Today 4August2023

Friday was a work-from-home day, and I got to sleep in until 7ish, but I did wake before my alarm and got going early. In the kitchen, still, where I left it, I started the electric kettle and boarded the stationary bike and road for ten minutes or two miles. I plan to get to thirty minutes this weekend. I found the last yogurt, blueberry, and took that and coffee to the office to start my day. I was not as wobbly as yesterday–better.

I did the usual reading of my emails, Slack channel updates, and news updates (trying to find any exciting news buried under Trump-related updates). Nothing very interesting happened. I also updated my Quicken books as I am preparing to close the July books. Work was hours of Zoom meetings and me updating various folks on issues. My new project is also heating up, and I had to politely tell some folks to do some work.

Lunch, the morning highlight, was reheating the jambalaya I made a few days ago. No seafood in this version. I enjoyed that while we did another emergency discussion that included my new work (yes, getting even hotter), and when that was done, I watched YouTube on the ShipHappens channel. Another update on their effort to rebuild an old small wooden-hulled WW2 ship in the UK. I also watched an interesting video on damage in the shower in the USS New Jersey and what they learned; this is available on the Battleship New Jersey channel.

I am floored by how much better the Internet makes the interchange of information on history. Now, there is much that is false or poorly researched, burying the Internet, but professional historians and curators are great, and it does not take much digging to find the good stuff. Cody Carlson, Ph.D. WW2 stuff and the historical ship people (USS Texas, USS New Jersey, USS Midway, SS United States, and so on) are great. Drachinifel channel is the ultimate in facts and pictures for navy ships of any country in modern times (before 1400). Ocean Liner Design is all things for all liners with incredible video work and reconstructions. Youtube is a library for me, and often the list of the books you can buy to get the best permanent reference for ship geeks–My Bismark book is a treasured recommendation from the curator of USS New Jersey! I have resisted the 20+ books for the Tolkien perfect library; yes, there are many goodies for Lord of the Rings and related material.

Returning to the story, work was not interesting, and I packed up my Nike and personal laptop, my Apple M1 13″ 2020, and boarded Air Volvo. Traffic was light, and soon I crossed Beaverton without entanglements from Beaverton’s Finest or watching the unique use of lanes. I stopped by Target to buy flowers; I always buy two bouquets, so there are flowers in Susie’s room and on the shared dinner table. The little plastic sheets were missing, so I had water dripping on me while I waited in the cashier line. Target had three cashiers and two working DYI sets–better than usual. I used a human. Oddly, Target had ziplock bags at the endcap, and I got a box. I was surprised it was something useful–usually, magazines about Aliens or strange toys for some forgotten movie–but today, it was just helpful stuff.

I finally reached Susie’s place at the hummingbird house in Portland (Tigard) at Allegiance Senior Care LLC, 9925 SW 82nd. Ave. Portland (Tigard), OR 97223; phone (503) 246-4116. Susie was waiting in her recliner in the shared living room. Jennifer, the weekday nursing aide, popped Susie out of the recliner and into the wheelchair with enviable nonchalance. Susie and I then headed into Metzger Park next door to the hummingbird house. It was a warm morning, just hitting 80F (27C) then, and sunny but with lots of high clouds.

The park was busy; it always seemed busy around lunchtime, with some corporate warriors taking an extended lunch break with a book and a blanket on the grass or finding a bench or picnic table and families with smallish children using the swings and other devices of childhood delight. We found a bench and were visited by one yellow jacket that was not interested in us (not the usual three unwilling to leave that we previously experienced). Once the pest left, we called Leta and Barb (Susie’s mother and sister, respectively) using FaceTime to do a three-way call on my cell phone. Everyone was available today, and we soon had a friendly chat. We talked for a while about various items while Barb did laundry. Next, we rang off, finished the park, covered a bit of the neighborhood, and completed a large circle at the hummingbird house.

Susie was then placed on her bed by Jennifer. I connected my two laptops. We listened to music for a while, and I did some reviews for work (you are where your laptop is), my first code review in years, as one of the leads was on paid time off (PTO) today. I also did a work Zoom meeting that Susie had to listen to. Soon, Susie was asking for something on her TV, and it took me a while to understand it was M.A.S.H. I found season six was ready to resume–Susie was happy to watch that. I also got an Ensure for Susie, and she finished it while watching M.A.S.H.

Jennifer weighed Susie, and she was 70.5 pounds on Friday. No loss, but also no improvement. According to Jennifer, Susie refused to eat breakfast again and finished 3/4 of her dinner, at best. Let us recall that Susie was a victim of the newer version of Covid-19, and likely her tastes were lost or altered (other impacted folks at hummingbird house have reported this loss–Covid-19 is not flu; it is much worse from our experience). Susie will no longer drink the chocolate flavor Ensure (before the favorite) and now enjoys the vanilla version. I am sure that the changes in taste have impacted Susie’s eating.

At 5ish, it was time for me to go; I was starting to fall asleep–Susie was sleeping too. I had sent my 4PM end-of-shift message to work (only to learn that there was excitement at the 4:35 status call), which I cannot detail here. According to him, Rajani got his usual SEC Friday events and was working until 8PM (sorry, Rajani!). I set up the crash pad and kissed Susie goodbye–I could tell she wanted to go home with me. It is always hard to say goodbye. The staff always then checks in on Susie after I leave, so Susie never feels abandoned.

While Rajani was suffering the new issues, I was driving back, stopping for gas and dinner at Don Carlos to get some excellent to-go Mexican food (at less than $15–good and cheap for Oregon). I stopped by the local gaming store, Rainy Day Games, and bought card sleeves–I have never used them before. I was surprised that six bucks got me 200 (in two packs). The new board game Expeditions cards were showing damage from just one play. Playing cards use a white margin around the cards that do not display any usage wear (also allowing magicians to easily alter cards without much notice and allowing other shenanigans from less fun people). Still, the printed black border on the cards for Expeditions shows white flashes that could identify a card. I wrote a report on Board Game Geek and got a response that others are seeing this. Thus I bought sleeves to protect each card. Much like the plastic covers, you see on sports cards for sale. I was relieved that the bins to place the cards were sized to allow for sleeved cards–not all games storage trays are correctly sized for sleeved cards.

I watched the new season of Good Omens on my TV via Amazon Fire while eating my dinner. I binged five episodes before heading into the office–I recommend it (but it is not the same as Season 1). There I sleeved the cards for thirty minutes and updated more month-end information on my books in Quicken. I use Quicken to download and centralize every expense, payment, and investment and to capture tax information as it happens so I can survive any audit. Again, I plan to write off a considerable part of my payments for medical items (OTC medical items and equipment costs, even when prescribed by a doctor, are not accepted in most cases–like Ensure Susie gets). While I should not qualify for an audit (makings less than 500K annually), I will be ready.

I read, finished the laundry (Friday being laundry day), and wrinkled my dress shirts which might need another trip through the process to fix. I should have split up the laundry but instead just hefted everything together. I downloaded the Killing Joke, an animated Batman movie, one of Mark Hamil’s versions (yes, he was the Joker’s voice for years), and watched it while I had some cheese and crackers to go with my meds.

After the show, I went to bed, read for a bit, and finally slept before midnight. I did not wake until the sun rose. It was nice to sleep.