Clothes and Foods and Getting Up – Oh My!

Have these last few months felt strangely unfamiliar to you?  Right?  Well, I discovered this week (with the help of my stroke counselor) that I have triggers.  I knew what they were, but I, certainly, didn’t think I had any.  I have a friend who rages at times.  The rest of the time he is wonderful, but at these moments, he is a different person.  Now, he doesn’t rage at me, but at things in general, usually. I realized how angry I was after we had spent some time on a video game together on the Internet.  I was seething at him and didn’t really care if I ever talked to him again.  This bothered me because he wasn’t mad at me and I really like him.  I mentioned this to my Counselor.  We are gonna talk more about it on Monday.  But, the idea is that my father yelled at me; my 1st wife yelled at me.  Both of these people set me up to hear any sort of yelling as a threat to me as an individual.  I want to discuss more with her on how to diffuse this, but I find it fascinating and it helps me understand others better.  To an extent, I am an empath for  angry feelings and yelling.

That was before my grocery trip to Walmart.  I went there because my Insulin Rx is there.  I decided to just shop since I was already there. Things had been decent in the recent past but, as things were starting to get back to normal, I noticed that the customers and, to a degree, the cashiers were getting a bit mean and dicey.   It was not a fun, enjoyable, and relaxing jaunt.  It was hard and I got home so tired of being out even for those few hours.

I read an article this morning. It stemmed from Facebook, somehow.  Anyway, it was the general public’s responses to a LA article about how we are dressing during the pandemic.  WHAT!!!???

We are just getting along the best we can!  I figured the author must be one of those guys who finds it fun to steal little kids’ ice cream cones from them.  I found out that, while I had never heard of him, he was kinda popular.  I am not so certain that is true now.  People were upset.  This may have been an article on Twitter, which sounds right.  Anyway, he/she stated that we are getting paid for sitting home, so we outta dress like it!  I want to yell and scream at this jerk!  I guess, in some ways, I am! lol  However, now I remember.  I wanted to know if I could safely wear shorts yet to the grocery.  This article was one I can across: work from home

I did like this one that is satirical in nature (please keep that in mind): pants?

Finally, one more shot to the midsection for my last 48 hours.  I chose that, for now, I would live more on a 2nd-3rd shift schedule and have told most people about this.  That, basically, means I go to bed between 3:00-4:00A, read for an hour, then sleep until about 3P that afternoon.  I don’t answer any calls except from my doctors or hospital, my Mom, and calls I consider emergency.  I try to let all of them go to voice mail so that I either see the phone number or hear the voice.   I am pretty firm about this.  I have told my family and friends and, for the most part, enjoy my days.  I had a stroke (severe) about 10 years ago and it reset my brain.  I don’t sleep well, so I simply make use of the hours I can’t really sleep well.  I live alone, don’t really date and with this virus, don’t go much of anywhere.  So it should be fine.  One of my friends doesn’t agree and tends to call me between 2 and 3 in the afternoon.  It throws me off of my early schedule and, for instance, I literally forgot to take my Insulin until almost 2 hours late.  My answer to this, after some thought, is that instead of getting angry, I am going to consider it his fault and simply not answer anymore until after 3 and take my time calling him back.  It might appear passive-aggressive, but I think it is a positive approach to not having the same talk again in which I tend to lose my temper.

Well, that’s my weekend.  How was yours?  Oh yeah, I still have Sunday to go, don’t I? lol

Namaste,  Stay Safe

Scott

A Long Week…

This has been a heck of a week, a really long one.  You know, one of those where you say “Looonnnnngggg…”.  It had its humorous moments, but none I saw at the time, of course! 🙂

I woke up Thursday to a cold reception.  I sleep in shorts and a T, usually, so in Winter it is not unusual for me to be a bit on the chilly side.  I keep the thermostat at around 64F.  Most people find that downright cold.  All I can usually think is how good it would be to live somewhere in which 64 was the low and 75 was the high…(singing) “In Camelot”.  I don’t care for the really hot days of June-August.  88-95+F is just not something I care for.  My saying has always been “you can always put more on, but you can’t always take more off.”  Not entirely true as I watched a radio personality don a record number (actually) of T-shirts and when the layers got big enough he was having trouble breathing so they had to stop.

Anyway, I sat down with breakfast and my computer and began my normal day.  The furnace man (okay, Heating & Cooling Tech) had been in on Tuesday to check for winterization and had found that a part of my secondary heating unit (the catalytic converter of the furnace) was in bad shape and needed to be replaced.  This was something Carrier had expected as they had found the part was not lasting as long as it should and were replacing it free and paying a portion of the labor involved, too.  Danged nice of them.  So, the tech had pulled the part and said he would be back the first of the week to replace it.  He assured me all would be fine till then and left.

So, I knew it was a bit too cold in the house, so I went to check the thermostat.  It was set on 64F and it was 54F in the house!  Problem solved!  I got on the phone and called the tech office.  He would be in later that day to check it out! The tech arrived and, after a bit, came to tell me that it was not going to work without the part and they would have to emergency order it and repair it tomorrow!  Tomorrow!?  I asked my wonderful Alexa what the weather was for tonight.  She told me it would be down to 22F with a high of about 45F the next day!  Okay, I love my house and I don’t want to leave my house.  So, telling Mom I would be fine and then getting prepared for a rather cold night in my home.

I had a small space heater by the computer, so no problems there.  I wore a sweatshirt.  I did go out to eat with a friend and stayed in the warm restaurant until a bit late.  I got home and played on the computer and then, finally, decided to go to bed.  Before playing on the computer, I had gone into the bedroom and checked it out.  I found a brand new space heater, still in the box, that I had purchased on sale a number of years before.  I opened it, read about it, and was pleased that it had a thermostat, timer, and energy saver on it.  I did not like leaving something on all night, but knew I would have to so I was even happier to find that it had a tip-proof safety control.  I accidentally tipped it about 1/4 inch and it shut off immediately.  Good unit!

I put it up on top of my dresser on top of a rather old and heavy DVD recorder.  The multi-plug extension cord was heavy duty rated at over 1800W, which is what the heating unit called for.  I checked behind the dresser and found the plug was 1/2 out and covered in the webs of spiders past as well as dust bunnies.  I needed to move it out and clean first.   This was the beginning of hell day.

I pushed on the dresser which did not budge.  I swung it out from the wall and, eventually, one sore hip and back later, I had it moved enough from the wall.  I had survived, however, the old glass lamp I had not taken from the top of the dresser did not.  It lay in pieces at this middle-aged diabetic’s socked feet.  I managed to clean it up, cutting only my finger and back to the task at hand.

I unplugged the extension cord and thoroughly cleaned the plug, cord, outlet and surrounding wall with an old t-shirt.  I replaced the plug and found I could not move the dresser back into its proper place now; it would not move.  I resorted to taking most everything from the top of the dresser, took out all 4 drawers (they were heavy!), and then moved the dresser back.  I replaced the drawers and the top belongings, and then tested the heater.  It worked like a charm.  I was in business.  I set it for 66F, which meant it shut off at 68F and turned on at 64F.

I went to bed later, sat the alarm and then the heater timer for 8 hours and went to bed.  To say I didn’t sleep well that night would be an understatement.  I slept, but just not hard and not long.  I woke up tired and grouchy.  I had the appointment scheduled for 2pm and had to cancel my PT appt for my surgery work on my hip.  We had rescheduled it for Friday at 1.  I had called my Mom and she was coming at 12 noon to house sit until I got back. At about 3pm, I got back home, sore and very tired and grouchy.  Mom told me he was still working and left.  He finished about 4pm, we settled up, and I decided I had had it for the day!  I stayed home and went to bed at a reasonable hour (well, for me, anyway).  Saturday was a new day and I did so much better!

Now, I am realizing those days are the ones you remember.  They must be part of the good life.  Just the parts you really don’t want to repeat!  Have you had any similar tales lately to fill your memoirs with?

Namaste,

Scott

Do I Hear Bells?

This has been a long, long week.  I don’t sleep well on a normal basis.  This week, being the teenaged person that I am, I stayed up too late on a couple of nights and stay extra late with Dad (probably those same nights).  I still had my normal MWF routine with Mom, so sleep was rather rough until Friday night (or, more precisely, Saturday morning).  I hit the bed around 4:30am, read until 5:15, then passed out around 5:30.  From there it was sleep off/on until about 1pm.  I got up and took my sugar reading.  Seeing the 164 show up (130 is the upper border), I took my other meds and lay back down.  I slept heavily and woke up around 7:00pm.  I promptly got up, took my sugar, which read 110 this time, and decided to eat.  I kept the carbs down more and decided to have Raisin Bran.  In getting ready, I knocked a glass to the floor, covering the kitchen in shards.

Now, came the deal:  I am diabetic.  Cleaning the kitchen floor is much more difficult when you MUST make certain EVERY shard of glass, a potential foot-loss problem, is cleaned up.  I swept the floor twice, then mopped it twice with the Swiffer cleaner.  That and wearing Clogs for the day has, so far, kept me glass-stabbed free.

I tell you all that to tell you why I am writing about today at 8:47pm when the idea came at 1pm.  I looked out the bathroom window this morning to see … SNOW!  This was not the expected day-ruining downfall I expected.  This was very light, big flakes, and softly falling white stuff.  You know, the stuff Christmas morning is made of.  So, I share with you 2 pictures I took out said bathroom window and tell you people who live in 50-110 degrees all year that you don’t know what you are missing.  Yeah, it could be 5-6 feet of packed nastiness, but this almost makes all that worth it.  Add to it the fact that I can walk this winter and can dig myself out in much less time than last year, as well as simply move around in it better, and you have a pretty darn good winter expectation coming up.  Doesn’t hurt that the NWS says we should have less snow and higher temps here all winter (well into January, anyway).

I know we don’t ski here and I know we don’t spend weeks digging out.  Those two extremes put us in the middle of the snow mess/beauty.  Enjoy the pics:

I know, you can’t see the falling stuff, but it was falling, light, white, and fluffy.  Still, even with the dingy day (overcast), it looks nice to me and brought back all kinds of memories – like hearing the Christmas bells at church or on the TV or radio.

Namaste,

Scott

Five Sentence Fiction – Bedtime ” ” – Suspense Rated PG13

Lillie, once again, brings us Five Sentence Fiction.  My story is after the pic; the rest are >HERE<.  Enjoy!!!

Source: http://lilliemcferrin.com/five-sentence-fiction-bedtime Reuse License Assumed Click Pic for Page

Bedtime

“Perchance to Dream ”

Scott L Vannatter – January 31, 2015

“Squeak.”

Little Johnny sat up in bed looking toward the window making the noise.

He got up, latched it again, waited three minutes for more squeaking, then got back into bed.

“Squeak!”

This time Little Johnny realized the sound was louder and came from under the bed.

________________________________

Namaste,

Scott

Now I Lay Me Down and Hope…

Click on the pic to read an article about sleep-deprived parents

 

I tell you all frequently how much I care about each and every one of you.  I was going to do a poem or a short story or some such thing today and get back on my own good schedule for posting.  I haven’t missed a day in well over 400 days and I see no reason not to continue.  However, before I could do this, I went through my normal morning routine of reading news posts online and I found this article on sleep.  Please read – I will wait.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/17/cheating-ourselves-of-sleep/

All done?  Good.  If you slept enough last night to get through it and remember, it was a very timely article for me.  I don’t sleep well and I know most of the things that are affected – I am affected constantly.

Some of my battle is in the AM when my meds from the night are still in my system.  I stay in bed 6.5 to 9.5 hours, the meds usually work for from 9.5-12 hours, so I am drowsy in the mornings.  I don’t like caffeine as it makes me jumpy, but I will drink a big cup if I have to be out earlier than I like.

Lately, it has been sleep about 4 hours (which is nice), wake up, get up, eat, go back to bed for 2-3 hours.  I don’t like this schedule but as it used to be sleep 2 hours, sleep 2 hours, etc… This is so much better for my brain and my functioning.

Pay attention to your sleep.  Stop letting “things” get in the way.  You know how you feel after a good solid night’s sleep? – well, that would be great each and every night.  And, if you paid attention to the article, just because you are older doesn’t mean you don’t need as much sleep.  The article indicates that your “sleeper” just isn’t doing as good a job anymore.  Taking Melatonin may help.  Melatonin (I take 5mg night) helps to regulate when and how long you sleep at night. It takes a while to work and you will not feel the difference; you will have to notice the difference in your sleeping schedule.  You shouldn’t wake as much, perhaps, as before.

If your problem is falling asleep, Valerian Root can help with this.  It has more of a sedative affect.  You take it and about 20 minutes or so later, you should fall asleep and rest.  I take both Valerian Root and Melatonin.  That isn’t enough for me, unfortunately, and I have to take an Rx sleeping pill.  That’s what does the groggy thing to me in the morning.  It is also my most expensive Rx.

Talk to your doctor and ask about these two herbs.  If he balks big time at taking “herbs”, perhaps you need another doctor.  I don’t know about interactions, that’s why I would ask.  Be safe and sleep well.

Namaste,

Scott