Author: alohawild

Today I did not go to the office or work from home but put in for PTO. I have not slept in days, and it is hard to think straight. I can fall asleep for twenty minutes before a coughing jag, or wheezing wakes me.

I tried to sleep in, but calls woke me, and that was the last good sleep I had, maybe an hour or two. I also think I might have slept some as I don’t remember being awake after 1:30ish. The muscle pain and headache suggest flu mixed with allergy symptoms. Ugh!

I have cough syrup (for high blood pressure and diabetics), and I read the whole day trying to fall asleep, but never for more than a few minutes. I finished Charles Stross’s book, Season of the Skulls, and Yoon Ha Lee’s Revenant Gun. I always like Stross (Lovecraftian SciFi-Spy), and I have finished a Space Opera series by Lee. Both I would recommend, but Yoon Ha Lee’s Machineries of Empire is fantastic. 

I skipped coffee and made ginger tea all day for my throat. I had cereal with milk for lunch. Reheated hot and sour soup and some leftover fried shrimp for lunch. Despite the good stories I was reading, I made dinner as I was bored out of my mind. I fried a porkchop (from the freezer) in butter and Herbs de Provence and finished it in the oven. The oven was hot as I had made cornbread cupcakes to go with it. The usual cheap box of mix, adding some frozen corn. I heated frozen green beans in a pan in a steaming basket and then finished the beans in hot butter with almonds, a dash of onion, and garlic powder in a non-stick pan.

I called Susie and talked to her for a bit. She misses me, but I think she had a good day.

I made and ate dinner watching episodes from the animated series Space Battleship Yamato 2199, buying the first three episodes. I saw a YouTube video suggesting this one was the best version. I also watched Nerd of the Rings’ new content (What if Saruman got the Ring). I can’t recommend the animated series, but I might watch some more.

That was my day. I have read and tried to sleep. I am a little better, but the loss of sleep is hard.

Thanks for reading.

Just a short story this Monday!

By the afternoon, the sore throat and cough had me lying down and reading. I emailed that I was not well to work and called the hummingbird house to let them know I was ill and would not see Susie today. I did not sleep well and could not fall asleep at any time, as I would wake up coughing or wheezing. It just sucks.

I woke at 5ish with a sore throat, used the restroom, then just dozed, repeated that at 6ish, gave up, and started at 6:30ish, and even approved a fix to design before 7AM! I microwaved a cup of yesterday’s coffee and made the ginger tea Michelle V sent me for chemo worked for a sore throat! Figured I needed both. I had a few sips of coffee and was nauseated again. I think it is coffee with my meds, and before I have eaten (I was just starting on an NYC bagel with cream cheese and capers). I drank no more coffee and had no tummy issues.

Aside: There is a conservative reader out there suggesting I had too much liberal and was nauseated. It is a good joke.

I managed to attend some Zoom meetings and follow along, but I was exhausted without sleep, my throat hurt, and I was suddenly having coughing jags–no fun! So I got out the high blood pressure diabetes cough syrup (yes, it is clear and has no sugar) and had me cough the stuff up that was trying to settle in my lungs, and then I was quiet for a bit. I could lie down and read, sitting up and nod off, but that would last only twenty minutes.

I had reheated pasta for lunch and watched a Youtube video on the new 3D models from scanning the wreck of the Titanic. The stern looks wholly exploded by the water pressure of sinking–nothing like I have seen before. The previous photos, drawings, and paintings are nothing like this scan.

Next, I sent the note mentioned above and called. I was not making out today and tried to rest and read. I think I might have slept a few times.

I ordered from Happy Panda some soups and apprizers and salt and pepper shrimp and chicken (squid is better–next time). The soups were good. I found The Great War of Archimedes, a fictional account of the competition to build the largest battleship, IJN Yamato, before WW2. It is not that good, but I liked it, and it starts with the destruction of the IJN Yamato, which is a fantastic scene. I would recommend the newest Midway film instead if you need a naval WW2 fix–it is a great film and much more aligned to actual events and accuracy, including the Pearl Harbor Attack, Doolittle’s Raid, Coral Sea Battle, and finally, the decisive Midway battle in June 1942.

I am still struggling, and the coughing is worse. Work is likely out for Tuesday, but we will see if I can get some rest. Thanks for reading!

The morning started with me with a sore throat that did not get worse or better during the day. I was awake at 6-something, proved my hydration (twice!), and checked on the data conversions (all done!). I managed to roll over a few times, but the sore throat kept me awake. So before 7:30 on a Sunday, I was up and reading emails and starting my Monday. I had cereal with milk for breakfast, thinking back to the nausea of the day before, and that cereal would not bother my sore throat. It seems to be an allergy and not a cold, as I am not constantly blowing my nose.

I read about the project in emails and Slack Channels updates, and all data conversions were completed and ramp-up running without incident. We were done early. I was free for the day!

I wrote the Saturday blog and considered doing some work on the radio project, but I decided to rest a bit and read. I found it hard not to fall back to sleep; not helpful. I got dressed and headed out. I stopped by McDonald’s and got Dad’s favorite, two cheeseburgers, plus fries and a Diet Coke (I did not finish the Diet Coke–not sure I should order them anymore). I ate that while Air Volvo took me to the local Ace Hardware (I want to get new hoses and coiling things for them), but I discovered it was not open until noon on Sunday (old school). Monday’s task now.

I reached Susie’s place near noon. It was now overcast and no warmer than 65F (18C), which was quite a change from the previous days. Unfortunately, it is too early in the year for heat lows and high-pressure heating events from the Coastal Mountain Range. This is a thermal process where the air is compressed against the Coastal Mountains by an inflow wind and decompressed over the valley (here). The decompression causes heating (it is how AC works, actually). We will see this in August and get those 110F (43C) days.

I arrived at the hummingbird house in Portland (Tigard) at Allegiance Senior Care LLC, 9925 SW 82nd. Ave. Portland (Tigard), OR 97223; phone (503) 246-4116. The traffic was light, and Susie was napping in her recliner in the shared living room. Another resident had a birthday, and more family was visiting. Susie and I decided on John Wick as a movie for today (being too cold for Susie to head into the park today) in her room. The new film, unimaginably called John Wick 4, is not yet available on cable, so we watched it (rented for $3.99).

Susie likes these comic-book-styled violent movies with Mr. Wick wearing an expensive Italian-made bulletproof suit (He holds up his coat to resist bullets–pure fantasy). We both like the series, and Susie enjoyed watching it again. I nodded off a few times but saw the majority of the movie. Susie then asked to be moved from her rocking chair (her butt hurt) to her bed and, like this, curled up and slept while I sat next to her.

(with the roses from Linda Wild sent to me–Susie has them now in her room)

I got my Apple computer and read stuff and managed not to buy anything excellent for board games from Etsy. Susie was dead asleep soon. She slept for about an hour.

Susie woke and, through her broken words, managed to ask to go home with me tonight–she did not know where she was and was worried. I reassured her that she was safe, and she said she felt safe there and was happy to be there. Susie showed signs of confusion, and I did not know if she was awake. It broke my heart as I told her she should stay at the hummingbird house. I explained that she could not walk and care for herself, so she was good here. I pointed out the decorations in the room, and she began to recognize them, and I could see her suddenly feeling relieved. I tried to remember all of the calming techniques for memory-challenged people. Susie calmed down and accepted that she would rest there tonight and that I would be back on Monday. I left with a kiss, and Louis promised to check on her a few times so she was not alone for very long. They will get her up for dinner at the table.

I headed to McMinnimums Oak Hills Pub and had soup, coffee, and some fries for a light dinner. Dungeons and Dragons is at 5:30 tonight. I wrote the blog this afternoon/evening and will finish it late tonight. My throat is sore still, but I think it is not worse, and I was not coughing.

Next, I headed to Cory’s house. We play the Dungeons and Dragons 5E version from 5:30 to 9PM Spell Jamming campaign. We are a low-level group of five 6th-level characters and Matt as DM. We are flying in spaceships that resemble steampunk versions of flying sailing ships to horrors from outer space crossed with Tolkien at his darkest. Our group of adventures is heavy combat focuses (previously, we played a group that was skirmishers and thieves), and we fought and overcame some large bad guys in this play. We also failed almost every social encounter, and that was really funny. So it was a fun night.

Some updates on my roses:

 

Mister Lincoln has bloomed, a hybrid tea from the 1960s and still available.

The Cardinal Richelieu has also bloomed. It is showing less stress. The watering and fertilizer helped. An near impossible-to-find once-blooming rose from the 1840s.

Souvenir du Président Lincoln is also blooming. The first time for multiple blooms, and planted last year. This is a bourbon rose from 1865. You can see a little of the black spot stressing it. It needs more watering.

Well, thank you for reading!

Going backward, I reached the Volvo Cave at 12:30AM from Portland without incident, but it was difficult as I was tired. I had dropped Kathleen at her house at midnight on the far side of Portland and then crossed back and then crossed Beaverton to reach home, the Volvo Cave. The night was hot and dry; folks were passing me at high speeds, and some were having trouble staying in their lane. A mini-van decided to own more than its lane in the tunnel on Highway 26, but I saw it in time and took evasive action. After taking my evening meds, I was soon in bed and asleep.

The shoe company ran a data conversion all night, but it finished early, and I went to bed as it was wrapping up. So I followed along all Saturday. The official word was on Sunday morning that everything was done. Excellent!

Before boarding Air Volvo, we played the board game The Grand Hotel Austria, my copy. I have all the food in excellent 3-D printed models. Thus the strudel, cake, coffee, and wine are neat little models. I have the updated Kickstarter version. It is a rules-heavy resource and worker placement game based on placing guests in your hotel. Sounds simple, but the guests want refreshments before heading to their rooms. The room has to be prepared. The empire also wants you to support them too. All of this, and then you may hire staff to help. The game takes a play to get the basics clear, and competing elements make it a brain burner. Kathleen would take some time to find the perfect move. Richard won, but Claudia and Kathleen nearly caught him. I was lapped as I struggled to escape a mistake I had made. The game can punish you if you make a mistake. I still like it.

We also played an out-of-print card game called Zero. It has a simple set of rules, but no new cards are acquired after the start. So to get five of one color or five of one number (the cards are six colors and numbered one to eight) is mainly based on the hope that your fellow players will discard what you need. Nevertheless, it played fast and was fun. We played a few hands before and after the mind-bending hotel operations.

In the early evening, Corwin planted the rose bush I received from Dondrea and Z for my birthday. We agreed last week that he could plant it for me at his own time on Saturday. So I am happy to get that in the ground!

Before this, I was at the house resting and getting some early dinner, Popeye’s Fried Chicken. I was having issues again with nausea, and food seemed to help. I had left Susie at about 2:30 and went home to rest, eat, and decide if I was well enough to head out. I decided to push through, and I was fine for the games.

I spent the early morning and part of the afternoon with Susie. Just before noon, I found Susie sleeping in her recliner in the shared living room. There was no traffic going there (the traffic back and to Portland was heavy on a sunny day–Oregonians seem to migrate on sunny days). One of the other residents was having a birthday party, so Susie and I headed to Metzger Park to get out of the way.

Susie resides at the hummingbird house in Portland (Tigard) at Allegiance Senior Care LLC, 9925 SW 82nd. Ave. Portland (Tigard), OR 97223; phone (503) 246-4116.

The morning was warm and dry, and the sky was partly sunny, with many white cotton candy clouds covering about 1/3 of the sky. Today’s sky was a lighter blue as the air was full of pollen and other light-defusing particles. The smoke from Canada and Washington State forest fires is not blowing this way (the air quality in Idaho was bad yesterday). The air was fresh.

I saw a few large butterflies on the way in and one by the hummingbird house but found no larger ones in the park. Soon. I took Susie in the opposite direction, started on the road, pushed her to the back of the park, and then went through Metzger Park and back to our start. It was about an hour.

Susie and I watched the people out on Saturday with kids and dogs enjoying the warming, dry day. We called Leta, Susie’s mother, on my iPhone using FaceTime. Leta and Barb, Susie’s sister (also residing in Michigan), planted flowers and tomato plants and weeded Leta’s flower beds. Barb had found planters to place on the new deck’s railing. Leta can sit on her deck and look at her plants. Leta sounded quite pleased, and we got to wave (via FaceTime) to Barb. The roses are blooming in the park now.

My legs are stiff, and it was a bit hard for me (my new workout seems to be pushing a wheelchair in 80F+ (26.7C). We were soon back, and Susie was placed in her rocking chair, and we watched the Disney classic animated Sleeping Beauty with Susie singing all the parts. I was tired, and the nausea revisited me, so I slept through about half of the movie. Susie did not notice. After the film, with the nausea rising, I headed out, and Susie kissed me.

Before this, I was up at 7:30ish and wrote the blog for Friday, had liberal coffee and an NYC bagel with cream cheese, and then read for a bit. The first bout of nausea hit in the early morning. I reheated some leftover pasta to see if that would help. It did not get worse, so I pressed on.

It was quieter but punctuated with nausea Saturday.

I am writing this Saturday morning as I wanted to relax a bit on Friday night. It is another lovely sunny day in Oregon.

The morning started at 7ish, and I can sleep on Fridays as it is a work-from-home day at the shoe company. I used a bagel-like product (I have some in the freezer and grabbed the wrong bag today) for breakfast with cream cheese sprinkled with cappers and liberal coffee. The cappers add a salty pine flavor that enhances the cream cheese taste. Then, I took the food into the office and started two hours of Zoom meetings. The first hour was our weekly staff meetings, where Rajani, our acting director, tries to make sense of the chaos and helps everyone ground on what is essential and what can slide (in multi-national company IT departments, there is unlimited work and not enough people or time to do it all–you have to keep focused on the goals with high priority). This was followed by a few status meetings.

I had a crisis of the moment and spent hours in meetings trying to find a solution and how to apply it. This went on all day, with the last meeting at 5:05PM with me calling in a while driving home. This crisis broke into multiple issues, and each was resolved. A crazy Friday.

As I had a meeting at 12:30PM, I heated up the last of the tamales in the frig from the tamale lady at Wildwood Taphouse for lunch. I ate it while listening to a crisis meeting.

With the crisis likely over (until another one surfaces), I headed outside and rediscovered why one should use gloves when cutting your roses. The English rose, The Herbalist, has hypodermic sharp thorns–I was reminded when I went to add the rose to my cuttings! The old rose pink moss’s (a lovely but once-blooming rose) moss had hardened from the hot days and stuck me a few times. China rose, a very old, continually blooming rose, had politely pointed down thorns. With a small collection (and a bit of pain), I boarded Air Volvo and headed to see Susie at the hummingbird house in Portland (Tigard) at Allegiance Senior Care LLC, 9925 SW 82nd. Ave. Portland (Tigard), OR 97223; phone (503) 246-4116.

Jennifer placed Susie in her bed with her head up, and I pulled a chair beside her. I set up my work and personal computer, my 13″ Apple M1 2020–yes, my previous Apple died in the pandemic, and turned on the TV for Susie. We put on Volume 2 of Guardians of the Galaxy, preparing to watch the new movie. Susie watched some of the show but mainly rested, but she often held my hand. Constantly letting go and doing something at work and then retaking her hand.

Somewhere in the early afternoon, we did call Leta, Susie’s mother, from Susie’s room. Leta was surprised we were not outside. Susie, Leta, and I talked for a bit about little things. It is not so much the words but just the ability to see each other (via FaceTime) and talk that is important.

I had one protracted crisis call that Susie heard and even said “Hi” to everyone. After that, I could mostly send updates, reviews, and emails for Friday afternoon. Then, finally, at 4ish, the movie stopped, and Jennifer got Susie ready to head outside to Mezger Park–Susie was a bit confused about a talking raccoon and a tiny talking plant in the movie.

The park was not overheated, and we were past the hot part of the day, so it seemed to be cooling off. There were more kids and many early dinners as the weekend was starting. There is no cooking in the park, and food waste is quickly disposed of in tight-lidded trash containers, so wasps are not an issue and are not a problem in the Spring, usually.

We found an unoccupied bench in the shade and looked for butterflies (I like the French better: papillons), but today I did not even see the flash of color of a wing in the light. I have not seen the big ones at the house either, so I suspect the caterpillars are still working on eating and will appear later as papillons. Susie and I just enjoy sitting and watching the people for a while. As I said, I have one last meeting, so I return Susie to the hummingbird house with Louis, now the nursing aide on duty, and cook for dinner (burgers tonight at the hummingbird house).

I head back to Beaverton and stop at McMenamins Cedar Hill Pub for a Captain Neon burger (bacon and blue cheese) and a Ruby beer. I am tired, and dinner does not sit well with me, and Air Volvo takes me to the Volvo Cave. I read and rest for a bit. I decide this is likely the last chance to see Dungeons and Dragons, the movie, on a large screen. So at 9PM, I was in the living room-like room at AMC Progress Ridge Theater with popcorn and drink (costing more than the ticket) and enjoyed the movie again. I recommend it as a good action film, and if you are a 5E and familiar with the official D&D setting, it is even more fun. Recommended.

I am reading Charles Stross’s newest book on my Kindle, and I like it but was surprised by some borrowing from TV. So I find that I will be reading along, and then the story will go in some strange direction and stop. The weight of the Kindle then falls on me; I am asleep, and when it hits me, I wake. Sometimes I invent a whole page before I wake up!

I get home without issue and take my pills, nearly forgetting, and then go to bed, read and fall asleep, put away the Kindle, and turn off the lights. I slept until sunrise.

Thanks for reading.