Tired

The past few weeks have been trying times for my fragile nerves. I am not good at waiting for things to happen. I have been avoiding thinking by way of distractions but that isn't a viable long run position. The new place is working out alright. I still want to know what the deal with the place over the fish restaurant was? It still looks vacant almost a month after they said it was rented. Found out that they have not held Don's service yet. Not too surprised but it has been 2 months now and finality has an appeal not to be overlooked. I am trying to maintain the early to rise rhythm I developed while camping. I have been getting out on the bike most dry mornings and walking in the early evening before retiring. Looking for a routine to fall into for a short time. A little rebounding pause. I have one big hurdle remaining and that is to move my stuff. The draining of my financial reserves aside I have just not been physically up to it. Enough complaining for one day, a nonessential update from the frivolous world of the intertubes.

It isn't ironic.

A few years back Alanis Morissette captured the zeitgeist with her tune, "Isn't it Ironic?" Turns out no, her lament was just a laundry list of bummers missing irony completely but capturing the new definition of the word to a tee.

In the past few months I have lost two people very close to me at different ends of the age spectrum and thinking about their plights put me on to the question Isn't that ironic.

Lois and Don Had similar health problems in their circulatory systems and reacted differently to the lifestyle changes that scientific medicine recommends with dramatically different outcomes. Don Quit smoking, changed his diet and added exercises to his daily routine when ever possible. Lois continued to smoke 2 packs a day, eating the Pennsylvania Dutch cooking and sedentary life style without missing a beat.

Don died at 55 while Lois made it to just shy of 90.

Doubt creeps in

The last couple of nights camping have been tough.My medical situation has flared up and between the cramps and the spasms I am not sure if I am coming or going. The pain is stalking me at every turn and I am not sure I am up to the fight. Found a place to stay in doors for a week to make some inquiries and review the plan. Looked at a couple of places just not sure what to do at this point. The experts say not to make a decision in the aftermath of tragedy but most people don't have the luxury of waiting.One last thing Flush The Damn Toilet!

End Times

I have never seen a disease process advance so quickly. My friend is beginning to loose clarity. When he is lucid he is pretty clear that he wants to stay west and ride out the days. Then he is sure that he wants to fight and move. His oldest sister is trying to run his life and there has begun the clash of wills. Unfortunately Don’s will has been sapped by the cancer and the drugs and he has no chance against the forces that are arrayed against him.

I am tracking down the equipment and trying to get the momentum of a bureaucratic monolith to shift just a few inches to the left. I am drained by the by play of control freaks and the passive aggressive. Doctors that want to appear compassionate then when you call them they have their staff give you the runaround. Not charting an intravenous line is a pretty serious fuck-up so don’t piss and moan when I make you look up something that should already be there.

The holiday season is an excuse for people to screw off and blame the holiday. 5 days it has taken to get them to flush the IV that we didn’t need or want. The are not giving and have no plans to give medication through it so it is just another energy sink that we don’t need. We are behind the curve and it is not likely that we are going to catch up no matter how fast we dance. In the day we take to alter the plan it becomes obsolete.

The morning gave a little hope, we went for a ride and for about an hour and a half things were cool. I am now a little leery of him seeing another day.

A Little Zombie Jazz From The Not So Grimm Reaper

There is an art to helping a person to die well. I think it is one of my few actual skills. I liken it to composing jazz. One takes the underlying structures,
instruments and the tones they create with the music, medicines for the person and
then blend an escape. Today I am weaving a tapestry of morphine and Ondansetron with Gabapentin and Oxycodone to enable Don to be pain free yet still converse with his visitors.
Trying to find the right smells and textures for a person to eat when they have no appetite or when the yeasts and fungi have clouded the palette is another challenge. Tonight I am going to make a roast with potatoes and English peas but I suspect that Don will probably go for another cup’o noodles. Lots of sodium and msg but it is something he can taste and still swallow comfortably.
The texture of food is another aspect of the composition that matters more as taste buds fail and the sense of smell fades. The other measure, the minor counter balance is to know when not to force food. You are not going to build up their strength that way and you may do more harm both by guilt and by too much gas.
We are fighting the swelling of ankles today striking a balance between elevating feet and sitting up to be alert. Trying to walk a bit each day to keep the joints supple and knowing when that walk causes more distress than relief.
It is an arrangement I have rewritten many times but it never seems to get any easier to hear the tune played or to pay the piper.

Radmul version 5.3

The world is about to take one of those monumental shifts. Everything is about to move six inches to the left all at once. 124,000 people die in accidents every year in the US. Those people’s orbits shift faster but not generally any further.

In assessing this shift I am forced to confront past decisions and how they worked out long term. I am not going to bail, that is not my style. I do need to make a plan quickly and first up I need to start getting rid of stuff.

I have another attempt to make. I tried to do this with 5.0, My virtual midlife crisis and again with 5.2, the move to the valley. This 5.3 version may have some profit potential. What I will produce might have an actual market.

People that have jobs get limited vacation time. Cross country trips while novel are not realistic for most people. Spending 5 to 7 days riding around an area camping and cycling is. I will go to a tourist destination; the Napa Valley, the Carmel Monterrey Bay area or a national park. Spend time investigating and exploring then design trips for biking vacations.

I will create a website and solicit camping and biking ads as well as creating a weekly pod cast and travel articles that have sales potential.

I will take photos and review the eateries. I will find the local bike shops and other types of shopping. Search out and find the bike friendly places to stay and camp. In addition I will explore the ways to get to the destinations with bike and gear by car and by public transportation and by common carriers.

Lois is no more

She died on October 28th at the age of 85.
Monty Python’s Flying Circus was always hit and miss with me but they got the death part right.


I meant to get this up on the 17th , her birthday but I was tied up with another visit to the VA.

This is shaping up to be a bad year for my ever shrinking circle of friends and relatives. Kenny’s recovery is still iffy as he is having trouble maintaining enough weight to deal with his treatment. Don is having severe intestinal problems that is looking a lot like pancreatic cancer and Lois is no more.

When does ceasing to exist become preferable to continuing. Lois made that choice when she decided that she did not wish to take treatment for the Lung cancer. It might have been better for her if Mike and Frank had not taken her to the hospital When she was in distress the last time. Quick and clean can be better than lingering but they were not ready to deal with the reality.

I have missed talking with Lois these last few years but I tuned out the unhappy and there wasn’t much else left. When she could no longer make it to the bingo games it was no longer worth being in pain all the time. Coffee, Bingo and Cigarettes were her three remaining pleasures. The doctors hounded her for years and she refused to quit smoking. Lung cancer got her in the end and I am somewhat surprised as people with high blood pressure to the point of aneurysm usually don’t die of cancer, but that shows how the curve is one weird mo-fo.

For her Time she was quite a remarkable woman my friend Lois. She was a midwife in the military back in the days of the WAVES. She lived through the depression and integration and the wave of technology with good humor and fearlessness. Her favorite stories were of cross country trips in the early days of the interstate highway system and the lean early days after their move west.

Unlike the Norwegian Blue Lois fled the cage and lived a long life, I hope they gave her one last smoke.