Day 118, 119, 120, 121 of Sheltering In

Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. All running together.

Thursday-Woke up with the most awful knee pain. L, not R. The L is supposed to be the good knee! Can’t take ibuprofen, or anything with ibuprofen. So that takes out anti inflammatories and just about anything non opioid. Not good. Went shopping with my wife and my son. Short shopping trip. That’s 2 weeks in a row. She never goes grocery shopping.

Friday I picked up my new eyeglasses. Finally! I had my ophthalmologist appointment at the beginning of the year, and got the go ahead for an optometrist appointment and new glasses, then the coronavirus came, then my insurance changed. I think I saved quite a bit with the new insurance. Still cost me $405 out of pocket, but I have a strong prescription and have to get the high index lenses which are costly.

Saturday stayed home. My wife had to go shopping again. Lol! Her Mom’s friend is still living in a hotel (after being thrown out of 2 nursing/rehabilitation facilities). She can’t shop on her own because she doesn’t have a car and she sideswiped a barrier on the car she rented before the holiday. 

I got some organizing done and had my son move a mattress back in place. Even though I had nothing to do with the mattress except point and instruct, and I had my son move anything that weighed more than a quart of milk, I still felt like screaming out in pain. I ended up icing various parts before and after dinner. And my left knee that’s been acting up? I smashed it on the corner of the nightstand and drew blood. Now I have twin wounds. Several days before I smashed 5” lower and drew blood. Wtfork? The nightstand hasn’t been moved, so why have I injured myself twice on it? 

Sunday, stayed home. Watched “In the Kitchen With David” QVC, my usual Sunday morning if I don’t need to go anywhere. Finished watching “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” with my son. I’ve watched it several times. I read about half of the book a few years ago. It seems no matter how many times I watch the movie, I don’t get how it came from the book. Maybe it’s because the movie goes so much faster than the book? Then we watched an Ice Cube movie, “Are We Done Yet?”  that seemed to last an eternity. Shouldn’t we be done with the “Are We...” movies by now? This was like “The Money Pit”, but 5 times longer + a pregnancy of twins. Now we are watching the Cubs and Sox game. We started late, looks like the Cubs are starting late too. Isn’t it weird seeing the players playing in an empty ballpark? It’s surreal. Is that the right word? When they show the bench and the dugout I find myself freaking out a bit because they aren’t socially distancing on the bench and in the dugout. They are playing at Wrigley. I thought all the games were supposed to be in Arizona, or somewhere south. I have no idea where I heard that. This game sux. I’m switching back to the Betty Broderick mini series I recorded. 

My daughter is still at it with the top secret talk about my birthday parties. Yes, plural. Friday will be at her group home on the patio, masks and social distancing. I just got told I need to make 2 containers of taco dip. If there aren’t 2 containers, there will be a fight between the first and second floor. Gah! Then some other day, don’t know when, we are going over to my father in law’s. My wife’s younger sister is trying to control when that party is. Whatever! I’m sure her and her fiancé won’t be there no matter what day it is. They play that game every year.

Lola’s Diner cc.  2008-2020

Day 117 of Sheltering In

Wednesday. PT again. My therapist said he would take it easy on me because of the increased R shoulder pain. Yeah...not so much. I skipped ice at PT because I just wanted to get home. I iced at home.

My daughter is getting a bit more self-sufficient. Tuesday she was all bent out of shape because a staff member at the main office refused her call. You don’t tell someone you will talk to them at 3pm and then have the receptionist say you aren’t taking any more calls today. How about doing your damn job? I’m sure plenty of people would love to have it. This was about getting a ride to the hospital for 2 ultrasounds and bloodwork that my daughter’s obgyn has been bugging my daughter to have done. 

My daughter also called to let me know she was going to handle doing her extension on her LOA herself. I told her to pump the brakes, that she is a week too early and she had the sequence of events out of order. I told her when to start the process and the proper sequence. Doing it out of order is like showing your poker hand. You want all your ducks in a row. I do give her a lot of credit for wanting to do it on her own. 

Truth be told...I think she’s bored. Maybe I’ll check out Goodwill and Dollar Tree later in the week. Goodwill is good for DVD’s and boxed sets of series. I also need to get a set of dishes. Also want to start looking for stuff for my daughter’s apartment. That’s coming up soon. The Director told me December/January. It’s looking good. No bare Tyvek on the outer walls, brick and siding have been installed. 

Looks really nice. This is part of the building. (About 1/3.) The white blobs are work trucks. I covered the company names.

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Day 116 of Sheltering In

Tuesday. PT torture day. I went in with my bicep, tricep, and down my forearm still hurting. I knew there was a problem on the hand bike. I felt my R shoulder pop. I thought nothing of it. My shoulder pain didn’t increase. It wasn’t until after the hour and a half of exercises and deep tissue massage torture. It was at ice time. I felt it pop again. Then the PAIN! It felt like my arm was yanked out of the socket (I mean the area where your upper arm is attached to the shoulder with tendons and muscle, etc.) I was glad my wife drove. She was running an errand for her mom’s friend while I was being tortured. It’s after 12:30am and I’m on my 2nd ice pack. The shoulder is awful. Hopefully sleep will quiet it down...so I can do it all again Wednesday.

Anyone else concerned there was a case of the bubonic plague in a herdsman in China, and in Colorado in a squirrel?

BUBONIC PLAGUE 

Isn’t that concerning? It’s not the flu!

Lola’s Diner cc.  2008-2020

Day 114, 115 of Sheltering In

Sunday, Monday. Sunday I REALLY slept in late. It’s so shameful I can’t even say. My son and I watched “Men In Black II”. I have to say, even though that was the 357th time we watched it together, it’s still enjoyable. First and second ones I liked. Not the third. What’s with the third movie of a franchise? It seems they are always bad. “Back To The Future III” definitely follows that rule. 

Monday my plan was to iron all of the quilt squares I bought and washed to make face masks. I forgot 100% cotton wrinkles so badly. {The last time I ironed was the day before our wedding 2015.} I have become very skilled in the use of Downey Wrinkle Release. That stuff is magic in a spray bottle! I scrubbed the sole plate with a Magic Eraser to clean it thoroughly. Then I filled the reservoir with water, plugged it in, ran it over a towel a few times, hitting the steam button, to clean it, and set to iron the squares. My first victim was a beige square with a faint tiny white flower pattern. I kept hitting the extra shot of water cuz those wrinkles were stubborn. The iron spit up something vile. And I had cleaned it! Grr! After forever I finally finished that square and looked it over. There were scorch marks! OMG! I turned the temperature down. I grabbed a new square and went in the bathroom to run water on it, pushed out the excess. I learned that from my Mom. She would dampen Dad’s handkerchiefs, T-shirt’s, shirts, then throw them in the freezer and take them out one by one and iron them. That was before steam irons. I wet one square at a time because I didn’t have a freezer upstairs. Lol! I was still having a terrible time trying to get the wrinkles out. Finally I gave up, dumped the water out of the iron and searched on my phone for a new iron. The iron cost me $10 over 15 years ago. I think it’s done. My son and I ran to pickup prescriptions, then to Walmart for a new iron and salad fixins and more for dinner because my brother in law was over to mow the lawn. His mower was louder than normal so he goes next door and talks to my neighbor that repairs small engines. 😱 Criminy! I have been trying to talk to that neighbor since the beginning of spring! Gah!

After we got home I went to lie down and have a nap. I had a massive whole head headache, shoulders hurt bad (yeah, putting some extra elbow grease on the ironing is not going to calm my pain. Opposite!) I woke up very jittery, shakey, did my bs, was on the very low end of ok. So I had one of those cute little cans of Pepsi. (That’s the only time I drink soda, when my bs is too low. It’s the perfect size. A full can is too much.) It wasn’t long and I was feeling better. 

The psh psh whispering and conversations have started and abruptly end. Everyone is all secretive. My birthday is coming up and I surmised that we were invited for a visit at my daughter’s group home. I’m on the phone, my daughter is trying to ask for budgeting help, but I must have her brother leave the room because he can’t hear any of this! She’s telling me how much she thinks she needs for this “something”. I’m terrible! Really bad! I said I hope you’re not thinking of pizza cuz we’re having pizza tonight and we just had pizza twice last week. I crushed it! She started stammering, was trying to not let on that pizza was the plan. I told my wife about it later and she was laughing her ash off! She told me the plan was Beggars’s Chicken Taco pizza. Lol! I suggested lunch boxes from the Chinese restaurant 2 blocks from my house. Cost would be less, it’s a good value, and I know my daughter hasn’t had it in a long time because the place near the group home closed. We’ve had Chinese food 3 times. La Choy Sweet and Sour Chicken in a can, homemade Kung Pao Chicken, homemade Pork Egg Foo Young, and homemade Crab Rangoon. 

My in-law that wrote the memoir? She’s been posting off the wall, nutzy cookoo type posts on Facebook. I haven’t seen them because I blocked her after the “I hope they don’t tell you your coronavirus test is positive just to get their numbers up.” My wife gave me the Reader’s Digest version. I won’t bore y’all with the details, but it was pretty out there.

Lola’s Diner cc.  2008-2020

Days 110, 111, 112, 113 of Sheltering In

Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. I had PT Monday, Wednesday, Thursday. Glad I spread it out a little. At the end of Thursday I was told that one of the therapists scheduled me out for the next 3 weeks. I haven’t fully looked at the schedule, but I already saw I have 3 days in a row next week, with one day being Friday. I purposely don’t schedule Fridays so it doesn’t ruin my weekend. 

I needed to get in for an optometrist exam. They are closed Wednesday’s. Actually most days it seems he’s only open 1/2 days. Not sure if it’s because of the coronavirus, or if he’s semi-retiring. Thursday I called in the afternoon and found them closed. They had voicemail so I left a message, not really expecting my call to be returned. Good thing I woke up uncharacteristically early Friday because I got a call saying there was a cancellation, could I be there at 9:15am. I took it. They are 5 minutes from my house, I just had to get ready really quickly. I was surprised to see plexiglass up around the entire large 1/2 circle that is the front desk.The doctor and his staff are all seniors. I get why there was that much plexiglass and only 1 slot to slide a clipboard through. When I was called in, the doctor waited until I was seated in the exam chair before he sanitized the piece of equipment you look through where they change the lenses, and the other equipment they have you rest your chin and forehead. It took a few extra minutes, but they were worth it to be reassured that they really do sanitize the equipment. I’ve already had an ophthalmologist exam at the beginning of the year which included dilating my eyes so I was happy to know he was skipping that part. My wife wasn’t up yet, so I drove over. Glad I didn’t have to drive home with my eyes dilated. I was impressed with one of the changes in equipment. The one that changes the lenses is connected to a computer to set the lenses close to what your eyes need. It made the exam go much more quickly. Afterward I selected frames. Similar to what I have now, Rayban brown, but these were more tortoise shell colored. The bows were metal. And surprise! Unbreakable! You can bend them and they won’t break. (Not as bendy as the pair I had when my kids were babies. You could fold those up small and put them in your pocket. It was great at the time cuz my kids were at the ‘grab Mommy’s glasses and mangle them stage.) But this will be good because I keep loosing my current eyeglasses and then I find that I’m sitting on them, or drop them on the floor and nearly step on them. I have vision insurance, so I saved a good chunk of change, even though I opted for name brand frames. ($150 off frames is awesome.) It still cost me slightly over $400. I have to get high index lenses, which is fancy for they make my  lenses super thin because otherwise they would be thicker than the old Coke bottle bottoms. Without the discount from my insurance they would have been over $800. 

I’d say my eye exam was a pleasant experience. I wore my face mask the entire time and had no issues. My wife saw a post her sister commented on about a friend of hers who went for an eye exam and was all bent out of shape over the entire experience. Poor, dear had to wear a face mask for the first time, since she was told she could not enter the office without one. Then she complained incessantly about doing an eye exam with a face mask on. I can honestly say that I barely noticed my face mask, and I didn’t find it was in the way at all. Some people are unbelievable.

That’s odd that the woman had never worn a face mask before. I’m sure she was exaggerating. I do find that although businesses have signs posted that face masks are required, they are getting more and more lax about enforcing it. Maybe the videos of the people pushing their way into stores has the employees wary. I did hear a couple of Walmart employees discussing a new protocol. Apparently Walmart will be having what they call “Safety Ambassadors” who will be wearing a different colored shirt with that title on it and they will be handling the entrances soon. That’s all well and good, but some people are gonna be asshats just because they can. And lately those customers caught on video have lost their jobs. Being an asshat is not free of consequences.

Picked up prescriptions and lunch and dropped it off to my daughter at the group home. We had a short visit, socially distancing with masks on at the patio table.

Speaking of the group home, there has been a coronavirus death of one of the clients that live “in the community“. That means they either live in an apartment complex run by the place that runs the group homes, or live at home and receive services from the place that runs the group homes. That place has been giving video updates to their Facebook page on Fridays. For next week’s video they promised to share who the woman was. Not her name, they will share what kind of person she was, what she liked to do, how she celebrated life. Very sad to have heard about her passing, but I think it may help other clients to know a bit about her. She had been hospitalized for several weeks from what I could tell from earlier videos.

Lola’s Diner cc.  2008-2020

Wordless Wednesday

Lola’s Diner cc.  2008-2020

Day 108, 109 of Sheltering In

Monday, Tuesday.  Monday was PT. I was actually able to do all the exercises/movements that my therapist asked me to do. I even did a few extra of other ones cuz he was busy with another client. (He had 3 other clients at the same time.) I thought whatever it is I was doing he was going to ask me to do. Nope. Not a single one. So I got some extra exercises/movements done too. I still had to ice up after dinner, but the area that felt injured wasn’t barking. 

Tuesday. No PT today. My daughter texted me that her hairbrush broke. I told her to keep using it without the handle for now. Then later when she called she brought it up again. Then in that same convo she asks me when can I get her stuff and a new hairbrush. 💁🏻‍♀️ We were just over visiting on Sunday. Today is Tuesday. So we just saw each other! She sounded ok, better than yesterday. Tonight my son was with me on the call on speakerphone and we were both goofin’ and cracking up. Cuz that’s what we do. It’s like my son and I have this brain meld or something. If my daughter sounds down, my son looks at me, I nod, and sometimes we just both riff in unison. Other times one of us will whisper or mime what to do. 

Know your audience! For whatever you’re doing or saying...know your audience. My wife’s friend clearly forgot her audience and got into a verbal tussle over...you guessed it...Politics. Just last week this friend was talking about changing parties. Today it was like that convo never happened. It was ‘F the governor, ‘F this party, that ‘F party this, that, and the other and all kinds of praise of the other party. Surprisingly my wife opened up a can of whoop ash and set her straight, as far as her politics. She also chastised her for breaking their pact...no politics talk. I have to laugh because I can see them going back and forth on the phone. I can’t believe her friend forgot.

Anyone have Apple AirPods? Is there a certain model or generation that’s better? Is wireless charging really da bomb? Do you have a different brand device that works really well and costs less? (Brand and model please.)

Having a weird day today. As I type this, and you can read some of them above, I keep tacking on oldish idioms. Look there ⬅️ I never use that word. (Goofin’,  brain meld, riff, whoop ash, da bomb.)

I added to my Facebook friends today. SC came up in my “do you know feed”  or whatever it’s called. I knew him mostly from freshman Social Studies. One of a small collection of guys who cut up with me in class, and just happened to move his desk over to peer down my requisite flannel shirt. Not kidding! These class clowns and me being a wannabe just cut it up with them. Let’s see, 8th grade SS, Freshman year, SC, JK, GD, and J? can’t recall his last name. So that’s 5. Two of whom I know are gay, SC and JK. If you think about it it’s kind of funny. Why were those 2 looking down my shirt? Probably trying to figure themselves out. SC has this fabulous Frank Lloyd Wright house. I know because I checked out his page after the last reunion. 

I have paperwork, research, and calls to make, but I’m tired of chasing down the government dude. They all work from home and are supposed to call you back in 24 hours. I know...the holiday. But I did call Thursday and it’s now Wednesday.  Gah!

Lola’s Diner cc.  2008-2020