Are my blogging days over? I'm about to find out

This morning I got out of bed, shivered at the surprise cold in the air, came out to the living room and checked my phone--it was 31F outside.  Wow, it's almost May!  

Well, that's souithwestern Pa for you.  The weather will trip you up everytime.

But it's also Monday, and my scheduled laundry day, so I knew I had to get my shower early and get my stuff down to the laundry room at 8am.  These past couple weeks, I didn't get down there until 9:30 am and both times got a knock on my door from Janice up the hall at 9:  "Hey Doug, are you done with your laundry time?"  

Janice--that room is mine from 8am to noon so back off!  Geez!

Anyway, I thought that before I got crackin' I'd send an email to my friend Pen (who lives near me), just to say good morning and how about this weather.  I open my email, put "Chilly Monday" in the subject line and that infernal Copilot pops up and says "Would you like us to compose a draft for you?"

That damn Copilot, I keep going into settings and deactivating it and it keeps returning.  Normally I say something like "Kiss my a--" or "Drop dead" or "I hate you" but I am in kind of a hurry, so I say "Sure."

It comes up with this:

It says "I hope your morning is off to a good start despite the chilly air!  There's certainly a crispness outside today that makes a warm cup of coffee or tea even more inviting.  Wishing you a cozy and productive start to your week--stay warm out there!   Best, Doug

Now I was all prepared to roll my eyes and snort when this popped up, but I've known Pen since grade school (we grew up on neighboring farms) and she's a sweet person but kind of a square too.  So I have a feeling she's really going to like this message.  I went ahead and hit 'Send'.

But here's the thing:  Pen may be a sweet square, but she's a smart cookie too.  She graduated our class at the top of our class.  She was elected Most Intelligent by her fellow students.  So she may see thru this cyber-fluff, write back and say "Don't send me an AI generated message again."

If she does, I'll consider my foray into AI assisted writing as a failure and resume my neurotic, half mental blogs.

If she falls for this AI message and responds with something pleasant like "Good morning Doug!  So nice to get a normal good morning from you"  then I'll begin using AI to compose my future blogs.

Stay tuned!  I'll post her reply if & when I get one. 😏

It's an old subject, but you have to look for hope where you can get it

This is a YouTube short, only 2-3 minutes long.  Shortly after I was diagnosed with long covid in March 2024, I began following this guy on YouTube, also wrestling with long covid.  He did everything under the sun trying to beat it.  A couple times he thought he did (like I did, last summer) only for it to come back.  

Anyway, he stopped posting videos a year ago--until this short this past week.  He says it took him 3 1/2 years, but he's now been symptom free for a year and feels he's made a full recovery.  I got the opportunity to talk to him and he was very understanding.

Mine has been ongoing for 2 1/2 years now.  A week or so ago I was feeling good 3 days in a row and just when I began to wonder if this was something encouraging to blog about, the symptoms returned.  But those good days and what he says below give me hope.