I am writing this Sunday morning. Saturday was another day of mostly isolation. I usually try to play board games, head to Portland, and do something, almost packing a whole weekend into Saturday. Not this one. It will be a short blog as I mostly read alone on Saturday. I was exposed to COVID-19, and all my tests were negative, but I wanted to give it one more day.
I rose at 7:30ish and found the kitchen without incident. I assembled coffee using Mexican Coffee (thanks, Kramers), and the banana supply was restocked yesterday by grocery delivery from Safeway. In my robe and slippers, I took this bounty to the home office and wrote for the next two hours. I completed the daily blog around 10AM.
I cleaned up and dressed. I remembered to put Utterly Smooth 20% Urea on my feet and hands. This habit is leftover from recommendations from my oncologist and the oncology pharmacy. They strongly urged me to use this product to help prevent neuropathy in my hands and feet. I have very little numbness in my hands and feet and can still paint figures and do detailed work with my hands. My balance issues are not related to my feet but to a brain tumor and being out of shape.
In the kitchen, I chopped 1/4 of an onion, the onion was leftover from yesterday, a green pepper making three slices for decoration, and one andouille sausage cut length-wise and into squares. I added four eggs, some whole milk, and shredded cheddar cheese and stirred it together. I poured this into a baking dish and decorated it. I backed this for thirty minutes. It was still gooey but was excellent. I had a few bowls and took my pills.
My meals had near zero carbohydrates, and when I took my meds, including MetForman and an antibiotic, my stomach and blood chemistry seemed to go sideways. I was out of sorts and just read instead of going for a walk.
I was a bit shaky at 5ish when I started making dinner. I made pasta with sauce from a jar and baked the meatballs I purchased from Safeway’s meat case last week and froze them. I had set them out to thaw and baked them on a foil-wrapped half-sheet pan. I baked them longer as they were mostly defrosted.
I had the other episode of Tom Baker reprising his role as the Fourth Doctor. These are audio-only works and are quite well done- sort of radio theater 1970s-style Doctor Who. I listened to this as I cooked. Corwin heard some of it and was impressed by the voice work and quality. I listened to about half an episode.
By the time I finished making dinner, I was uncomfortable and barely ate. But I started to recover once I got that lovely carbohydrate-laden pasta into me with a few meatballs. Low blood sugar. It has been a long time since I have tipped over my blood chemistry to this level. Usually, I overeat; I will be more careful now.
After I recovered from the low blood sugar, I went to the Apple laptop and started on my travel plans. After multiple tries and calls to Michelle, I booked a trip to NYC on March 13-17. I also booked my travel for Susie’s Celebration of Life in Lansing, May 15-18 (flying out late on the day of the service to give me one day between travel and my brain surgery on the 20th–the travel was cleared by the surgeon). The flights are in place, and a hotel room in NYC, The Graduate, and the only hotel on Rosevelt Island in NYC where Cat resides.
Both flights are overnight, and I will arrive the next day. I will leave work, shower, and drive to PDX. This is my new travel style. I decided to try cheap travel and picked the economy option.
Michelle was traveling to a conference in Florida and asked me if I would like to travel with her. Michelle and I often traveled for Nike before she retired from the shoe company. I have frequently met her with Susie in Florida for a bit of Disney. This time, I thought NYC would fit me better, as I did not enjoy my last time at Disney standing in line for hours. Thus, Michelle will fly to NYC from Florida while I travel from Oregon, and we will hang out with Cat, her daughter, who lives in NYC. Maybe we will find a show or a boat ride, but I love NYC, so it should be great. I see my MyFitnessPal app drowning in cheesecake!
On booking, I found it challenging to find the exact flights Michelle saw on Google Flights in Expedia’s search results. I find this booking process difficult as you have to be perfect not to get nailed for costs for fixing a mistake later. Also, the hotel did not show. Michelle texted me photos of the results, and I then searched Expedia for the flight. It was two pages down and cheap. I am not sure what corporate evil is affecting the search results, but I will check Google next time, too. Ugh!
The rest of the evening was spent reading and breaking out of isolation for a beer with Corwin and his friends. The dive bar, Dr. Feelgood, is their haunt. I had one hefeweizen, surprisingly available on the app, and thus recorded, and I returned to the Volvo Cave. With only 300 calories left (three cookies worth), I still made my goal of 2030 calories or less a day. Why that number? I don’t know, but MyFitnessPal is using it.
I showered and slipped into the blankets. I could not sleep because I had napped after dinner and made a pot of tea because I was not interested in sleeping. I read after midnight and was sad to read about the end of the red-light district in New Orleans after World War 1. On my next visit to NOLA, I will retrace the district (it was not the French Quarter) and see what I can find. I tried to sleep and found some aspirin, and that helped. I slept slightly and woke up often. I was awake hours before my alarm but managed to roll over and sleep.
And that brings me to the end of Saturday and Sunday early morning; thanks for reading.
Alohawild (Michael Wild's) Website 