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The most challenging days have two features: asthma and exhaustion. These days disappoint as I usually have plans and things to complete on those days that will not happen. Friday was such a day. I had little that I had to do that day and wanted to write, but with the breathing issues and the lack of sleep, that would not happen.

Instead, I struggled from 4:30AM trying to find an incantation and potion to let me sleep. I tried to capture sleep, but Morpheus escaped me. So at 5ish, I was up and took some Cetirizine Hydrochloride 10 mg (Zyrtec), and this cleared the coughing, sneezing, and congestion but made me profoundly sleepy. It works for me, and I recommend it to folks who suddenly can’t stop coughing and have asthma but be ready to be fatigued.

It was Black Friday, and I was up early, so I checked for my usual additions online for discounts. The Game Steward did have some specials, but I did not see anything I wanted for prices I could not imagine I would see again. Sparkfun was closed (but would do discounting an hour later after I looked). AdaFruit got my attention, 22% off of Feather microcontrollers. These are fun to work with about three US Quarters-sized fully functional microcontrollers. They have built-in recharge circuits for a LiPo battery via USB. The USB connection allows you to program them like an Arduino or micro-Python. So I bought a supply of new Feather boards with LoRa radios (A new tech I have not tried with a 10-kilometer line-of-sight range for slow speeds communication) and various add-on boards. All with free shipping and a discount.

Next, I wrote the blog; I think I did, as the exhaustion made yesterday a blur. I went back to sleep some more and managed to sleep, but the nightmares came as I struggled still, even in my dreams. I was wandering lost, and things will looking for me, unfriendly horrors. I needed to keep moving, but the dream setting kept getting darker and more gothic with each cycle of moving. It was going to be bad when the scary things found me–I made myself wake up. Finally, I said, “enough of that,” out loud to help brush off the webs of horror as I went out to the kitchen to get more coffee. It was decided now that I would push through the ruins of Friday.

I dressed and talked to Jennifer, the nursing aide for today, and learned that nobody was up and coming at 1PM or so would be fine. Apparently, I was not the only person tired today, but I expected it was the food and the change of schedules that tired out everyone there. So, without a hurry, I showered and dressed.

I turned on soccer on Fox Sports and burned out my free hour watching the USA and England play to a draw. I reheated the remains of my purchased Thanksgiving Dinner and found the salad I had made (I usually chop twice my needs and put a baggy in the frig with the extra for a quick salad later) and ate that while watching the game. My temporary access ended before the game, but I decided I was not signing up this time.

The exhaustion started, and I was dizzy and not feeling like lunch was settled. I rested and soon was deep asleep. I awoke from a blessedly dreamless sleep and felt better. Afterward, I headed to the hummingbird house across from very busy Beaverton. My commute to Tigard is usually twenty minutes and as fast as fifteen. Today it was forty-five minutes. Jennifer and Susie thought maybe I had called and then fallen asleep before leaving!

The traffic I was in was also the mall traffic; the Washington Square Mall is just five minutes away (or twenty today) from Susie’s place. The traffic lines were longer than the spaces between the traffic lights, so it took three or four rounds of lights to get through. The shenanigans of various drivers trying to cheat the wait kept me alert. Once past the mall entrance and Target, I was free.

I arrived late, and Susie was just out of bed and in her recliner in the living room. I had just missed the Christmas movie Elf, and the terrible but all-star Fred Claus movie was running. We called Leta, Susie’s mother, and chatted with her via FaceTime.

I pulled up a wooden table chair, held Susie’s hand, and just sat. Soon I was asleep with Susie, not noticing I was sleeping (she might have been too). This happened a few times, and Jennifer suggested I get a more comfortable chair, but I demurred. Somehow we got to the end of the terrible movie, and another started. It was nearly 4:30, so I headed out with a kiss. Susie was sorry to see me leave and looked sad. It is always hard to leave.

I managed to cross Beaverton without issue and decided, still tired, to head home. There I got the smoked pork chops and heated them in butter in a hot pan. I added herbs and water to steam them hot. Next, I made green bean casserole, adding some mayo and powdered mustard to the usual mix. This was just a hint and added some extra flavor besides the onions. Next, I microwaved a potato, small one to add starch. I find that I am hungry later if I skip the starch. I did overcook the potato, so it looked like a raisin. It was hard to cut, but I added butter and some sour cream, which was good enough. I did have extra green beans.

I watched some more of Matt Smith’s Doctor while eating. This is my new binge. It is just as good as I remember it. It is on HBOMAX, and pick season five to start on the binge. I just did the episode where Jenna Coleman appears for the first time as ‘souffle girl.’ Jenna will be a regular on the show later. 

I was struggling to stay awake, but I did manage to find the focus to work on my Dungeons and Dragons adventure and do some revisions. I have to play it 4Dec2022 and wanted to prepare it for more play. So I managed to make a few edits and some additional writing.

I went to bed early, woke at 1AM, and took my pills, having woken to do that and falling asleep while getting up. I work at 2:30 with pain in my right leg, which had not happened for weeks, and I had to take painkillers to sleep. I finally slept well and felt better on Saturday.

Well, a tough day, but I pushed through. Thanks for reading.

 

Thanksgiving started with me starting at about 7ish. I had finished the blog the night before and had an easy start. I had slept well (I was up on Friday at 4:30AM with congestion from allergies–I took an allergy pill, and now that is reducing, but I have that old familiar fall-asleep feeling from the med). Instead, I worked on a paper copy (yes, going old-school) of my Dungeons and Dragons adventure, which has reached the point where I align the text and remove the fluff I write when I am guessing the storyline. I usually drift from the original thoughts as I write the encounters. I wrote all over the paper copy and got about 1/2 way with a lot of ink, deletes, and a few adds.

Aside: In my first assignments at the shoe company, we wrote huge documents quickly and revised them as the ideas changed. I remember working with Michelle V and Jim V in Belgium in the 1990s, fighting jet lag and a macro-virus while turning out piles of documents covered with ink, red, and then revised. I remember also learning the source of the virus, reading its code, and removing it from my machine and documents. Unfortunately, the virus-infected templates, and if you printed an infected document after 5PM, the virus would destroy the media it was using by overwriting the disk’s first sector. Nasty.

I watched some more Doctor Who season six (Matt Smith’s second season) and then headed out. In almost non-existent traffic, Air Volvo was quickly at the hummingbird house. Susie was in her recliner in the shared living room watching Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade. Susie was delighted to see me.

We called Barb, Susie’s sister, and managed to reach her and Susie’s extended family at Barb’s just as they sat down to eat. Everyone quickly waved or said ‘Hello’ on FaceTime. Next, we reached Susie’s Aunt Joyce and had a friendly chat with Joyce recounting Thanksgiving Parades in the past when Susie and her extended family showed up one year.

After the calls, we watched the parade while Jennifer, the live-in nurse aide, and her family prepared a Thanksgiving dinner. We supplied a pumpkin pie I made and the stuff for yams with marshmallows that Susie always looks for at Thanksgiving. I headed out before dinner started with a kiss and headed across Beaverton.

I picked up a dinner for one at Golden Valley Brewery, my usual source of holiday food. Air Volvo got me to the Volvo Cave, and I then had the salad and about 1/2 of my dinner while relaxing and enjoying more season six of Doctor Who. I just tasted the pumpkin pie-style cheesecake.

I then logged into the Internet and Gethsemani Farms and ordered, for my usual victims, fruitcakes (and just fudge for one family) and added a few new ones. I also ordered more tools from OcCre in Spain for building wooden ship models. I was hoping for a Black Friday Deal, but that was available only on more kits–one is good for me, but shipping was only $10 from Spain (reduced for Black Friday, I believe), and I thought I could live with that!

I switched to my blue dress shirt and took Air Volvo, and soon arrived at Richard’s in Portland at 6PM–no traffic. I brought two bottles of local Oregon wine, the pie (as I mentioned), and some chocolate-covered pretzels from the Girl Scouts (Susie’s nieces hit me up again this year).

I joined into a word game, not my favorite, and then we played an exciting light game called The Green Team Wins. You pick several questions from a random deck and write your answer in secret on an erasable board; if it matches the majority, you score. The high score wins (not me) when the questions run out. It was a fun party game, and I recommend it. It was a new game in Richard’s collection (he opened it and punched it). We played quite a few rounds.

Dinner was with Richard’s kids (I had not met them before), Shana, Casey, who brought Arial (Casey introduced me to Richard in the ancient pre-Covid days), and me. Dinner was late, 8PM, as Richard’s daughter was working late–that is why I could join in. Dinner was traditional, with a few special items like bacon-wrapped asparagus., and the turkey was nearly perfect. Bravo!

My pie was a hit. It is hard to beat as it uses condensed sweetened milk (which, when cooked, becomes caramel). I also used Vietnamese cinnamon, which brightened all the spices (powdered ginger, nutmeg, and salt), and it was, I thought, one of my best.

Soon it was late, and folks were headed to the early Black Friday sales, so I headed home in the fog. It was thick, and while I had no issues, I nearly missed my exit. Air Volvo arrived without further events at the Volvo Cave and finished watching a Doctor Who episode, and went to bed.

I was awake at 4:30AM, as I said, and so I ordered some more Black Friday Deal items from AdaFruit in New York City (22% off of Feathers, a powerful miniature microcontroller, and 10% off other items). I tried to sleep and managed to have nightmares (ugh!), so Friday will be an exhausting day for me. I will push through and hope for sleep later.

I did order more fruit cakes, too. Hee Hee.

I slept a bit better, but I woke up a few times. The morning started at about 7ish with me working on my Dungeons and Dragons adventure. I completed the Tuesday blog, so I had to work on my other writing projects all morning. I spent most of the time reviewing all the error mining from Grammarly. Unfortunately, I did not manage to add much to the story. However, I checked everything, felt more in touch with the story, and planned to write on Thanksgiving morning.

I also did the dishes, did laundry, and made my lunch. Breakfast was a cup of strawberry yogurt with a banana and liberal coffee. I later had a bagel-like bread product with chives and cream cheese. After all that food, lunch was just a salad with some hard-boiled eggs.

Before I made lunch, I made two pumpkin pies using the recipe my mother once used. It is my favorite pie, and I make them every year. Today I made two at once by doubling the recipe, but I used Vietnamese cinnamon instead of the more generic version I usually use. I just made the old familiar pies using store-bought pie crusts.

Once I had lunch and the chores done, I showered, dressed, collected the items to take with me, and headed to the hummingbird house. I brought the flowers I bought at Safeway that I forgot to take the day before, the laptop, and a pie to share with the residents and staff of the facility.

The pie, they have four other pumpkin pies, will be tried tonight. Susie was happy to see me and was in her recliner in the living room. We called Leta, Susie’s mother, and Susie and Leta chatted for a while.

Susie got a plant for her birthday from her Aunt Joyce, plus the cut flowers I brought her.

Susie moved to her bed, and we watched Perry Mason on her TV for a while. Susie nodded off. This was the very first episode from 1957, The Case of Restless Redhead, and I actually liked it and had never seen it before. Susie was napping, and at 4ish, I got a kiss goodbye and headed out. I am always sad to leave.

I traveled across Beaverton to Powell’s and bought a new book and the current Analog magazine. The Song of The Cell is written by the same author as my favorite, The Emperor of all Maladies, Siddhartha Mukherjee. His previous book on cancer won a Pulitzer, and just a few pages I have managed today to read have me convinced this is another winner.

I had lunch and read at Panera. I had my usual almond chicken 1/2 sandwich with a bowl of French Onion and an apple. The almond chicken was too cold today (I could have let it warm up), but other than that, it was good.

I did get a call from the Golden Valley Brewery that my dinner for tomorrow would be ready at 1:45PM. They had me down for a four-person dinner, and I wanted just one. They could accommodate me (again) and make me a one-person dinner.

Next, I headed to First United Methodist and Zophia and took on a small island map in the board game Concordia. We play games while the band and choir practice. Concordia is my favorite board game, and today we added the Forum rules and a smaller map: Corsica. Zophia likes Concordia and has most of the rules down, but the smaller map is less forgiving, and she misplayed a few times. I ran away with the game. Next time I will have to look out.

Revenge was quicker than I expected, as we had time for one game of Azul, and she crushed me. Zophia had a plus 100+ score, and, well, I did not. She thought I had been easy on her; no, she won that one. Next time!

I headed next to Central Taps in Beaverton Central by City Hall to write the blog. I had a dark beer and stayed late to finish the blog.

Thanks for reading.

Feel free to call or send cards. Susie resides at:

Allegiance Senior Care

Adult Foster Care Home

9925 SW 82nd. Ave.

Portland, Oregon 97223

The house phone number: (503) 246-4116

 

I slept poorly, leaving me not feeling like myself most of the day. I was kind of missing things and having trouble remembering all day. I will try to get some sleep tonight.

I was up and down for some of the night. I got up at 3AM, drank water, and read emails. I managed to sleep after that, but I still woke before my alarm at 6-something. So I reset that to 7ish and was dead asleep when it went off.

I managed to get going and write the blog for Monday. Unfortunately, I could not have coffee or food as Susie and I both had blood draws, fasting ones, at 10:45 and 11:00. I had worked it out with Jennifer, the nurse aide at the hummingbird house, that Susie would sleep late, and we would just get her ready before leaving. All that worked, and I loaded Susie in Air Volvo at 10:15ishn after having a non-eventful trip across Beaverton.

Our trip to the lab was slow, and we were not there until 10:40. We hit every light and train! I unloaded Susie, and we waited twenty minutes. Finally, we got a separate person, and they did us simultaneously. The guy working with Susie was good and hit on the first time. Soon, we were done and back in Air Volvo. Susie got some Ensure as Jennifer ensured (is that a pun) that Susie had food immediately after the blood draw. We called Leta, Susie’s mother, in Michigan, and they chatted for a while. Leta was cold and turning up her heat (laughing that it was just her, so she could do that).

Susie reading a birthday card from the Weis family.

We drove back, and Jennifer took over and got Susie lunch and out of her coat. I headed to a local Mexican place and had average food (no name supplied). I returned and found Susie napping in her recliner in the living room. I hung out with her for a while, but she needed a nap. So I kissed her goodbye and headed home. I arrived without issue and got the mail. I received the Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Catalog and looked through that until I nodded off. Then, I took a short rest.

I got back up, went to Fred Myers, and bought a folding table and hooks. I want to start on some models in the office instead of having the stuff all over the house. I also want to build a Spell Jammer for Dungeons and Dragons. I also bought brass hooks to put into the house to hang the lights I have.

The table is in the office now. I will see when I have time to start on the projects.

I did pay more medical bills, and I keep Quicken up-to-date with every last dollar.

The medical test results are just coming in as I write this. I will include that in the next blog.

I had leftover pasta and sausage for dinner and watched Doctor Who session 6, one of the scariest and best seasons performed by Matt Smith. It includes President Richard Nixon in his first term before the shenanigans.

I left the house and headed and had a beer at Wildwood Taphouse.

I started the morning by not writing the blog but taking Barb, Susie’s sister, to the airport (PDX). She was doing the weekend visit for Susie’s 60th birthday on Sunday, coming in on Friday and leaving Monday. We made no mistakes, and while there was some traffic, it was forty minute trip to PDX. Barb made connections and was back in Michigan in their evening (three-hour time difference).

I flew in Air Volvo from PDX without incident (watching two cars nearly change lanes into each other). I arrived at Tom’s Pancake House in Beaverton and sat at the counter. I barely fit (which explains why only I and younger and thinner folks sit there) as the seats are bolted to the floor and come from a distant time when folks were smaller. Tom’s is a local non-chain joint open for breakfast and lunch.

I had poached eggs, some ham, and hashbrowns with toast. I should have skipped the hashbrowns, but they were so good. Also, I got to put just one packet of orange marmalade on my toast.

While drinking their coffee, I wrote the blog for Sunday and Susie’s birthday. While always rushing food and coffee all over for folks, they had tables open and no line–so nobody minded me staying and finishing the blog. It was an electric atmosphere to write in.

I headed home in Air Volvo; I rested a bit and read the end of A Master of Djinn. I would recommend this Islamic steampunk and magic queer adventure/detective novel. I was sorry that there is no second novel yet, it is the first novel, but there is a short book, a novella, set in the same world. I might read that later. I picked another book, a novella, And What Can We Offer You Tonight, to try. More on that later–so far, I don’t like it.

I headed to the hummingbird house. Susie was resting in her bed when I got there. She was exhausted from her busy weekend. She loved the way her room looks now, she told me. Susie, while still hard for me to understand, was often talking and could not fall back to sleep while I was there. I left with a kiss mid-afternoon after sitting with Susie for an hour or so.

I had chores to do. I bought groceries at Safeway, including the necessary items for making a few pumpkin pies. I don’t do pie crust. So I had bread again and more bagel-like bread products. I also picked up some Boost for Susie (strawberry flavor was only available in Boost and not Ensure at Safeway). I also bought a can of sweet potatoes and marshmallows (yuk!) to give to Jennifer for Susie’s fav at Thanksgiving. Just heat in the syrup until bubbling, add marshmallows, and heat to brown.

I unloaded and put away the stuff and then read some more. I next headed out to get gas for Air Volvo. Now down $4.89 for the chain gas stations. After that, I did the car wash to get the windshield clean. We have sunny days in the winter, not our usual weather, so I need to keep the glass clear. We see rain starting every few days (our typical September weather), but we have had frosts from the clear skies–early October for us. It feels like we are a month off on our climate.

I enjoyed Portland traffic again but stopped in the Pearl District. Monday night is always quiet, and I even got a parking spot on the street next to Van Eberts Brewing. Parking Kitty, our parking app in Portland, took my money and let me know that a twenty-cent tax is added to my parking now. The app meows when your time runs out. As pay parking ends at 7PM, I only paid to that point, so I would not have any meowing today.

I went to Powell’s as I was early for dinner with Mariah; we often meet on Mondays and found a reasonably priced computer book on Machine Learning that was only a few years out and from MIT. Excellent. I had trouble with my asthma and pushed on the stairs to the top floor and back without incident. I felt better after doing that. I need to keep moving and enjoy deep breathing.

Mariah found me later at Van Eberts, having reviewed the partial differential equations in the new purchase. Exciting–I can barely remember my math for these as this stuff has not surfaced since college. Something to relearn! Instead of math, we focused on events and beer and smoked chicken wings, so good that the chickens are rumored to volunteer. I had a smoked beer that was like a beer at a campfire and a refreshing pilsner. We ordered, primarily curious, the Korean-styled tatter tots and would not recommend them–messy.

After paying, Van Ebert’s menu and ordering were online, and we headed out. There are no waiters. It is a strange feeling, but the wings are excellent. The pizzas look good; I have not had one.

I drove home and read How to Lose the Time War, another book I am trying to like. I then went to bed early and had trouble sleeping. I finally slept better after 3PM.

Thank you for reading. Over the holiday week, I will likely be writing in the morning.