So, as I threatened…

I wrote up my sad tale for Medium, where it’s enjoying a pretty large readership this morning 😎https://link.medium.com/WhATBxvaIjb

My week in hell

 

So Gary and I had such a terrible week I can’t even put it on Facebook because that’s where my close friends and family are.  I don’t think anyone reads this blog anymore except for when I put a link on Twitter so I’ll hide my post here.

Because you know when I’m upset I gotta write about it.

Long story short (though I am planning on writing a regular column about this for Medium.com), I flunked my routine physical, my alarmed doctor made me a STAT appointment for a chest x-ray and an echocardiogram after which I got an emergency appointment with a top cardiologist at Penn.

Yay.

So now I’m one of those retirement stories.  Busted my ass working for 50 years, made it (so far) through a pandemic, and just as I’m starting to relax and travel and have a good time, I find out my left ventricle is malfunctioning and my aortic valve calcifying.

I have persistent atrial fibrillation.

So fuck fuck fuck, I need to have a mildly scary procedure which may or may not work, if it doesn’t work there’s a slightly more scary procedure, and if that fails, we’re talking pacemaker.

Wait, wut?

Me?

The vegetarian who right now weighs 134 pounds?

Anyway, if this isn’t a big enough nightmare, I have to be on blood thinners the rest of my life.

I also have a whole story about that.

All you need to know for now is that the medication I have to take is $600 a month and is not covered by my insurance.

I spent the week doing research and talking to insurance agents about this and luckily Medicare open enrollment starts 10/15.  I can swap out Part D for insurance that will cover my medicine.  I’m on the hook for $600 a month until 1/1/22, though.

Good times.

Luckily we can afford it but I can’t help but wonder what happens to people who can’t?

Without this drug, I will likely die of an errant blood clot.

Sooo, the week wasn’t shit enough, on Tuesday we get a frantic knock on the door, it’s the gas company, there’s a gas leak on our street.  All day Tuesday and into Wednesday we had PGW workers traipsing in and out of our house.  I had to stay upstairs with the dog.

We were both very unhappy.

On Thursday, I got a call from my new cardiologist’s office.  We scheduled my procedure along with a Covid test two days before.

I also have to quarantine a week.

She also went over a whole new list of do’s and don’ts now that I’m a heart patient and on blood thinners.

The doctor had already gone over this with me but I think he saw my shocked expression and knew I was hearing nothing but white noise.

Oh yeah, I also have to wear a heart monitor 24/7 for the next two weeks.

Between that and everything horrible that will happen to me if I accidentally bang/cut myself while on blood thinners, I am never going to leave the sofa.

Scratch that, I was told I should be walking 30 minutes a day.

Welcome to my nightmare.

Thursday afternoon, Gary and I had a conference call with our financial advisor.

Yeah, I know.

I can’t believe we have one, either.

Sometimes for a stoner hippie I can be fairly smart, though.  Everyone should have a financial advisor. It’s how we were able to retire and afford $600 a month blood thinners.

Arghhh.

We also had to fill out beneficiary paperwork which really freaked me out given the other developments of the week.

So yeah, that was a weirdly stressful phone call, too. Gary and I are not money people.  Something something annuity something lump sum something.  No clue, but we’re all set.

And then naturally this morning Jake woke us up at 4:00 a.m. with ear trouble again.  I went downstairs with him and couldn’t fall back asleep.  I was so exhausted that Gary took him to the vet without me.

For the first time, our vet mentioned possible cancer.  I have to admit it’s been on my mind, too, but I’m trying not to think that way.  His appetite is still great.  He just seems out of it a lot and very low energy.

In a way, I was glad the vet told Gary without me there. I would have broken into sobs.  Gary handled it stoically though he thinks Jake’s decline is old age, he’ll be 12 in a few months.

I’m so sad either way.

But we’re taking it a day at a time and as long as he’s still happily eating and not in pain, who cares if he doesn’t want to go for runs in the park.

Ms. AFib over here can’t chase after him anyway.

We’re always going to have a dog.  If it were up to me, we’d have 2-3 rescues, more if we had a bigger yard.

So that’s my week.

My response at the moment is to regroup and hit the beach next week.  

I mean, what the fuck else can I do?

I’m also gonna have a fun weekend before I have to go through all this stuff and start eating kale and shit 24/7.

Pizza tonight, french fries tomorrow.

Hahaha I should probably go to the beach now, huh.

Sounds like a plan.

Dead to me forever

 You’re both dead to me forever.  Abbott’s already dead, the only shock is that he’s out in daylight without his cape.  I seriously want to move to Portugal.

A little humor

 So I’ve been doing some humor writing for Medium 😎 https://medium.com/boomerangs/our-50th-reunion-is-a-luncheon-6e5c1aa8e407

Odds and Sods for 9/4/21

So I’ve been looking for a place for my political posts because if I type what I am really thinking about America these days, I’m gonna be thrown in Facebook jail.

I also cross post to the blog I’ve had since 2004, but I am even nervous about losing that.

So I started poking around a couple sites like Medium and Substack. You really have to dig deep to find the good writing but when you find it…wow.  But the bad writing is really, really bad.

I poked around the music section and thought, ooh, maybe I will take a stab at writing there, too.  But then I read what felt like a twelve year old’s review of a concert.  He spelled the musicians’ names wrong.

I just can’t.  

Another review, this time about the Beatles, made me hold my head in my hands altogether.  It was 40, well written paragraphs.

Unfortunately, 32 of the paragraphs were all about the author/reviewer.  He went on and on about himself.

Only 8 paragraphs were about the Beatles.

I know, I counted.

Stuff like that drives me nuts.

Anyway, Twitter and Facebook aren’t doing it for me right now so I think I am going to take my anger and frustration about our country elsewhere.  

I’ll let you know where I end up and provide links. Shhhhh.

Of course I will still post Facebook-y stuff here. Like, Eric has been staying with us all week!

And tomorrow, we’re throwing a barbecue for his band outside their rehearsal studio. Gary is doing some serious cooking right now.

He does barbecue beans from scratch and they are everything.

Yeah, I’m excited about that.

Also, Eric will be here for Thanksgiving AND Christmas.

Julie will be here for Christmas, too.

Stay away, Delta.  I’m warning you.

Tuesday night we’re all going to see King Crimson and the Zappa Band at the Mann, and then Eric literally hops on his tour bus right after the show for a couple gigs in New York and beyond.

Good times!

I leave you with a pic of Gary, because it’s hilarious to me.  He’s now addicted to watching Great British Menu.

I know, right?

Who is this weirdo and what has he done with my husband?

This pandemic, man.  I don’t know about you guys, but it was sure life changing for us.

But hey hey, if you like Great British Baking Show, Great British Menu is even better.

Plus, each season has 45 shows.

It’s been on since 2005.

I started binging with Julie in Seattle in July and I’m not even half way done.

Anyway, enough out of me.

Happy Labor Day.

 

I’m home alone…

Hahaha, see link below, it’s my husband and Adrian Belew singing “A Hard Day’s Night” in Woodstock last evening.  I’m home in Philadelphia with the dog  this week, ordering insane meals from Grubhub and having my groceries delivered from Giant and Whole Foods.  I just ordered fresh flowers, a grass fed steak for the dog, and some serious vegan ice cream for me. Hey, it’s hot outside and I’m old and retired.😎

https://youtu.be/5ABECyKdhws

Seattle

 Yeah, I decided to stay here.  Seattle is incredible 😎

Seattle

 So I’m hanging out in Seattle these days 😎

I need a better title than Retirement Chronicles

 

I am not naming names, this is not an official Top Chef spoiler, but it is kinda so here’s your warning if you’re planning to watch it later.

I can’t fucking believe a series in which I invested three months of my life and really had a spectacular finale now has to deal with a disgraced winner who might end up disqualified and losing the title of Top Chef…if there’s even such a thing in reality television world.

Gah!  That will teach me.  

I’m going back to listening to music 24/7.

But I was so shook up by it all yesterday that last night I had not one but two ridiculous nightmares right in a row and I’m sitting here now still shaking.

As I may have mentioned, I’m flying to Seattle on Tuesday morning to spend ten days with Julie.

In nightmare #1, I arrived at the airport without any luggage.  I also left Gary without any instructions, like things he can do to keep busy while I’m gone and a refresher course in how to FaceTime with the iPad I got him for Christmas.

I was frantic but I was escorted onto the plane anyway by two security guards even though I told them repeatedly I couldn’t go without a suitcase.

I woke up at that point, went to the bathroom congratulating myself for just being nuts and not in Seattle without a change of clothes, went back to bed, and promptly had nightmare #2.

In the second half of this double feature, Gary and I sold our house.  We were sitting in a room somewhere with money in…yep, a suitcase…and we had $500,000 which we kept trying unsuccessfully to count.

It suddenly dawned on me that we were now homeless and the way we spent money, we’d burn through this pile of dough in a couple years.

I couldn’t believe we did anything that stupid.

Luckily I woke up before I had a stroke.

So no clue why that happened, my subconscious clearly has issues, but I am beyond ecstatic to be going to Seattle Tuesday morning and joyously forging ahead with my plans.

But JFC, one of the reasons I wasn’t freaked out about getting older was that I thought I would finally be comfortable in my own skin and have zero fucks to give about anything.

Yeah, right.

I would dive in here and tell you what it’s really like getting older but I’ve been told it’s been done many times before.

Anyway…

Today feels like an eating day so it’s French fries for dinner tonight with maybe a Jersey tomato and mayonnaise sandwich on milk bread.

I know how to live.

Actually, as I sit here, I know we have all kinds of fresh berries in the house. Gary won’t be up for a few hours.  I’m gonna go bake a breakfast dump cake.

Ever make one?  Three ingredients, totally unhealthy except for the berries, and shockingly delicious if you don’t care about calories or ingesting chemicals.

Haha, works for me.

Happy Saturday!

More Retirement Chronicles

 

Morning!
So with the Top Chef finale approaching Thursday night, I am gonna blow if I don’t talk about it so here’s your warning to snooze me for thirty days if you don’t want to read any spoilers today and for the next several.

For now, I am just going to say one thing.  

Maybe.  I may say more.

Ready?

Weeks ago in a post I made here, I predicted the winner would be Dawn.

I’m now positive I am right. So is Julie, who has been watching along with me.

Omg, I’m going to hate when this season ends Thursday night.  It’s all Julie and I talk about.

Because I am a dork, I follow most of the chefs on Instagram, and I am also almost positive Chef Shota and Chef Sara are an item.

Gosh I hope so.

They’re both adorable.  

Anyway, because I am distraught about Top Chef ending this week, I watched my taped episodes of Master Chef, which just started a few weeks ago.

Oyyyyyyyy.

It’s like watching Biden v Trump, comparing the two shows.  One refined and educational, the other a hot trashy mess.

Master Chef would like you to believe that one of the fifteen best home chefs in America is a young lady named Autumn with enormous breasts who has never touched, cooked, or eaten fish.

She somehow had one of the top three fish dishes of the night.

It was monk fish, yet.

One of her fellow competitors is Michael, a circus freak of a body builder who says he is a “life coach specializing in sex.”

You know I had to Google him for creds.

Zero, zilch, nada.

Yeah, I don’t think I will be watching this year.  It will sully the kumbaya memories of this season’s Top Chef.

So in other news, I’m going to Seattle a week from today.  I’m ecstatic about that on so many levels it’s not even funny.

I forget what normal life feels like.

I think Gary does, too.

This 24/7 togetherness stuff for sixteen months is a little much, I feel like a loony agoraphobic.

Uh…if the shoe fits…

And I’m just a little over the moon about seeing Julie, too 😜

My daily writing is going really well.  Things took an interesting turn last week when I realized once again, I wasn’t exactly writing fiction.  The problem was, I was trying to.

And I was struggling.

Many years ago, I gave a couple chapters of the first draft of Daddy Left Me Alone with God to a writer friend for his opinion.

His reply?

“That’s very nice, Rob.  Now how about reaching down into your gut and writing the real story.”

Of course I never forgot that, even years after Daddy was published, because I wish I could have rewritten it and told the whole, true story.

I thought about my friend’s comment again recently when that agent praised my writing but told me I didn’t break any new ground.

Anyway, for what it’s worth, I started writing something very real, so real it required less than a morning to set up an outline.  I’ve been averaging 2000 words a morning which for once I’m editing as I go, though only for words used twice and clunky sentences here and there.

It feels mahvelous.

I’m actually going to write this thing.

Maybe some of us are not meant to write fiction.  I was so fucking happy last year, writing my daily quarantine posts.  It was natural organic writing from the heart, every morning the words flowed out of me.

It’s happening again.

I still want to go back to work a day or two in September, though. I have Gary kinda talked into doing the same. I saw Ardmore Music Hall is looking for all kinds of help, if that’s still an option this fall, I could see him doing that.

I just think it’s good for our brains and relationship to have somewhere else to go once or twice a week.

I miss the cerebral workout of legal writing.  A lot.

So what else.  Let’s see, Jake is hanging in there but we have to schedule an appointment with a dermatologist to see why his ear infection keeps coming back.

Yay.

Okay, if I’m talking about the dog’s ears, it’s time to end this post.  I thought I had all kinds of stuff to report, either I just went brain dead or maybe my life really has become nothing but thoughts of Top Chef this week.

Oh, well.  Whatever.

Onward!