Done! The Cox technician arrived right on schedule at 8:00 AM. By the time he left about 9:00 he had worked on the modem and some of the cables, and said I should put the router back up in the attic, where it had been for years, and aim it toward the shop building where the computers reside. I did that, and whatever he did apparently worked. My internet was back, and I spent three or four hours getting caught up on stuff I couldn't do for the past week. Some old people make a big show of their aversion to computers and all their uses. Not me. I admit that I find the internet useful, and even entertaining, when it's working as it should. When it goes south on me, that's not so much fun. That's when I call for help. Today I spent so much time getting back online and catching up that I didn't get much else done. My dwindled supply of clean sox says I need to wash tomorrow, but I also need to take steps to deal with my depression over advancing decrepitude. This "age starting with 8" thing has been getting to me.
Tuesday, July 2, 2024
Yesterday it was the cable guy. Today it was health. After I did laundry and got the overalls on the line to dry, I drove up to Four County Mental Health at Strother field. I arranged to see a professional about my depression and futility. They must be pretty busy. The first session will be July 23 , and the second August 6. It's a good thing this isn't an emergency. With my head filled with eighty years of material, the challenge for the therapist may be just keeping me on subject. Meanwhile, there is the mystery of the cane. The one I prefer, the old time wooden one, has disappeared again. I haven't found it any of the usual places, so tomorrow I'll go to TSC and see if I left it there when I bought some sox this morning.
Wednesday, July 3, 2024
Found it! Almost in one of the places I usually put it, but about three feet away. That made it invisible. The main activity of this morning was restoring email service on my desktop computer. I had received no messages on it since April 5. Getting it working again was followed by the job of deleting dozens (hundreds) of messages, nearly all SPAM. Then I called again for email help on the laptop. As it turned out I spent most of the day on the phone. I may have working email for awhile. Of course, we've been down this road before. More than once, I've thought email was fixed and working well, but that was a temporary illusion. So we'll see.
Thursday, July 4, 2023
What a wonderful way to spend the Glorious Fourth! It occurred to me that it's been several years since I talked with my old friend Dan in California. We met about fifty years ago, so I guess that makes us really old friends. Looking through old emails from fourteen years ago, I was lucky enough to find his phone number. I was so delighted when I called the number and heard that familiar voice answer. We talked for an hour or so, then he had to stop for a few minutes to tend to another matter, then he called me back and we jabbered for another hour. This evening Shorty and I went to this season's final band concert in Wilson Park. After that we went up to the north end of AC to watch the fireworks show. Shorty doesn't totally freak out as some dogs do, but she would clearly rather be somewhere else. She finally went under the car until the show was over. At home all the fireworks are father away and they don't seem to bother her.
Friday, July 5, 2024
Today wasn't planned, but I enjoyed it.
It was almost 12:30 when my phone rang. It
was my friend Dieter, who lives only four miles from me, but
his place is south of the Arkansas
River, so getting there is a drive of about
twenty miles. He told me he has a magnet charger
I should see. Recently we
discussed some Model T frames he has, but he
didn't know what years they
were. So I printed out a frame chart and took it
to him. It turned out that one of his frames is
1923-24, and both the others are 1926-27. I like
the magnet charger, which is supposed to run on
only six volts. The charger and the frames must
have taken a half hour at most, but we yakked
until Shorty and I left, after 5:00 PM.
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Saturday, July 6, 2024
This morning Lori and Donna came over to do some of what needs to be done. The project was trimming or removing some of the overgrowing vegetation that was encroaching on the west drive. My "work" was pointing out and explaining what should go and what should stay. The rest of the time I blathered my stream of consciousness on various subjects that popped into my noggin. By noon Donna was feeling poorly, and we gave it up until the next session. By the way, you're reading this because last night I contacted the hosting company and got them to correct the glitch that was stopping me from uploading anything to my website. Have I ever told you that I was not made for life in the Digital Age? Saturday Treat Night this week was dinner at Pizza Ranch followed by Sound of Hope at the local theater. If you're not religious, don't be put off by the Christian production company behind this one. It's a good story, well written, well directed, and well acted. Is there religion depicted in it? Sure. That's a natural feature of life for the characters. There is no hard-sell preaching at the audience. Just a story of human people, well told.
Sunday, July 7, 2024
I didn't get a lick of work done, but I enjoyed much of the day. Aside from the downer of dealing with AI (Aggravating Incompetence) on various websites and phone answering systems, I had a good time. Phillip, my "tenant farmer" dropped in. He does all the farm work, but as the land owner I get a third of the income. What a sweet deal! Some years the crops pay for the house insurance, and in an exceptionally good year they cover the property taxes too. But I don't think we even mentioned any business. We just had a good old BS session which lasted well over an hour. But Phillip has other things to do, and eventually he had to go. Not long after he left, the phone rang. It was Dan calling from California again. We had another nice bull session that went on for quite a while. I think it was under an hour, but not far under. After that ended the phone rang again, and it was my brother. That visit was shorter, maybe twenty minutes or half an hour, but it was another wonderful opportunity to hear myself talk. Maybe I've told you this before, but I was never much good at conversation. After awhile I couldn't think of anything to say. But now, with my head crammed full with eighty years of experience, just get me started and listen to me go. Now my friends and relatives probably wish I would shut up.
Monday, July 8, 2024
It's a blessing that I'm an old man and won't have to live through another twenty or thirty years of the Digital Age. Mein Gott! What a clusterflock. Today I spent hours on the phone trying to get email working on the desktop computer again. The agent got my email since last Thursday to show up. Is it fixed? Dunno. I guess I'll find out tomorrow. That was Cox. Recently my Cox email was "migrated" to Yahoo. So my next hours-long phone call trying to get email working on the laptop will be to Yahoo. Did I do anything productive today? I can't think of a thing. I do have one little tidbit of bad news. This evening while there was still enough light for me to see my way I went to the house to turn on the back porch light. While I was outside I saw two lightning bugs. Two. They used to arrive in May and lasted into August. Most evenings there were dozens or hundreds. Some fields had thousands, looking like a photo of Los Angeles at night. Two. I fear this may be the last year we have any at all. When I think of what we've lost, and what we're losing, it's just too damn depressing.
Tuesday, July 9, 2024
This month, at least, I think I won't overspend. Sometimes I spend $100, $200, or maybe $300 more than I take in, and catch up later. The current credit card cycle ends Thursday, and I owe less than half a typical payment. I have to buy weed killer, but I'll wait a couple of days and spend that dough on next month's bill. Meanwhile I have other things to do. Spraying johnson grass can wait a couple of days. I thought I would try to install the mower belt on the Dixon today, but the battery was down and the machine wouldn't start. I'll leave a charger on it and try again tomorrow. Today I was contemplating the mountain of work that needs to be done. I could have done most of it on my own ten years ago. But when your age starts with 8 a lot of what you used to do becomes a struggle or impossible. I'm afraid my decline is not only physical, but also mental and emotional. In a couple of days we'll have a cousins' meeting. There's a list I've made up, showing what should be done. Much of it should be done before I reach my expiration date. We'll take the list, and walk around the place, and look at the jobs, and I'll try to explain what it will take to do them. I'm overwhelmed, and I hope the cousins will have some ideas of how to proceed.
Wednesday, July 10, 2024
Maybe the answer is to resign myself, or accept, that there's not much I can do. If they figure out a way to deal with this colossal mess before I move to the cemetery, that's great. I can even help by identifying things and pointing out what may be worth saving. If that doesn't happen, I won't be in a position to care, one way or the other. As the old soap opera says, we have one life to live. I'm coming around to the realization that it may be best to spend the rest of mine doing what I enjoy, without worrying about what does or doesn't get done before I check out. I used to think I had a pretty good chance of making 90. Now that seems unlikely. So what? Whatever happens, happens. Worrying bout it won't change a thing. So what did I do today? I went to see my doc. She seems to think I'm in pretty good shape for the shape I'm in. She noted that I'm now taking fewer medicines than I did couple of years ago. Well, as maddening/depressing as I find all the stuff I can't do anymore, I'm still better off than a lot of other old people. The only glitch in today's medical appointment was that the nurse stuck a needle in me three times and never got enough blood for a blood test. So tomorrow morning after breakfast I'll fill up on liquids and go back for another attempt.
Thursday, July 11, 2024
It worked. With more liquid in me the nurse was able to fill two of the larger vials with blood for testing, plus one smaller one. Responding to a robo-call from the pharmacy, I went and picked up three new prescriptions that resulted from yesterday's session with my doc. Oxybutynin to slow my post-prostate-surgery drip, Hydrochlorothiazide for blood pressure, , and Lisinopril for blood pressure and heart will double the number of pills I'm already taking. Fortunately these "new" pills are only once a day. That's in quotes because all three are something I've taken before. This evening Lori, Donna, and Zack came for a cousins' meeting. We talked about our plans for what to do with the place and its contents when I go, and before that, and what we can do to auction off some of the superfluous stuff that has piled up here over the years. We walked around for a partial tour, and I pointed out some things that should go sooner rather than later, and other things I would recommend keeping. Part of this was just identifying some items that aren't common knowledge.
Friday, July 12, 2024
What a day! It started with the list. Several weeks ago I wrote down some things I want to get done. This morning I composed an email of it, divided into categories. ASAP, Soon after ASAP, ONGOING, BEFORE WINTER, PROJECTS, etc. In the end, it would fill most of a printed page. I hit SEND and heard no sound of email going out. I spent the rest of the morning and a big part of the afternoon on the phone with Yahoo technical "support". Eventually it turned out that the required Yahoo procedures will not work on my obsolete operating system. My OS is 10.13.6, and the Yahoo system demands 10.5 or better. Next was a call to Apple about getting a more up-to-date OS. The agent suggested saving everything that's on the computer now, because changing the OS will probably make some of my files disappear. I will need to get an external storage unit to keep everything I currently have on my computer as a back-up. Then we can proceed with the change of OS. After I have the new OS I can phone Yahoo again, and maybe my email can be fixed. Living in the Digital Age is so damn depressing. This evening Lori and Donna dropped in and I told them about the lost email. Lori checked her inbox and confirmed that she never got the message. So this evening I spent a couple of hours composing another version of the list, and printed it out ON PAPER so I can hand it to them physically and won't have to rely on email. Have I ever told you that I despise living in the Digital Age?
Saturday, July 13, 2024
Now, there's progress. Zack came and installed the new mower belt on the Dixon, then got the Woods mower nearly done. It needs one more piece bolted on, then a grease job, and it should be ready to go. Tomorrow in the cool of the morning I plan to mix some glysophate and spray johnson grass across the road. As soon as it dies I'll mow the road to the wood lot and be ready to bring up firewood, and haul tree trimmings to the brush pile. Saturday treat night was dinner at La Fiesta, followed by a second viewing of Horizon. It's not the greatest western of all time, and it won't make us forget about The Searchers or High Noon, but it's important enough to be taken seriously.
Sunday, July 14, 2024
On a lazy Sunday I skipped too much work, playing on the internet, finishing the crossword in Thursday's paper, and sitting in front of a fan to deal with the heat. The forecast shows 105º tomorrow, 98º on Tuesday, then a run of cool weather with highs in the eighties and lows in the sixties. That will be a nice break. I did go to town today to buy a flash drive. I'll use it to back up the files on my desktop before I try to update its operating system. It seems that any change in the system always loses some files I want to keep, so this time I'll try to back up everything.
Monday, July 15, 2024
I'm getting scared. This morning I managed to mix five gallons of weed killer, and set out to spray johnsongrass across the road. A month or two ago spraying was a struggle, but I could do it. This morning I couldn't. I didn't have the strength and the balance to handle the full sprayer while struggling through the grass and dead weeds. What can I do? My cousins want to help, but they have their own lives to live and can't be here full time. I can't afford to hire somebody full time either. Maybe I can find somebody willing and able to put in an hour or two at a time on particular projects. Speaking of cousins, Donna came and helped me get oxygen. She drove me to town returning the empty tank, and drove me home with the full one. She also helped me wrestle the new tank into the proper place in the shop, ready to use. The question now is whether I can still operate a cutting torch. While Donna was here we tried to move the mowing tractor to a better place in the yard. It was her first time driving a tractor, and we didn't finish moving it because I couldn't remember some of the details of how to drive it.
Tuesday, July 16, 2024
The depleted supply of clean sox designated this as wash day. But first I cleaned up and got into some fresh duds. At least I can still get in and out of the shower without falling down. I had all the laundry hanging on the line to dry by 1:00, then I cut three vent holes into the new trash burning barrel I bought last week and burned trash.That's a job that's easier in the winter, when I just put the trash in the fireplace to make a little heat. Speaking of winter, I need to get the splitter fixed and start building up the firewood supply. Winter seems a long way off, but the way I am now it will be here before I'm ready.
Wednesday, July 17, 2024
First up today was a visit with a therapist at Four County Mental Health. Maybe a few sessions there will get me out of this funk over being so damn old and useless. Yes, I realize that I'm better off than a lot of old people. I can get up and down stairs, feed myself, and do most of the other things needed to live by myself. It's just that being unable to do most of the things I used to do without even thinking about it — from trimming trees to starting a nut on a bolt to keeping up with paperwork — it's all just too much. I bent the therapist's ear for well over an hour, and she took it very well. Even said it was interesting. I think our second session is next week, with another scheduled for a couple of weeks after that. When we finished I drove on to Winfield to take care of a little business. The first stop was at a real bank where I bought a roll of dollars and two rolls of halves. Dollars come in rolls of 25, and halves are in rolls of twenty. Forty halves should last quite a while. I like twos, dollars, and halves for small purchases. I could get along without all three, but it's fun to see people's reaction to money they've never seen before. It's not always young folks. Sometimes even grey-heads are mystified. After the bank I went to the courthouse to renew the registration on the Camry. I don't recall ever getting a reminder from the state this year, so I wanted to be sure to take care of it a couple of weeks before the deadline. My last Winfield stop was at the Walmart for sox. I bought the only package of OTC sox they had. I've worn those since the eighties, but now they're hard to find. I prefer the ones that come up high enough to reach the tops of my boots. Am I too picky? Maybe so, but those are what I like.
Thursday, July18, 2024
The only thing out of the ordinary today was a home visit by a representative from BCBS checking on my health. She checked my blood pressure, pulse, temperature, breathing, etc., and took a survey of my health history. I did go to town for a couple of errands. One was paying a bill at the optometrist's office, and the other was depositing a check for $488.09. Apparently it was a partial refund from a hospital bill I overpaid last winter. While I was in town I tried to buy a tube of toothpaste, but nobody had the Pepsodent I like. Taylor drug said they will have it tomorrow.
Friday, July 19, 2024
After a robo call from the pharmacy telling me I had a prescription ready, I went there to see what it was. It turned out to be a thyroid pill, to be taken once daily, before breakfast. Apparently last week's blood test detected a thyroid problem, and my doc prescribed this new pill. OK, I can do that. Seven pills seems like a lot, but I guess that some old people take a lot more than that. I gripe about being so clumsy and weak, but I don't feel sick, so I guess I'm doing OK.
Saturday, July 20, 2024
Oh, my aching back! Well, at this moment it's feeling better. What made it ache? Pulling weeds. The pulling is no problem. In fact it was pretty easy. The backache came from bending over to grab the weeds. I did it for maybe a half hour, and that was all could take. Otherwise I'm in no pain, so that's a plus. Just sitting for awhile drives the backache away. I'm afraid I'm becoming a hypochondriac, always griping about my condition. Intellectually I know that being weak and clumsy comes with old age. Emotionally it eats at me. Dylan Thomas says
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
You might say all my griping is my form of rage against the dying of my light.
Saturday treat night was dinner at the East Buffet, followed by a movie. The show was Long Legs. I can't tell you about it because I was so tired I snoozed off and on most of the way through, and I missed the end because nature called me to the men's room. It may have been excellent or it may have been a dud. I missed too much of it to say, one way or the other.
Sunday, July 21, 2024
Interesting day. I even accomplished something. But first, Donna came and mowed, then she and Lori removed a lot of superfluous vegetation along the west drive. While they were working on that, I got back to pulling weeds. This time I took a folding chair with me and sat in it as I pulled weeds. It wasn't as bad as it may sound. I spent an hour on it, then came back after dinner and did more of the same. I may even have that area ready to mow this week. This afternoon my brother called and we had a nice phone visit. Then this evening I had a call from Jesus in Nebraska. That's Hey-SOOS, not JEE-zuss. It's an interesting story. He was born in Fremont, Nebraska. When he was two, his mom was deported. He lived in Mexico with her for sixteen years, then came back to the states to attend the university in Lincoln. Obviously he knows English well enough to do university-level work, but his accent makes him hard to understand on the phone. I offered to work with him on his gringo accent IF he wants to do that. Whether I do will be up to him.
Monday, July 22, 2024
The feeder was empty, so I went to town for a 44 pound bag of dog food — something of a struggle for a feeble old man. I found that Walmart no longer carries the jalapeño cheese I've been buying for years. It took a lot of looking, but I found the Kroger version at Dillons. My main activity here at home was more weed pulling. Now that I'm so slow it seems to be taking forever, but I'm making a little progress each day. Eventually I'll get all the weeds out of the lawn by the west drive, then I'll mow there. For some reason I'm remembering Tim Conway playing an old man on TV. He was a funny guy, but now that I am that old man it's not so humorous.
Tuesday, July 23, 2024
This morning I had my second session with my therapist at Four County Mental Health. I didn't put her to sleep, so I guess it was successful. I spent most of the hour telling the story of my life, with plenty of asides and detours. I don't know if she found it interesting, but it's a subject of great fascination to me. We didn't get to the past forty years or so, and I guess the title for this time is "to be continued". My Camry suffers from dead shocks, and I bought some replacements. So today I took those spares to town with the aim of having them installed at the suspension shop. A few years ago I would have done it myself, but as old and feeble as I am now I'm happy to let somebody with experience handle the job. At 3:30 in the afternoon I found the place closed. I phoned the number and left a message. If I don't hear back from them, I guess I'll have to take the job to somebody else.
Wednesday, July 24, 2024
In the morning I went town to deal with bad shocks. The alignment shop was closed again. So I went to another shop. It turned out that what I had wasn't enough. I would need new springs too. So I went to a parts store and ordered the needed items. It gave me sticker shock, but a man's got to do what a man's got to do. I'll pick up the parts tomorrow, and take the car to the shop on Monday. My other main event of the day was fixing a web page. I noticed that it had type so tiny that it was hard to read. The software fought me every step of the way, and I had to edit a lot of HTML. It took me until 10:30 PM, but I finally got it done. It's not great, but at least the type is large enough to read .
Thursday, July 25, 2024
The serious work of the day was spraying more johnson grass across the road. I used more of the weed killer I mixed over a week ago. The next session will use up the rest of it, and it will be time to mix another five gallons. With the heat of the day coming on fairly early this time of year, I'm not inclined to do it all in one day as I would have a year or two ago. I hate being too feeble and clumsy to work like I used to, but I don't know of any way to shed five or ten years. The only other job I did today was going to town and fetching the new shocks I bought for the Camry yesterday.
Friday, July 26, 2024
It was eleven days ago, July 15, when I mixed five gallons of weed killer. This morning I used up the last of it on the johnson grass across the road. I finished that a little after 10:00 AM, and the sun persuaded me to give up that project for the day. I suppose I won't get anything done next week when the prediction is for five days of 100º F or more. Several years ago I removed the carburetor from my wood splitter, cleaned it out, and reinstalled it. This spring the splitter was hard to start and didn't run long. So today I thought I would repeat the process: take the carburetor off, clean it out, and put it back on. I got a lesson in humility. As weak and clumsy as I am now, I simply can't do that kind of work anymore. I guess I'll have to take the splitter to Dave, the small engine repair guy, and have him deal with it.
Saturday, July 27, 2024
This morning the keyboard on my desktop computer quit working. Three different keyboards, all with fresh batteries, made no difference. Ditto an old plug-in keyboard. All typing on that computer is defunct. Eventually it dawned on me that I can still type on the laptop and post comments on the Model T forum and Facebook. But updating any of my web pages was still out of reach. I will need to figure out a way to transfer some files from the desktop to the laptop. Saturday dinner was carnitas at LaFiesta. A year ago it would have been a delicious meal. I've been told I had covid a couple of times while I was in the hospital. I suspect that may be why some formerly delicious foods are now only so-so. This week's movie was Twisters, which I enjoyed. The actors play their parts well, and the picture is technologically impressive. The tornadoes look real.
Sunday, Jul 28, 2024
I mixed another five gallons of weed killer, but I got to it so late that I wasn't ready to spray before the heat of the day. Why was I late? Because I spent most of the day fighting the digital war. Eventually I got my web pages onto a flash drive and transferred them to the laptop. I managed to upload yesterday's blog post, so I am relearning how to do that. Or I am learning how to do it this new way. One other thing I did today was trying to remove the old licensee plate from the Camry and install the new one that came in yesterday's mail. Getting the old plate off proved impossible because the screws holding it were rusted in place. I squirted Kroil on them, and will try again tomorrow. I plan to use stainless screws for the new plate. Maybe using screws that won't rust will prevent a repeat of the problem.
Monday, July 29, 2024
The pointless futility of existence. Thinking about how I am now, compared to how I used to be, is so damn depressing I don't know what to do. Yes, I know I'm better off than some other folks. I can still make it up the stairs to my bedroom, and down in the morning. I can still get dressed, feed myself, even do laundry and hang the wash on the line. But the list of things I can no longer do is so overwhelming that it robs me of any ambition to do the little I still can. Am I ready to End It All? Not yet. But the idea doesn't seem as unlikely as it used to be. So it will go to the repair shop tomorrow morning. In my weak and clumsy condition I didn't want to risk carrying it downstairs myself so I phoned Zack, and he came and got it into the car, ready to go in the morning.
Tuesday, July 30, 2024
Due to technical circumstances beyond our control... Yesterday my internet connection failed and I was unable to do anything online. Simultaneously my desktop computer became unusable when its keyboard failed and I couldn't type anything into it. Along with that, its email no longer works and its stereo headphone outlet is dead. First up this morning was a drive to the computer repair in Winfield. My desktop will be sitting useless until it's fixed, so it might as well be there. On the way home I stopped at Dillons for a few groceries. The shelf space for pepper jack cheese was totally bare. Fortunately I have enough in the fridge to last several days. I will need to keep a couple of extra packages on hand as cover for the next time the stuff is out of stock in the store. When I got home I phoned Cox and reported my internet outage. All it took was a remote reset of my modem, and I was back in business. High summer has been hot before, uncomfortably so. But I don't think it has ever affected me physically as it does now. With an age that starts with 8, it not only compounds my laziness, but sometimes makes me dizzy.
Wednesday, July 31, 2024
In the relative cool of the morning I set out to spray johnson grass and other weeds. I stuck it out for a little over half an hour, and finally gave up. The problem wasn't heat, which hadn't set in yet. It was me. I get along OK on a flat, level surface, even without a cane. But in dead grass and weeds, toting a full sprayer and equipped with a cane, every step feels like I'm losing my balance and about to fall. I've heard enough stories about old people falling and suffering serious injuries to make it a scary feeling. I'm not enjoying being so damned old, but it is what it is. This morning when I was streaming KMUW it went silent. I had no internet. So I phoned Cox and prompted the robot to reset my modem. The same thing happened yesterday. This evening, again, I had no internet. So I phoned Cox again, and this time I talked with a live human. He got my internet service back. We'll see how long it lasts this time.
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