Tuesday Improvements

I could not sleep well and was up at 4AM. This happened before the surgery, and it is now a struggle to sleep around 3 and reach some strange point where I just suddenly sleep deeply. I will wake still tired, but the naps and other impact for almost no sleep will be less, but not Tuesday.

I then go on to write the blog, and while, according to Dondrea, my voice is in the writing, there are many botched and wooden word use. My policy is to fix a few mistakes, but it is more important to complete a blog (slightly smudged) than to spend forever trying to get it perfect. Yesterday, I proved the cracks in Artificial Intelligence and Grammarly’s amazing understanding of English; everything wrong was accepted by the basic checks. The product allows me to watch it populate my writing with commas (many I disagree with), find a few missing plurals and a few missing words, and then replace usage from bad habits. Yesterday, I found some issues with the product. Delicious–I am, after all, IT and always happy to see AI once again prove you don’t want to lean on it too much.

While I usually write 800+ words every day that are reasonably written, I always struggle and find it amazing someone like me, a hard-charging retired multi-national corporate warrior (from dread IT), can produce something someone would actually want to read and be contemplating different sentence usage like that vs. which while telling stories about real events instead of writing yet-another-PowerPoint (I hate to YAP) or a three-hundred-page manual. The tools enable me to worry about the usage of a word like enable, for example, instead of wondering if the commas are placed consistently with style guides on the East Coast USA (instead of the far superior Chicago guides–yes, I cast dispersions on my beloved New York Times standards)  Any complaints on a comma can be addressed by a trouble ticket to Grammarly–I just try to get them mostly right and let Grammarly have its way with the rest.

Why am I musing about my struggles and my lack of skill with English, and my leaning on Grammarly to prevent me from sounding like a hick? Mariah has returned to her blog. Her voice is so pure. Her writing is so perfect. Please enjoy her perspective through younger eyes and a newer life, awkwardbroadcast.com, and also know she was the person who said I was not terrible at this and kept me going when it was hard to keep going. We are pushing each other again, as we were before the pandemic, to write and to follow our muse.

Enough musing about muses and delaying the rather uneventful day’s description. But, considering recent events, a few years of boring is welcome! I spent hours writing a messy blog and finally just sighed and pushed publish. Linda is working East Coast hours with a start at 4:30; I made her coffee and almost burned steel-cut oats for breakfast. I find the comfy chair and finally sleep deep and dreamless.

Physical Therapy called (a new organization for me, Adventist Home Health) and offered to start my case this early afternoon. We went back and forth and decided now was a good time, and soon, PT arrived. My vitals are all back to normal.

Aside: I will not use names for medical professionals just position or a single letter so I know who I am writing about.

I have done PT in offices from the chemotherapy impact, but this is my first Home Health for myself. I am familiar with all the requirements and processes. Soon, I was evaluated, and it was determined that I was doing pretty well and improving. PT indicates that if I want to try it, they believe they can help, and I agree. I get a few basic and very safe exercises. Next week we will meet again.

Linda loaded me up in the co-pilot seat in Air Volvo and put the walker in the cargo bay. I use the walker outside, as falling on the carpet inside and possibly ping-ponging on walls and furniture while finding all the sharp points would be bad. Old cement with cracks is no place to be lackadaisical with safety! The first is an ambulance trip, the other means no need for rushing!

We had Mexican food, and I had the special. Thanks to the thrush, I could barely taste anything. I am also challenged to eat more than a few servings (my usual reaction to lots of anesthetics is twenty pounds of weight loss–not a weight loss system I would recommend), but I am still able to drown my sorrows in iced tea (lots of it) and chips and salsa that burns (both from the thrush and because it is hot). Linda wisely stayed with the bean dip and chips (and iced tea). Linda did not like the guacamole as it too was spicy. Should we return soon, we will be careful with our green stuff order.

Prime is not working, and my purchase of the WW2 movie Midway (the new version) was completed (Prime got paid), but there is nothing. I spent some time trying to discover what options for a refund were available. Nothing. You also cannot get any help, a response, or even a chance to say something is wrong. So I went with the last resort, I trashed the movie in its review with a warning that it would not play and sent that into the AI that is Amazon.com and will see if anything in the nearly thoughtless machine will rise to my review (the movie has a nearly perfect rating with 65K reviews). I tried a few times.

I changed focus, and I have diagnosed the issue as related to the new non-commercial free version of Prime. It is trying to play a commercial for me, I believe, but it is not reachable. The movie will not play until you have seen the commercial (thus, various strategies to defeat commercials will prevent the movie from playing, but I believe the mute button would work fine as Amazon has yet to make sound something it overrides). I was offered to buy the movie again and also to buy a no-commercial version for another five bucks a month. I soon found other things to do.

The pandemic world is becoming a memory, and Corwin witnessed this today. The post-holiday traffic in food deliveries was low, so Corwin had nothing to deliver in the afternoon or evening. It seems that folks, for Memorial Week 2024, are at the beach BBQing and enjoying the things we used to do, which does not include day drinking in a lockdown and having food (at a low price back in 2020) being delivered. Prices are also up, and it is far (very much so) cheaper to make than to buy it. Ham/turkey and cheese sandwiches with cheap knock-off soda are the focus of diets this week, with likely a bag of chips from a huge box of various types from Costco. It is summer.

So, let’s go with this to celebrate Summer 2024!

I had cheese and crackers as Linda had rested and just disappeared into a long nap, but she wanted to make lasagna, an American Mid-West version that is good and old school. Linda appeared a bit late and stayed up to cook, but I stayed out of the way. Corwin made Safeway run to get some more items. We had a late dinner (about as late as Michelle and David), but I had a snack, so I was OK. We listened to the YouTube channels of some of the new comedians that rose just before the pandemic, survived COVID-19, and now are making well-received reels on FaceBook and ate and laughed: ISMO, Tom Popa, and Taylor Tomlinson. While a grand adventure, prepared to be surprised by their topics and ability to make you laugh at things that should not be funny. You have been warned!

Linda and then I went to bed. Linda is in the office on a roll-away bed, and I am in my master bedroom, but I always sleep on my side of the bed and leave the other unused. Tonight was not a stumbling, tired finish! I managed to shower, sit, and wash, avoiding the suddenly growing imbalances and the need to stop moving. Better, but not there yet. I managed to sleep, but sleep is a gamble for me. I, like many, have trouble slowing down some thinking, but it is more like I wake in discomfort and have to find a way to fall asleep again. I also just switch off, not sleep. A dreamless darkness that would impress any Lovecraftian writer. I come to be conscious and discover, as my person comes online like a slow booting LINUX box, what has woken me from the darkness, again, keeping with the image, like reading log files from the boot to learn my condition as a LINUX box, and determine a course of action, execute, and return. The pain increases over the night with each restart. Each off is complete and timeless.

I will finally reach enough pain to rise. It is not much, but it is hard to slide back into the dark with it.

Thanks for reading!