Yesterday’s lunch was excellent; lobster ravioli alongside baked carrot strips, strips of red bell pepper, green beans, and onion. That should have been sufficiently nutritious and satisfying to last the rest of the day. But, no, I had a rather large dinner of spaghetti and meatballs, brought home from an Italian restaurant nearby. Those meals, coupled with a few cocktails (gin & tonic) and a medical gummy should have masked the pain I felt (and feel) in my right shoulder and the right side of my neck. But now that I think more clearly on the matter, perhaps the shoulder and neck pain arose from an unusual movement I made with my body (what that “unusual” movement might be is open to speculation). The purpose of the drive to Little Rock was to visit my financial advisor. That part of the trip took only 15 minutes or so. So we went to lunch at Brave New Restaurant, a place a friend had raved to me about, a few years ago. And I picked up two pairs of slacks from Men’s Wearhouse. So the journey to Little Rock was productive and enjoyable. When we got home, I invited a friend to come over for conversation and libations. A bit later, another friend joined us, with her dog, on the deck, where the idea of Italian food for dinner came up. One friend had committed to her family that she would pick up a take-out Italian dinner for them. The rest of us liked the idea and asked that the call-in order include our desired dishes. The four of us then scattered like a flock of scared, but hungry, sheep. This entire paragraph constitutes a convoluted background statement to my assertion that I consumed far too many carbohydrates yesterday, as this morning’s weight and level of blood glucose articulately attest.
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If all goes according to plan, my immediate family of blood relatives will join me on a Zoom video call this afternoon. I have intended to organize a Zoom call for weeks…months…finally, I did it, thanks to a prompt from my oldest brother. I do not know why I do not set up these calls more frequently. There’s really nothing to it—just quickly schedule the call, then send an email with a link to join the call. But apparently, just knowing about what is involved in that long and laborious process is enough to dissuade me from even starting it. Slob. Lout.
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My neck is conspiring with my shoulder, the conspiracy consisting of the imposition of constant, pulsating pain. Regardless of how I hold my head or bend my neck or otherwise attempt contortions to mitigate the pain. On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being the most severe, I would give my level of pain a 4. But for me, a 4 represents life-threatening intensity. To put my pain in perspective, it is equivalent to that caused by a hangnail. Actually, it is not the intensity of the pain that is so troubling, it is the consistent inconsistency and the attendant variations in intensity. It is unpredictable, in other words. In a predictable sort of way.
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Last night, we watched To Leslie, a well-acted tale of a west Texas woman who won a lottery, lost her winnings, plunged into poverty and unemployment, then attempted to claw her way back out again. That followed a few evenings when we watched a limited series, Florida Man, and a few episodes of Black Mirror. Before that, we watched six episodes of Rough Diamonds. None of these programs grabbed me. They were adequately entertaining, but they did not really capture my imagination; they were, instead, workable diversions that occupied a little time. I am ready for a superb, long-lasting series, whose every episode will leave me thirsting for more.
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Everything starts over, beginning now.
