I don’t know what I did, but I’ve made it on someone’s ship-list

Can I share something quick here?  We’ve all gotten our share of catalogs in the mail—rather, we used to.  (Do you still get many?  It just occurred to me I haven’t seen one in ages.) 

But there was a time when I used to keep a wicker basket in my place just to store catalogs to look at later.  “Hmm… this Harry & David catalog sure is making me hungry for pears…”

In fact, I still have a pair of tan & red suede pot-holders (that I never used but paid a small fortune for, twenty years ago) from Robert Redford’s Sundance catalog.  Damn you, Redford!

Anyway, the reason I bring it up is because this past Thursday I got a rather ominous looking catalog in the mail. 

It was a black book that came sealed on 3 sides.  Rock River Arms.  They are situated in Illinois, and I’ve never heard of them.  Have you?

It didn’t look like the type of catalog one would just get randomly.  Rock River sells firearms, including all makes & models of pistols.  But their specialty is built-to-order, customized AR-15s.

Someone must’ve given them my name and address.  These books are too specialized to be sent out to just anyone, and this didn’t come with a bulk shipping rate.  It cost them $2.64 to send this obscenity to me via First Class mail. 

My big question is… why?   Is someone trying to put the fear of guns in me?  Trust me, it’s already there!  Or maybe someone’s trying to convert me from my liberal mindset?   “These guns…. they’re badass!  Screw this liberal crap, I want an AR-15 of my own!”

Can I be super-honest here?  I claim to be a liberal, but I’m far from a saint.  Do you remember a couple weeks ago, when that young thug broke into a convenience store (wielding an AR-15 of all things) and the shopkeeper hauled out a rifle and shot him?  

The punk ran out of there hollering “Uggh!!  He shot my arm off!!”  before jumping into a pretty nice looking SUV, where he & his two cohorts sped off.

I sat here thinking “I hope he did, you piece of slime.  I hope that older man DID shoot your arm off, you’re lucky it wasn’t your head.”

Is that how liberals are supposed to think? 

I also felt that store owner was justified owning a firearm, I’m sure he’s been robbed before.  But a built-to-order customized AR-15 from this catalog?  No!  No one else should, either!

Ah, I’m back to feeling like a liberal again.  Even if it does make me sound un-American.

Rock River, I’m sorry you wasted your $2.64 on me.  Along with expensive pears, suede potholders & other useless, pricey doodads, custom AR-15s have been added to my DO NOT BUY list.  

 

An old girlfriend, long lost treasure & some meaningless trivia: what more can I say

Have you ever lost something, but didn’t know you’d lost it until you found it again? 

This past rainy Sunday, I got the urge to clear out some junk in my storage locker (down the hall from my apartment).  I had a couple of old boxes in there labeled “DON’T UNPACK, KEEP IN STORAGE” that weren’t from my last move, or the move before that—but when I moved out of my first apartment in the city 30 years ago.

Opened one box full of paperbacks and various Star Trek books, digging thru it’s musty contents—and at the bottom was a flat, taped brown paper bag.  Inside was this manila envelope with 40 Star Trek enamel pins.  I couldn’t believe my eyes.  I hadn’t seen these since 1994, when I moved across town to Bellevue.

Unlike today where you can probably buy the whole kit n’ kaboodle on Ebay, back in those pre-internet days I got these colorful pins one at a time—from ads in Trekker fanzines or sci-fi shows at the convention center.  Each pin always felt like a little victory.

I think I know what happened to them—at the time, I’d been seeing a lovely girl named Renee who was helping me pack up my place.  (She was a very organizational person.)  I’m guessing she put these in that box with the Trek books.

Here’s Renee bringing boxes to my place for moving, I lived on the second floor above.  (A nosy neighbor across the way took this photo, to remind me the parking lot was for tenants only.) 

This was Sept 22 1994, the same night the tv show Friends premiered on NBC. 

I wanted to take a break to watch the new show, NBC had been running promos for it all summer; but Renee said no, let’s keep working.  I don’t like watching tv shows out of order, and wound up putting off Friends until it premiered on Netflix—in 2016!

Back to the pins, I can’t believe I used to collect these things, let alone wear them in public.  I often pinned one to my coat, even one to my trenchcoat in my early professional working days. 

That’s all I got—but now that I’m older, silver on top and less inhibited, I’m thinking of getting a denim jacket and pinning the front with ALL of them.  What do you think?

 

A couple thoughts and a couple legs, on an early Thursday morning

Here I am, Thursday morning.  It’s 7:22am and I’m sitting on my ‘stretching blanket’ in front of my sofa, looking if there’s anything good to watch on Hulu after I finish this blog and before I make some breakfast.

I’m already on my second cup of coffee, I’ve been up for 90 minutes or so. The last couple weeks I’ve been going to bed early and getting up around 5:30am. 

Is that a sign of aging, I wonder?  Going to bed earlier?  I was pooped last night by 9:30, in bed asleep at 10pm. 

The reason you’re looking at my legs here is because this time tomorrow, I’ll be on a bus headed downtown so someone else can look at them too.

I have an appointment tomorrow morning at Mercy Hospital with my Egyptian PCP Dr. Nefrititi, to do a 6-8 month re-evaluation of my heart & hypertension drugs.  (I take two doses of Carvedilol during the day to regulate my heartbeat, Amlodipine in the PM for blood pressure.)

The last time I saw my doctor in December, I was dealing with some pretty severe fluid retention.  My legs and feet were swollen so bad they ‘wept’ at night, it was difficult to get around sometimes too.  I wondered if the amlodipine was worsening things and asked to be switched to another drug, but she said my BP numbers were in stroke territory, and felt this med was best for the time being.

Still, they took a LOT of pictures of my legs from every angle with an iphone to add to my patient record.

She told me to commit to a daily exercise regimen, and in 6 months we’d re-evaluate the meds.  Since then, my legs have shrunk considerably and I’ve lost 25 pounds.  I use a treadmill 5 times a week, Sunday nights and Monday thru Thursday afternoons.  I set the incline to 2 and the speed to 2.3, a pretty brisk pace. 

I do 4 laps (with a 2 minute breather between laps) which takes around 30 minutes.

Here’s some proof of my daily regimen, the fitness Center’s sign-in sheet for May

Anyway, I’d like to lose another 30-35 lbs (and plan to), I just want to continue doing it without fad dieting.  As for tomorrow, I’m hoping she takes a look at my lower BP numbers and skinny legs, and reduces these meds.

To be honest, the past several days haven’t been great.  Last week, Pennie (my state’s health insurance marketplace) notified me my account was flagged and I could lose my insurance in 15 days due to income discrepancies.  Saturday morning my laptop went black (my charger died).  On Sunday I was peeing blood (sorry), and on Monday morning I walked into my bathroom and the floor was flooded!  They wound up taking out my toilet and asked if I had some place I could stay for a day or two—nope!

Since then, things have turned around.  I spoke to my urologist (who allayed my fears about the blood in my urine), got things with Pennie resolved and a new toilet installed yesterday.  And then last night, a FedEx person buzzed me downstairs; he had the replacement charger & battery for my 5 day dead laptop. 

I was more than ready to crank out a nice long boring blog post! 

Now I can go back to worrying about finding a new chair… hopefully an update on that soon.

On an unrelated note, can I share some heartache here?  This past Sunday morning, I was watching a tribute video to Olivia Newton-John on Youtube.   

After the video I was reading the comments, and one person wrote “And RIP Judith Durham”.  What? 

I did a quick google search and sure enough, Judith Durham died at age 79 on August 5.  I am heartbroken.  Two of my favorite female voices of the 1960s were Lulu’s “To Sir With Love” and Judith Durham (and the Seekers) “Georgy Girl”.  

Olivia deserves all the fanfare, but how is it I’m just now learning about Judith?  (And for the record, unlike many singers, Judith never lost her voice as she got older.  She sounded as youthful at 75 as she did at 25.) 

I thought I’d end this post with one of my favorite Seekers videos.  The title couldn’t be more fitting.  RIP Judith, you will be loved and missed. 

FOLLOW-UP TO MY 6 MONTH EVALUATION WITH THE DOCTOR

Fri, Aug.19 - I met with Dr. Nefrititi this morning at 8:30, both she and her nursing staff couldn’t have been nicer or more encouraging.  Dr.Nef gave me a new goal to lose 15 lbs before my next visit in 3 months, but “no more than a pound a week”.  Um, the math doesn’t work out there! 

Anyway, she told me to accept the fact I would most likely be on these meds for the rest of my life.  By re-evaluation and possibly dropping them, she only meant if the current drugs weren’t working as intended. 

Thanks for all of your awesome & encouraging comments, everyone.