frame Y" or even both. I regularly get a request to go over the list of meds they have for me before any major appointment and make any changes since last time. I often ignore those when nothing has changed, particularly when it takes them a couple months to notice any changes, but do confirm my intention to make it to a particular appointment made earlier. For example I've been having weekly PT since last fall, some pre-surgery, some post surgery, and each week I get an email request to confirm or cancel whatever is upcoming so they know if there's an opening in the schedule or not. No biggie. Just three or four key strokes and it's done. There was one morning when I had to call in anyway to cancel, after watching neighbors work to scrape ice off their cars in order to open doors. I knew I wasn't going anywhere until it melted on its own. Apparently about half their patients cancelled that day. I presume most of them had better arm movement and strength than I did but cancelled anyway. I did feel less guilty for cancelling on them last minute after hearing that.

But every once in a while they send out a 10 page questionnaire they want me to fill out when nothing has changed since, say, my last appointment, including with them a short while earlier. My insurance cards are proffered for proof at the beginning of each year and entered into the system. No changes. I verify my address again each visit, along with all the attendant stuff. No changes. I've been running through a diagnostic whirlwind for a couple months, and no changes aside from them being now on record, the same record they all have access to when I'm their patient.

But they are asking for stuff that has long been on my record and remains so, and I just get tired of it. Can't they just type out a list of, say, a dozen categories and simply ask if there are any changes? I have no problems with a "yes", where applicable, followed by a space for clarification. But no, they need all the details going back a ridiculous distance. On the same form they ask the same question several times, which is even more annoying.  Yeah, guys, I'm still at this address from my last visit here three days ago: how many back addresses do you need? I no longer recall the exact street numbers for Georgia, sorry. 223? 232? I can recall that doc's lobby with the wild baby coral snake in it that my middle child found while he was bored and I verified the identity of, reported it to the check-in desk and got dismissed as a nut. (I do hope no other overactive kids explored the space and risked a bite.) I can visualize the house we lived in there if that helps? It's not like I didn't have my much more recent AZ records all transferred up. I am getting fuzzy on that doc's address but know exactly where all the handicap parking spaces in their lot are. Is that helpful? It's not like my appendix isn't still gone and for more than 60 years now. Those don't tend to grow back.You want the date? Are you shitting me? I can give you my age when it happened. If you need a date, call an escort service. I hear they oblige for a significant price, though that's only hearsay from my perspective, and that's all I've got for you.

Today they asked for the date I retired. They will only accept it in the form of a two number month, two number day, and four number year. You know what? I can't tell you any more. It no longer is relevant in my life. I know it was to my boss at the time, but that company doesn't exist any more. I know it was shortly after I qualified for SS and Medicare and just before I knew I'd fail my next DOT physical. Good luck getting ahold of them for that information, especially since DOGE did all they could to destroy those systems from a we-will-communicate-with-you standpoint. But you need a date? Read the above paragraph again.

Meanwhile Steve just baked a cake and went to bed, asking me to frost it. Any more questions whose answers are already in your system, go look it up. That cake is chocolate, with chocolate frosting waiting to get out of the can, and some coconut in a bag just aching to get sprinkled over the top. Bye!

And Yummmmm!

"Go" For one, "Slow" For The Other

 I'm talking surgeries here. Steve was supposed to have his behind him by now  and be doing his PT on a new hip. Instead it's been a busy week driving back and forth to a metro hospital for various cardiac tests. While he's feeling somewhat better, and most of the tests have come back with no issues, his newly diagnosed A-Fib has shown up on the monitor he wore for two weeks. I fully expect that will have to be corrected before hip surgery will take place. Based on my combination of experience and research, it could be any or all of medical, surgical, and pacing procedures. He's already on medication to prevent blood clots, so we're not worried about stroke as a side effect. From the reports we have seen, though not discussed yet, the hip may well wait till midsummer at the earliest. Kind of crimps the fishing season.

Meanwhile I'm doing well. I finished my last set of PT from the first shoulder, both the pre-surgical stuff to prepare the muscles and aid in range of motion, and now the post-surgery exercises which aid in movement now that I'm minus one of the rotator cuff muscles.  At least the fixed shoulder is pain free without the bone-on-bone motion, so I'm just dealing with the lesser pain from muscle stretches where newly needed for getting the first arm back to useful. I can even dress myself most days, so long as I carefully choose the clothing to be loose enough.  I also need to put my head through first, then each arm, one at a time. The old method was thrust both arms into sleeves and then stick the head in. The new method usually works but there are times when the head gets lost somewhere, especially if I'm doing two layers at a time, the exact reverse of how they got taken off the night before. 

It's good to be able to laugh at yourself. It's even better to have willing assistance, for payment of a kiss or two.

Late next month I go back in for the second shoulder, and get all the fun again of six weeks of one arm only while the other heals. The problems dressing in winter clothing from the first time mean I'm expecting to be much happier with this one scheduled in warmer months. I'll still need Steve's help of course for a few weeks, possibly more. However I should be able to drive after three weeks with care, especially expecting not needing any narcotics.

The best news is my surgeon assuring me that the longer lasting nerve block should still be available for the second shoulder. It made recovery so much easier and less dependent on narcotics. I had heard from local docs out of the metro that it still isn't available in this area, so the 120 mile round trip is worth it, despite higher gas prices, and especially in a hybrid vehicle that my driver uses. 

My surgeon also clarified why I needed to sign for permission to use the new long lasting block: if administered imperfectly it can paralyze one lung for a few days. The lung should recover, but it complicates things of course. My "worst" side effect the first time was not knowing where my arm was, getting the wrong signals from its location and not finding it there with the other hand. It was much more funny than problematic. I'm interested in seeing if that works the second time with the other arm. Of course, if they need me to sign anything at all for the following  few weeks while it's in the "sling" contraption, it's lucky if I can make an "X". Even now, signing on a touch screen for using a charge card is a gawdawful mess and that hand/arm hasn't been touched yet.

I'm also getting information I hadn't had the first time around on the actual surgery itself. It's called a reverse shoulder replacement. Seeing the x-rays of the metal ball/socket pieces with their screws into bone don't quite give the story. It's the PT who explains why I can't quite do things I used to do. As she tells it, we normally have 4 rotator cuff muscles on each shoulder, giving us the ability to move it in all directions.  This reverse surgery removes one of those muscles, at the very top of the shoulder. Moving it back and forth afterwards isn't bad, though they stress moving it behind you is to be avoided for a couple months, and likely will be a challenge afterwards even with PT. Moving the arm high, especially while holding any weight, will be the challenge requiring lots of PT and home practice. Eventually the three remaining rotator cuff muscles will take over the job...with work! In a lot of cases the fingers crawl their way up a surface and bring the arm along behind them. 

Whatever works, right?

Right now I'm busy getting the gardens ready for showing off while both arms mostly work. The round one has had its scillas bloom, and already are producing seeds. The balloon flowers and peony bush just got their dead stems removed, with the last of the balloon seeds distributed to fellow gardeners who want to give them a try. I brought dozens to my PT this last visit and the whole office offered to help take some home themselves. I'm not sure if it's the name or the fact these get 4 - 5 feet tall that got them all excited. I shared a bunch with neighbors last fall who liked what they saw in my yard, and scattered more along the sidewalk. For such a tall plant the seeds look like grains of black pepper.

The daylilies'  old flower stems got cut after flowering to prevent going to seed last summer, putting energy into roots instead. Now showing as grey sticks as they peeked up above emerging green all over, those got pulled with just the tiniest effort. The iris sharing their bed all survived and those leaves are growing much faster. I'm hoping for more blooms this year since only two varieties bloomed last year. I'm still thinking about replacing where rhubarb plants got dug out of a different bed with some of the circle garden iris but I want to see what blooms and mark each for color first, so maybe a fall project, while spending much of the summer eyeing that empty bed to make sure the rhubarb is gone for good. Today one of the holes from a dug out plant is showing a new bud ready to make a new plant. Its predecessor left a big hole but here it is.  I'm thinking chemicals... provided it stops raining a couple days. There are still two plants left on one end for all my anticipated needs, and the friend who received the dug up ones is already drooling about her first recipes with her new plants. My plans for the remaining two are still for rabbit repellent for the asiatic lily bed. Everything except two tulips survived squirrels over the winter, but there are bunny nibbles on some early leaves. I still have a bunch of repellent rhubarb stalks in the freezer, so that will be doable with only one working arm as I recover. In the meantime the crocus and daffodils haven not disappointed as a first showing in that bed, but the rabbits are awake and hungry, so I have a task for this day, thawing and strewing pieces of rhubarb stalks from last year. It works.

Easy peasy.