John Swinburn

The ache in my left shoulder has matured into pain. Are cricks restricted to the neck, or can one have a crick in the shoulder? If so, I think that’s what I have. A crick in the shoulder. I do not know whether to blame the mattress or the horizontal posture of the guy sleeping on it. Maybe the two unknowingly conspire to contribute to the pain. Yeah. That’s it, an inadvertent conspiracy. Whatever the etiology of the discomfort, I think I could be made more comfortable with a form-fitting heating pad or a 10mg injection of morphine. As I have neither laying around the house, I will plan to soldier on. Coffee may help. Maybe holding a mug of hot coffee against my shoulder will help.

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Yesterday afternoon, at the regular time, I drove to the rehab facility to visit my wife. Her sister came along. When we got there, we looked through the open blinds to see my wife sleeping soundly. I tried calling her. Her phone, sitting on the overbed table, lit up when I called; I could barely hear the phone sound through the window. But my wife did not awaken. After a few minutes, I called and spoke to the nurse, who said my wife had eaten both breakfast and lunch. We decided not to have the nurse wake my wife; I asked the nurse to let her know, when she waked, that we came by to visit. There was no point in rousing her from a sound sleep, only to spend a few minutes with her and leave. I will be back this afternoon. Today, I will plan on waking her if she is asleep; I don’t want her to think my visits are imaginary.

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My sister-in-law brought DVDs over the last two days. Day before yesterday, we watched Once Upon a Time in Hollywood; yesterday, we watched The Big Lebowski. I had seen the latter, but I had seen only trailers of the former. Both of the films were good diversions, transporting me for a while from the combined sensations of stress and boredom. Lasts night, I began watching Unforgotten, a British drama series originally recommended to me by my other sister-in-law. I had looked for it on Netflix, to no avail, but discovered it is available on Amazon Prime. The Unforgotten character of Cassie Stuart is played by Nicola Walker, who I was sure I recognized from other British film and television; the only other television and film I have watched, in which she starred, though, were Collateral  and River. I know she was in Last Tango in Halifax (I’ve seen trailers but nothing more), but I felt sure I had seen her in other parts; I cannot seem to figure out what, though. I am not sure why I am interested in knowing more about her acting career; I have never had much of an interest in knowing who is playing a part…only in the character being played.

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I am not particularly enamored of the idea of driving into Hot Springs to go to Kroger this morning, but I may do it anyway. I want to buy more Kroger brand diet tonic, which I drink straight out of the container when I am the only one in the house, and medium-grind black pepper. I really like the store-brand diet tonic much better than the more expensive brands like Schweppe’s and Canada Dry. It’s nice to prefer the cheaper stuff sometimes; I feel an undeserved sense of superiority for my innate frugality, the same way I feel when I buy the cheaper versions of Argentinian malbec wine because I like them better than the pricier stuff.

I’m sure there’s more on my list (if I had a list), but other wants escape me for the moment. Driving 30 minutes more more, one-way, to buy tonic and pepper seems absurd and wasteful. If I can’t come up with more justification than that, I will delay the trip. I use this blog, sometimes, to talk myself into (or out of) taking action. Better beforehand than after-the-fact.

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Last night, for a time, I felt emotionally empty. Not emotionless. There’s a difference, though I cannot seem to adequately describe it. When I try to find other words to capture the sense of how I felt, I keep latching on to phrases that are equally inadequate. Painfully hollow. A balloon encased in plaster of paris, no longer able to either expand or contract. I was quite conscious of the sensation of emotional emptiness. It felt to me like I had entered a perpetual state of extreme emotional discomfort that had no anchors; it would leave me forever unable to become untethered to a vague sense of guilt and longing.

I should have written, then, about how I felt. Probably I would have been better equipped to put into words my emotional senses while I was feeling them. This morning, it seems close, but still too distant to fully comprehend.

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Accidental loneliness can be a byproduct of intentional isolation. Maybe “intentional” is not the right word. Maybe “safer” fits better. I wrote, just a few days ago, of my general preference for the company of women to the company of men. (That’s not absolute, of course; there are plenty of men whose company I find extremely gratifying.) At any rate, that general preference can present difficult challenges. I do not intentionally isolate myself from women whose company I enjoy, but it’s safer to avoid inviting them over for drinks or conversation, especially when the expectation is that they will come alone, without their husbands or boyfriends or whoever (that is, people whose company I do not necessarily think I would enjoy). Given the propensity of some people to be jealous and distrustful (there I go, being judgmental), the safety of avoidance should be understandable and obvious. This is a very strange discussion. It’s the sort of discussion I might expect in a group counseling session (though I’ve never been in a group counseling session, so my imagination is working overtime, here), not the sort of thing I would expect to find on a publicly available blog. But here it is. These are the sorts of topics that can cause cricks in one’s neck.

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I just scared the hell out of myself. Feeling the need to stretch, I held my elbows out to the side of my body and slowly raised my arms. Suddenly, I felt someone gently touch the underside of my left forearm, halfway between my elbow and my wrist. To say I was startled is a gross understatement. I did not scream, only because the sound would not escape my mouth. In less than an instant, though, I realized it was not someone’s touch I felt; it was my arm coming into contact with the metal shade of a floor lamp next to the desk. One of my brothers would jokingly say my startle reflex was the result of feeling an intense sense of guilt. I would say the reflex was the result of stark fear that someone had quietly broken into my house and was about to kill me. I can breathe again, thankfully.

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I just read a blurb about a new film set to be released in early December: Nomadland. I want to see it. Here’s a snippet describing the film, from the BBC.com, referring to the main character, played by Frances McDormand:

When Fern is widowed, she can’t afford to live in a house of her own, so she packs her few belongings into a camper van, and drives off into the Nevada desert. She soon discovers that she isn’t alone: there is a large community of senior citizens who have been forced to live on the road, supporting themselves with short-term jobs along the way.

One appealing aspect of the film, to me, is that nearly all the people McDormand meets are real nomads who recount their own real experiences. The film is called a “hybrid of documentary and fiction.” I wonder when it will be available online?

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I believe small groups of people could, if they let themselves do it, change the world. They could do it by making radical changes to their own neighborhoods or towns, then sharing what they did with other small groups of people in nearby neighborhoods or communities. Tiny efforts could spread like a virus, transforming cities, counties, states, countries, and continents. But we give ourselves reasons that such efforts would be pointless; they would fail, we tell ourselves, so we don’t take action. I get angry with myself when I think such things. Rather than try to change the world, we should try to change the block on which we live or the strip center near us. So says me.

A year ago, our lives were what we would now call normal. We planned our days around mundane things, like shopping for a stove. I spent my early mornings exploring the universe from my computer screen. A year ago, for instance, I was awestruck at an estimate by astronomers, appearing in a 2003 article in The Telegraph, that:

“There are 10 times more stars in the night sky than grains of sand in the world’s deserts and beaches, scientists say. Astronomers have worked out that there are 70 thousand million million million – or seven followed by 22 zeros – stars visible from the Earth through telescopes.”

This morning, I tried to read that article again. It is now hidden behind a paywall. Newspapers are attempting to survive a new reality in which the world’s population seems to think vetted information should be just as readily available—and free—as the opinions of “citizen journalists.” Competent journalists face the dissolution of their careers because we are unwilling to place sufficient value on their work to merit paying them for their time and expertise.

Yesterday, as I waited while emergency medical technicians and nurses and doctors looked after my wife, it occurred to me those people were working on Thanksgiving Day just like any other day. Their lives, too, have changed from a year earlier. Like journalism’s paywall, healthcare’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic is a reaction to an unplanned intrusion into our collective world. Journalist managers are attempting to cope with the public’s fickleness about the value and nature of verified information. Medical administrators are attempting to cope with unknowns of even greater and more immediate impact.

How would society react to “citizen healers” who offer to transport patients to alternative care clinics staffed by well-meaning people who, thanks to readily available information technology and medical equipment, compete with trained and vetted medical professionals? It’s not as far-fetched as it may sound. Rabid opponents of governmental “intrusion” into our lives might gladly grant such inadequately trained people authority to compete with medical professionals. Would we willingly take risks with our lives and the lives of loved ones to save the expenses of engaging trained and tested specialists? We’ve been perfectly willing to accept “journalists” without credentials to supply information critical to our decision-making. So why not opt to rely on WannaBeWebMD.com for healthcare?

During the last four months and then some, I have grown more and more appreciative of the competent medical professionals who treat my wife. Thinking back, I am extremely grateful for the doctors and nurses and technicians who have cared for me through extremely intrusive procedures like surgery and chemotherapy and radiation therapy. Healthcare is expensive; more expensive than it should be, in my opinion. But slashing healthcare costs by cutting corners would be even worse than relying on volunteer journalists to report on nuclear nonproliferation treaties.

But there is room for improvement, both in medicine and in journalism, that would cause me to feel better about paying more when necessary. Lately, for example, on several occasions I have had to intervene when technicians (and even nurses) attempted to draw blood from my wife’s right arm or to use that arm to measure her blood pressure. Despite “right arm reserved” notices on the walls and on charts, people rushing through their tasks have overlooked those instructions. I discovered, after the fact, blood draws were done on her right arm in the rehab facility where she presently is housed.  Anecdotally, I seem to see more and more  corrections printed in newspapers and in online news websites; again, rushing through the process of journalism seems to have led to mistakes that probably would not have been made had speed and cost control been given equal value.

I feel incompetent to investigate the issues I’ve raised here. But I am growing more willing every day to pay more to ensure competent people conduct investigations and report the results of their exploration. I don’t know that I’ll ever be willing to pay for individual subscriptions to The Telegraph, the Washington Post, the New York Times, etc., etc., but if those news sources would collectively determine a way to share paid access, I might pay for that. The same is true for healthcare information and medical services. I’d love to be able to go back and read the article that left me awestruck as I contemplated the size of the universe. But, now, as I think about paying for access, I wonder if I would ever have seen it had I been required to pay for it to start.

Solutions. We need lots and lots of solutions. It is a different world today, after all, than a year ago.

This morning was harder on my wife than on me, I’m sure. She’s the one whose veins nurses could not find to draw blood. She’s the one who ambulance paramedics loaded onto a stretcher and, after the in-ambulance, pre-trip protocol they follow, took her to the emergency room. And she’s the one who sat in the ER hallway while hospital staff drew blood, had lab work done on it, and determined the rehab facility nurses’ concerns about the possibility of a critical deficit of potassium were unfounded. She’s the one who was spirited back to the rehab facility without being given the opportunity to see or speak to me. But I can still feel the stress and the fear, even after watching Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and drinking the better part of a bottle of Spanish wine.

I got a call around 9:30 this morning, Thanksgiving morning, from the rehab center, telling me the staff could not find a vein to draw blood to compare current labs to an earlier set. An earlier set of labs, they said, suggested the possibility of a drop in potassium. And they thought the labs might indicate other issues; they needed current labs to make a determination. So, I was told, they were calling an ambulance to take her to the hospital. They asked, to which one did I want her sent? I told them, then said I was on my way and would call when I arrived to check to see if she had already left for the hospital.

I rushed to the rehab facility, arriving just before she was loaded into the ambulance. I drove ahead to the hospital; the ambulance arrived about 20-30 minutes later. I was told to wait outside until she was in an ER room; they would call me. Finally, I went inside to inquire. “Just a few more minutes. You can wait by the doors; you don’t have to wait outside.”

A few minutes later, as I waited, I got a call on my cell from a California number I did not recognize; I answered it, just in case. It was one of the paramedics I had spoken with as they loaded my wife into the ambulance. He said the hospital staff had determined her lab work checked out and she was okay; she was being sent back to the rehab facility.

When I received the initial call, my sister-in-law and I had begun initial work on readying the kitchen to prepare our tapas meal; the non-traditional meal. She went home when I headed to the rehab center. When I got back home around 11:15, I called my sister-in-law and she returned. We sped through the process and ate our tapas. We packed samples of the dishes made and took them to the rehab facility, arriving around 2:30. My wife was asleep when we got there, but the staff woke her and helped her connect with us by phone. Because she had been sleeping after a grueling morning, we opted after a very brief conversation to leave the tapas and let her sleep, hoping she would be able to try them later. I told her I would try to call her later.

I called the rehab facility around 6:30. The staff said she was resting. I told them to let her rest, but to let her know, when she wakes, I called to check on her.

One of many unfortunate realities of my wife’s illness is that she finds it harder and harder to use her cell phone, thanks in large part to issues of edema (fluid retention) that makes it hard to use her fingers. So, she is rarely, if ever, able to make calls; nor can receive them without help. And she can’t write email messages and cannot easily retrieve them. And, of course, I cannot be with her to help. Facility staff is overburdened and can only rarely offer assistance to her. She increasingly is cut off from most of the outside world. May daily visits are, in my view, inadequate (in large part because she is so weak and tired she often cannot stay awake for long).

I would bring her home immediately except for the fact that it is difficult, if not impossible, to monitor, at home, her physical condition for several issues that are increasingly common and likely. Yesterday and today, when the facility could not draw blood for labs, gave examples of the challenges; those issues demonstrated that even facilities equipped with medical equipment and staffed with professional cannot always do what is needed.

I am frustrated, but almost certainly not nearly as frustrated as my wife. She has spent the majority of four-plus months in hospitals and rehab facilities.  In spite of my frustration, I am glad the hospital ER visit today was a false alarm. How much more, though?

Fundamental philosophical differences separate me from the thinking of virtually every world leader, I think. And, perhaps, everyone else. For example, I do not agree with Joe Biden that America should be “back,” aggressively assuming the mantle of “world leader.” I do not buy into China’s fierce pursuit of leadership in the world of artificial intelligence. I disagree vehemently, of course, with Trump’s childish psychopathic attempts to bully every country and everyone into submitting to his delusions of American exceptionalism. In every case, control is the objective, in which a nation can flex its superior muscle in specific endeavors, thereby exerting influence beyond the immediate realm of superiority. What a waste of energy and talent!

Leadership should emerge naturally and should ebb and flow depending on context and circumstance. Maybe the most distinctive difference between my philosophies and those I see on global display revolve around my desire to see collaborative solutions to world problems, with each nation’s (and their citizens’) most valuable attributes being put to best use. Synergies, in which collective efforts produce effects that outweigh the sum of individual parts, should be sought. I think international efforts to develop vaccines for COVID-19, as collaborative as they might be, should be even more cooperative, with no single company nor any one nation attempting to be “first” to come up with a solution, thereby securing influence and control over solutions to a global pandemic.

The same is true of local issues. Political factions waste enormous amounts of time and resources fighting for superiority, rather than for solutions. It’s easier said than done, of course, but conceptually it seems so absolutely obvious! Fierce arguments involving name-calling, spending money on political favors (and bribes and worse), etc. are remarkably counterproductive.

If, instead of focusing on fighting over our differences of opinion and our philosophical stalemates, we focused on how we might collaborate on matters about which different “sides” can agree, we might find that reasonable solutions emerge to the larger issues. For example, let right and left step away from abortion for a time and, instead, focus on solving the problems associated with unwanted pregnancies (without addressing abortion), adoption, and related matters. Yeah, it’s a pipe dream.

I realize my philosophies are utopian fantasies. They need not be, though. Charismatic leadership that arises naturally can change cultures. Then, again, maybe today’s cultures are too deeply steeped in thirst for power to change. Change might take many generations. And I’m afraid we don’t have many generations left if humanity continues to sully the planet, engage in genocide, and starve entire continents.  With that cheery thought, I embrace Wednesday morning. It’s appropriate, I suppose, that today is trash day.

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Yesterday was better than the day before. Despite starting out in much the same way the visit a day earlier began, yesterday’s short visit with my wife was more pleasant. It might have been because her sister was present. Whatever the reason, it was better.

I asked my wife whether she wants me to take to her some tapas from the non-traditional Thanksgiving meal we will have on Thursday; she said she would like that. So, if all goes according to plan, tomorrow I will take to her a plate with a small sample of at least some of the following items I plan to prepare (it sounds like more food than it will actually be):

• Chimichurri meatballs (pork & beef, with a cilantro based chimichurri sauce)
• Shrimp and chorizo bites (assuming I can find Spanish chorizo today)
• An assortment of olives (kalamata, black, garlic-stuffed green, etc.)
• An assortment of Spanish cheeses (iberico, manchego, and cabra al vino)
• Cherry tomatoes
• Tilapia ceviche “cooked” in vinegar
• Assorted almonds
• Garlicky shrimp with crusty ciabatta bread
• Classic olive tapenade
• Spanish chorizo poached in red wine (again, assuming I find Spanish chorizo)
• Celery sticks
• Skirt steak with goat cheese, roasted red peppers, and fig preserves
• Prosciutto with peach preserves

I wish I could take her some Tio Pepe dry sherry and some dry red Spanish wine, but that may be stretching it a bit. I will plan to enjoy a bit of both, though.

This morning, between 8 and 9, I will pick up my grocery order from Walmart. With luck, all the items on my list will be delivered to me; otherwise, I’ll have to add the missing items to the Kroger shopping list. All I have left to buy (unless Walmart doesn’t come through) is Spanish chorizo. I was planning to try to find quince jelly, but I’ve decided to forego that and use something else, instead. And, of course, I forgot to buy Spanish wine yesterday, when I could have bought it at the Tuesday 15% discount at Cork & Bottle; so I’ll have to stop and buy something at full price. Maybe I’ll pick up a bottle of garnacha or  tempranillo or a generic dry Spanish table wine blend. I’m not picky, nor am I able to tell one from the other; but I can differentiate sweet from dry.

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Last night found me in bed extremely early, probably around 8:00. I had no interest in watching television and I’d read what I wanted to read, so I decided to turn in. I wanted to erase things on my mind at the time, too, and it seemed that sleep might be the best way to do it. I woke around 12:30 to brilliant flashes of lightning, crashes of thunder, and pounding rain. I had not closed the blinds on the doors that lead from the bedroom to the deck, so I was treated to the full lightning show. By 2:30, I had slipped back into a middling sleep and back out again, awakened by my aching back and shoulders. I MUST get that mattress replaced! I drifted in and out of semi-consciousness until 4, when I called it a night.  I actually spent more time in bed than usual; it was just that some of that time was during hours I would normally be awake.

This morning, at least half an hour after I awoke, I remembered pieces of a dream I had last night. I was inside the headquarters building of the first association I ever worked for. The carpet, which had been deep green when I worked there, had been changed to a muted brown and other earth tones, imprinted with architectural abstract images. The walls were no longer white; I can describe them only as modern wood panels. All the door hardware remained as it was in the late 1970s and early 1980s; polished chrome door hinges and handles. The executive director at the time I left, a man who has since died, walked with me down a hallway and talked to me about changes to the building. Another guy who also has since died—he ran the print shop which produced books and magazines—gave me a tour of the offices. The middle of the building, in the section where my secretary had her office, had been removed and opened up to the outdoors. It had been replaced with a tall-grass prairie, which now separated the two long wings of the building. I asked whether an empty lot across the street had always been empty. There was some disagreement about that. Finally, the people with me agreed that a multi-story office building had once stood there, but had been removed.  And that’s all I remember. That was bizarre.

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Shemomechama. It’s an untranslatable Georgian word that means you did not intend to eat so much but you accidentally did. I came across the word while reading an interesting article on BBC.com this morning. It’s an interesting read. I recommend it as a diversion. I have had the experience of shemomechama; not in Georgia, but in several other places. I suspect many people will experience it with their traditional Thanksgiving Day meals tomorrow. Even though my tapas meal should not be terribly filling, it might produce shemomechama.

I went to visit my wife yesterday. It was not what I had hoped and expected. She did not seem at all interested in visiting with me. After a completely unsatisfactory fifteen minutes of unsuccessful attempts to get her to engage in conversation through the window (on our cell phones), I left. I should have been more patient yesterday; she is going through a far more taxing and difficult experience than I am, yet I permitted myself to see me as the victim.

Later, when I tried to call her, either her phone had been turned off or it was out of power. Earlier in the day, before I attempted to speak with her, I asked the director of nursing and director of therapy to have someone assist my wife by having her phone available and the window blinds open at a set time each afternoon so I could go visit. I don’t know if that is going to work.

The problems I have been having with a never-answered phone with the facility, too, were on my list of topics with the staff. After attempting, unsuccessfully, four times to get through to the director of therapy, I finally insisted on speaking to the administrator. I learned that yesterday was the first day for the new administrator; she is now aware of my frustration with the facility’s inadequate phone system and apparently insufficient levels of staffing.

These issues kept me awake last night. I got up for a while at 2:00 a.m., then tried to get back to sleep. I suppose I slept for a short while, but if so it was a very restless sleep. When I finally gave up and got up, just after 5, my neck and shoulders felt tight. Now that I’ve been up a while, the intensity of the aches in my shoulders is impossible to ignore. I have to admit that the shoulder and neck pain could be a result of sleeping on the guest bed again. I’m adding, “replace guest bedroom mattress” to my list of things to—eventually—do.

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The deck is done! I am as happy as I will ever be with the deck, I think, in its present iteration. Only a complete re-decking and replacement of all the railings would satisfy me more. And that could happen only if someone else pays for the project, orchestrates it from start to finish, and has it done while I am away from the house for the week or more the project would require. That is to say, I’ll probably never be happier with the deck.

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The lighting in the workroom behind the garage has been replaced! I can now clearly see how horribly dirty and messy I have allowed the space to get. The upside is that, when I decide to tackle cleaning it up, the new LED lighting will illuminate every inch of the work area. I was amazed at how much brighter the space is with new, extremely bright, LED lights. Hallelujah!

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I have yet to replace the screen on the screen porch. That will happen eventually. When it does, I will replace the indoor-outdoor carpet on the porch floor. Perhaps I will have repainted the wrought-iron furniture by then, too. The never-ending list of household maintenance chores just continues to grow. If I were not so lazy and if my body were only 30 years younger, I might have a chance of getting ahead of the game at some point before the end of this decade. It’s easier to summon the inclination to do the work than to replace my body with a younger one that had been cared for with greater attention to the effects of the abuse I’ve put it through. Hindsight is stunning in its clarity; like looking through a telescope at the moon, versus peering at it through a Coke bottle.

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I missed an announcement from my church, discovering it only as I was preparing to join a Zoom event that, I learned, had been postponed.  After I learned the Zoom meeting would not take place, I tried watching a comedy, The Good Place. It kept my attention for about 30 minutes; by then, though, it began to wear thin. During the evening, I tried watching the Rachel Maddow Show. As much as our political sensibilities mirror one another, and as much as I appreciate her intelligence, I lose interest in watching after a short while because it is so obviously slanted in its presentation. I decided to explore News Nation, WGN’s relatively new all news channel. I’ve never watched it before. I found it both interesting and informative and it seemed to be straight news, without analysis. That appeals to me. But not for long. I finally gave up and worked on financial stuff: recording receipts, organizing bank statements and bills, etc., etc. Only part of those tasks got done; I need another several hours to complete them, to be up-to-date on financial record-keeping.

When I stopped working on financial record-keeping, I poured myself a whiskey. I should acknowledge to myself and the world at large that I am, at times, too damn frugal. Especially when frugality delivers less-than-satisfactory experiences. Rather than a blended whiskey like Seagram’s 7 (which I poured), I should spend the extra money to get a good bourbon like Maker’s Mark. I do, occasionally, but I tend toward the cheaper blended stuff. And I always kick myself for saving a few bucks and sacrificing flavor. Not that Seagram’s is bad; it’s just not as enjoyable (by a  long shot).

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I do not like talking on the telephone. It’s better, though—sometimes—than not talking at all. Last night, I was in no mood to talk on the telephone, but I wished I could invite someone to come share a whiskey with me and talk about insignificant things and earth-shaking philosophical arguments. It seems that everything has to be planned. Spur-of-the-moment activities must be too disruptive to family life. I could have invited someone to come share a whiskey, properly masked and distant, but I would have been concerned that a positive response might have been based not so much on interest but on concern for my well-being, given the issues impacting me of late. And that concern very probably would have colored the tenor of the engagement. The casual element that I find so appealing in conversation would have been missing, thanks to that overriding concern.

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I’ve allowed myself to blather on for far too long. It’s almost seven and I haven’t showered, shaved, eaten breakfast, or finished my coffee. A sin against Man and Nature.

I sometimes so thoroughly confuse myself that correcting my jumbled thoughts takes considerable time and effort.

Recently, as I was watching one of my favorite Finnish television crime dramas, I noticed that the producers showed the wrong title on the show’s credits. That should have made me realize the jumble was in my mind, not on the screen. But it took a while. I looked through my several postings that mentioned the show. In every case (almost), I showed the title (incorrectly) as Borderland.  After checking several sources, I determined that my certainty had been misplaced. The correct title of the series is, in fact, Bordertown. My embarrassment overwhelmed me. I spent about thirty minutes searching my blog for the title I used erroneously, then correcting each occurrence. Not that my blog will ever be considered a true and correct record of anything but the jangled intellectual and emotional barbwire and tar inhabiting my brain. But I wanted the title of that series to be correct so that, later, when I return to read what I’ve written, I will not be as confused as I was before settling on the true and correct title of the series. Sometimes I think I should be euthanized, making the world a safer and saner place.

Last night, that Finnish television series—the one I mistakenly misnamed—came to an end. I finally watched the last episode of the third season. Each hour-long episode was interesting, well-planned, well-executed programming. I hated to see it come to an end. And the final episode was an emotional one, for me. Ach, I am a sucker for stories that grab me by the heart strings in such innovative ways.

What’s next? I don’t know. Mindless laugh-track programming holds absolutely no appeal. Nor do the American versions of crime dramas; they seem so utterly artificial, so thoroughly plastic. Macho cops whose emotions are crafted of tin and peanut brittle and aluminum foil. Blech! Fortunately, I have a long list of prospects, many of which come highly recommended by people whose taste in such stuff I trust and value.

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Yesterday, I had a relaxing, enjoyable, and entertaining brunch with a friend from church, who suggested we meet at Xplore Lakeside, the newish restaurant on Lake Balboa. We got there just as it opened at 11. From the moment we sat down, I felt remarkably comfortable and relaxed. My friend has that effect on people, I think; in her presence, people just feel comfortable and welcome. She exudes charm and ease. I might have felt more comfortable on the deck, from the perspective of avoiding potential exposure to COVID-19, but the air was far too chilly and damp. And we wore masks until we each were served a Bloody Mary.

After lunch, I went home and logged in to a Zoom gathering designed to encourage sharing memorable holiday stories. My story was one of a few that touched on failed attempts to get restaurant meals on holidays. My wife and I have an off-again, on-again tradition of going out for non-traditional holiday meals. One year, at Christmas, we decided to take a spur-of-the-moment road trip. We ended up late Christmas Day in Marble Falls, Texas, where we could not find an open restaurant. We decided to pause our search and check in to a motel, then continue our food quest. The second portion of our food quest was just as  fruitless as the first. Finally, we gave up and stopped at a convenience store, where we bought some frozen bean burritos. We took them back to our motel room, where we planned to microwave them for our Christmas dinner. But the microwave did not work. So we waited until the burritos thawed and enjoyed (that’s not quite the right word) our non-traditional Christmas dinner.

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If the temperature cooperates today, the unpainted treated lumber top railing and the few replacement spindles will be painted today, completing my years-long deck refurbishing project. The painter texted me last night, asking me to bring the paint inside to stay reasonably warm in preparation for painting today. Once he completed that (or maybe before), the painter will transform into handyman and will replace the fluorescent fixtures in the workroom behind the garage with LED fixtures I bought a few days ago.

I had planned to take the car into Little Rock today for its 72,000 mile service, but I rescheduled for a couple of weeks hence. As I looked at my late November and December calendars, I saw several medical appointments: blood draw, CT scan, oncology appointment, surgery two-year follow-up, etc. And I already cancelled another one, which was to remove some annoying skin disturbances with fire (probably not fire, actually, but the doctor said he would burn them off). I guess the point was to have all this done late in the year so they would be covered by the year’s coverage for which a deductible has already been paid. I suspect it’s a bit late to reschedule. But maybe I can reschedule the surgery follow-up to coincide with the car’s service; both are in Little Rock. We’ll see.

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I will attempt today to speak with the administrator of the rehab facility where my wife is undergoing therapy. I have a few bones to pick with the facility, mostly involving communications. But I also question how much therapy my wife is getting and I’d like someone to give me a guess, at least, as to how long she might need to stay. Have I mentioned I am growing increasingly distrustful of rehabilitation facilities for elderly patients?

+++

It’s just after 7. Time to shower, shave, and otherwise prepare for a day that probably does not really require me to be especially clean and presentable. But being clean and properly dressed probably puts me, mentally, in a safer, saner place.

Years ago, when we lived in Chicago, I bought a vinyl album that included Variations on a Theme of Paganini and Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. I played that album over and over and over again. For some reason, I was absolutely entranced by both pieces of music. I remember them as being quite different, but somehow they seemed like bookends; they fit together. I have no idea what happened to that album. I may still have it. But I no longer have a working turntable on which to play it, even if the album is safely tucked away among all the vinyl I kept. Early this morning, I dreamed I was sitting at my big oaken desk in the corner of my basement (neither of which exist), looking through the ground-level window at a snow-covered forest scene, listening to those two pieces of music.  When I woke up, I thought I could still hear the music. But it was my imagination. And I could remember nothing else of the dream.

+++

It’s rare that I read my blog posts on the day I post them. Yesterday, though, I did. A cursory reading revealed quite a few typos and/or unresolved thought conflicts. A thought conflict, in my vernacular, is a decision to write a string of words according to a specific structure that, mentally, changes mid-stream, without correcting the thinking that already flowed through the fingers to the screen. The result, for the reader, may be double words, misplaced words, incoherent sentences, etc. At any rate, my cursory review of the post yesterday led to a few corrections. I did not read the post with the intent of correcting thought conflicts and other such errors, though; so, it could be laced with them, still. If I ever compile my blog posts into a book or other such form of ego-driven consolidation, I will need an editor. I am pretty good at editing others’ work; I am bad, in the extreme, at editing my own.

+++

I had dinner with my next-door-neighbors last night. I am sure I have written before they are genuinely good people. That fact remains. They are generous, kind, and compassionate. I hope they are as assiduous at keeping their distance from others while grocery shopping and otherwise interacting with the world as they suggest. I hope that’s true of me, as well. Most of our dinners in recent months have taken place on their beautiful deck. Last night, though, was too chilly and wet, so we ate inside. They ordered eggplant parmesan for the three of us; from Dolce Vita, the Italian restaurant inside the Village. A slow-paced dinner, nice wine, and wide-ranging conversation was a good way to unwind the day.

This morning, I will have brunch with a friend. I am not a social butterfly; these two back-to-back meals “out” just coincidentally fell into place. Today’s brunch will be the first time, I think, she and I will have had the opportunity to sit down together without a flurry of other conversations taking place all around the table. I look forward to a conversation uninterrupted by interjections by five or six other people. I do not mean that those conversations are not pleasing, as well; but one-on-one conversations (or two-on-one conversations…small groups) are more appealing to me.

+++

Yesterday’s visit with my wife was short. She was unable to look at me without turning her head to look at me outside her window, so most of the conversation was a bit like talking past one another. The content, too, was condensed. She was tired and preferred to sleep than to exert herself by talking with me. Her voice seemed a bit stronger, though, than it had the day before. She had eaten a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, the nurse told me by phone on Friday; my wife told me she had that meal for breakfast yesterday.

I spent a few hours online yesterday, reacquainting myself with the symptoms of congestive heart failure. My wife exhibits most of them. The prognoses for the disease all seem to suggest a gradual and sometimes accelerating progression that leads, ultimately, to extremely complex and invasive treatments in efforts toward survival. Treatments like: heart transplantation; left ventricular assist device (LVAD) implantation; various forms of heart reconstruction like valve repair and revascularization, dynamic cardiomyoplasty, partial left ventriculectomy, and the Acorn procedure, among others. These all follow attempts to achieve deceleration of symptoms through medications, many of which my wife’s cardiologists have tried with varying degrees of success.

The doctors at the hospital where she recently spent two weeks say she can get better through medications and therapy. But therapy requires the body to be fueled. And it requires the body to be capable of achieving strength regeneration. I wish I could have my wife’s cardiologist visit with her for an extended examination and conversation and, then, give me his unvarnished opinion as to her prognosis. But that apparently is impossible without breaking various rules and requiring the doctor to be extremely inconvenienced. That should not be even a remote concern. But it is. And that makes me angry with medicine and healthcare and systemic roadblocks to compassion.

+++

I still haven’t had breakfast. Perhaps, since I’m going to have brunch in two and  a half hours, I shouldn’t. But I should shower and shave. And I should finish my coffee. I got up early enough to wash a load of laundry, dry it, and hang up several shirts. And I played several games of Words with Friends. And I’ve written what I’m now wrapping up. Still, I should have gotten up earlier. I should be finishing this post while the sky is still attempting to break out of the darkness. Only when I have finished my blog post and the sky remains at least only very dimly-lit do I feel unrushed. I like to emerge slowly into the day, watching the sunlight wash over the clouds slowly  (or, on a day like today, seep gently through dense fog). I may have to start using an alarm to wake me at reasonable hours. I wonder whether my age is catching up with me? I still love early mornings best. But do they still love me as much? I suppose I need to keep a journal of my waking hours, tracking whether changes in my waking habits are flukes or, instead, whether they are telling me I need to give up my cherished pre-daylight solitude?

I drove in to Lowe’s yesterday afternoon to pick up three LED light fixtures (replacements for garage workspace fluorescent fixtures). The process was simple; shortly after I bought the products, I received notice they were available for pickup. On closer inspection, I saw I could simply drive to a spot reserved for pickup, call for in-car delivery, and wait. I waited no more than three or four minutes. That’s the kind of shopping I do not mind doing.

On the way home, on a whim, I pulled in to an old-style country barbershop to get a haircut. I say it was a whim. It was a long-simmering whim, one that built slowly over time; a slow-motion spur-of-the-moment decision that had been attempting to hatch for days, if not weeks. Finally, yesterday, the shell surrounding the seed of the idea cracked, releasing a spurt of determination. I vowed, then and there, to stop procrastinating.

I expected to have to wait at the barber shop. Instead, I walked in and, after being asked to exit and place my name and phone number on a sign-in sheet outside the door, was seated immediately. Two of the three barbers awaited customers; I was invited by the younger one to sit in his chair. Everyone in the small shop wore a mask. Between each barber chair, plexiglass dividers hung from hooks affixed to the ceiling. I gave the barber vague instructions that I wanted my hair “pretty short all over, but no whitewalls over the ears.” Apparently, those were the only instructions he needed. Twenty minutes later, my hair was considerably shorter, my eyebrows had been trimmed, and the back of my neck had been treated to a heated foam and straight-razor shave. I was so pleased to have finally lost masses of hair that I gave the barber a $5 tip for a $13 haircut. The only downside to the experience was the fact that the television hanging from the wall was blaring noxious lies from Fox News. That’s the penalty for living in a deep red pocket in a deep red state.

+++

Earlier in the day yesterday, my sister-in-law and I went to visit my wife, parking near the dumpster at the back of the drab facility. Asphalt covers the lot right up to the dull beige concrete block walls of the building. After making several phone calls in an attempt to reach my wife and to get someone to open the blinds so we could see her, we met some success. Our conversation with her was mostly one-way. I wish I knew how to get my wife enthusiastic about something; treatment, the idea of coming home—something. We did not stay long, as there was not much communication taking place. I asked my wife to call me later yesterday evening. She said she would try. I did not get a call. Either she forgot, her phone was not within reach, she fell asleep before making the planned call, or…who knows. I wonder whether this place will be any better than the last one.

+++

I tried watching my riveting Finnish television crime drama series last night, but I could not stay focused on it. I was not engaged by it. Perhaps I’ve lost interest in it, or maybe the episode I attempted to watch last night was not up to the series’ usual standards of quality and intrigue. Or my mood might have been unsuitable for watching it. There could be dozens of reasons. Hundreds, perhaps. At any rate, I watched only part of an episode and then gave up. Before I gave up on the program last night, I attempted to drown what was shaping up as bleak despondency with wine. I texted a friend to inquire about her husband’s medical treatments and then spoke to her for a while. I should have asked whether she uses Google Duo. Seeing her while speaking to her would have improved my mood, I think. But, instead, after our conversation, I read an article on BBC.com entitled “The scarred landscapes created by humanity’s material thirst.” What a cheery way to end the day. Not long after, I went to bed, opting to sleep in the guest room where I could sleep on a queen-sized bed instead of on a borrowed twin bed. Though the twin bed has less room to spread out, it is the more comfortable of the two. I should consider replacing the years-old queen mattress with something more inviting; otherwise, guests will refuse to stay through the night.

+++

Several times during the night, I awoke; howling. Literally howling. I do not know why I was making noises like a wounded beast. But making such odd noises, I was. And sometime during the night I was embroiled in a dream involving some large spaces in the ground floor of a glass-walled office building. The spaces were “decorated” with old clothes hanging on racks, creating hallways or passageways between the hanging garments. At some  point in the dream, I asked a woman from my church where I could find the restroom. She pointed down a half-level set of stairs, to a very long hallway and said “It’s the ninth door on the left. Not the eighth door, not the sixth door, the ninth door.” When I looked down the hallway, I could not make out clearly which spaces were doors and which were spaces between doors. I do not know whether I found the right door.

+++

Apparently, today is Saturday. I should devote at least part of the day to planning next Thursday’s Thanksgiving dinner. My sister-in-law and I will prepare a non-traditional dinner composed of tapas. I have dozens of taps recipes. The challenge will be to narrow them down to a reasonable number (I tend to go overboard) that will produce a substantial but not massive feast-like meal. Before I get too heavily involved in planning, though, I will try to go visit my wife again to see how she’s doing and to see what weekends are like for her. My guess is that the place is on a skeleton staff over the weekend and that it will be on an even smaller staff next Thursday. Perhaps I’ll take her some tapas and celebrate the way we’ve tended to celebrate in years past. Though we’ve done our share of turkey and dressing meals, we rather like doing unusual (for most Americans) meals for Thanksgiving and Christmas; Thai, Chinese, Indian, etc.

+++

I got up late today and got a slow start. Time to move away from the keyboard.

Confusion crept into my day rather early this morning when, at 5:25 a.m., I entered the guest room where a tiny corner desk usually doubles as my study. Today, though, the desktop was nearly naked, absent the computer, keyboard, and mouse. My confusion lasted only moments; I remembered that, yesterday, I had moved the technology to my wife’s much larger desk in her much larger study in preparation for a Zoom meeting. The double glass doors in the guest room bathe the computer screen in too much light, making my image transmitted from the camera unpleasantly bright to other meeting participants. So, I had moved my computer to my wife’s study, where the reflected light from the walnut desk and over-desk credenza bathes me in reflected yellow-orange light, giving me a deeply jaundiced appearance. At least the jaundice is not so bright as to be uncomfortable to other meeting participants.

I have yet to move the computer back to its accustomed spot. My writing may in some way respond to the unusual experience of being in a foreign location. But I doubt it.

Is it not odd, though, that something as inconsequential as the location of a computer’s screen and keyboard can disrupt one’s normal routines? The location is in the same house, yet it feels utterly different. There is no window immediately to my right, so I cannot view predawn darkness. I cannot watch the sky slowly soak up light like a celestial sponge as dawn breaks. The walnut over-desk credenza and the desk upon which my computer screen and keyboard sit are like a dark cocoon that envelopes my experience. They hide the world beyond me from view. They isolate me from the sky; though I know the sky is just beyond these walls and the shades covering the windows, my eyes see no evidence of what my mind tells me.

Before I entered this place cloaked in walnut darkness, I played a few rounds of Words with Friends. That simple game provides enough distraction to transport me away from a troubled world, giving me a brief respite from gnawing, ever-present worry. The idea of gnawing worry triggers an unpleasant recall of an awfully troubling scene from a recent episode of Bordertown: The perpetrator cut a victim’s abdominal skin, then placed a rat on top of the cut and trapped the rat on the abdomen with a metal pot. The metal pot was then subjected to heat from a blow torch, causing the rat to claw into the victim’s midsection in an attempt to escape the searing heat. That’s the image the word “gnawing” brought to mind just now. I wonder whether, henceforth, I will associate Words with Friends with the horrors of a rat clawing through a man’s body cavity. I hope not.

I’ve been thinking about exploring a new hobby: making stained glass art. So far, it’s only a thought. I haven’t obtained any knowledge, nor any materials or skills. But I’m intrigued with the idea. Listening to a man yesterday morning talk about his decision to purchase wood-carving tools so he could explore wood-carving as a hobby rekindled my thoughts about a hobby of my own. I don’t have any hobbies. Blowing leaves does not qualify as a hobby. I feel the need to have a means of releasing my creative energy, aside from writing. Writing, of late, has not satisfied me. I’ve written almost no fiction for months and months. The fiction I’ve written since last year has been splintered and fractured and impossible to weave together into a coherent story arc. I want something else. Something that does not require work for others to appreciate. Reading what I’ve written requires work on the part of the reader. And when that effort leaves the reader with unquenched curiosity or worse, writing becomes more a cudgel than an offering. So, perhaps I’ll explore stained glass. Or, probably more likely, I will think about exploring stained glass and do nothing about it. I have explored many potential hobbies in that way; thought about them at some length, only to eventually abandon them. Not intentionally; the thoughts just seemed to evaporate with the passing of time.

I’ve written before about the fact that I tend to prefer the company of women to the company of men. That’s on my mind this morning, I think, because I spent an hour so so yesterday morning with about ten other men, just talking about what was on our minds. Golf and pickleball and wood-carving were among the subjects covered. In my experience, men rarely talk about things that weigh heavily on their minds or topics that require at least moderately deep analytical thought. Women, on the other hand, seem generally unafraid to expose mental philosophical wanderings. Whether men simply are uncomfortable engaging in conversations that seem overly “feminine” or whether they simply do not have an interest in such matters remains unclear to me, 67 years into this life. I think misogyny—not hatred or distrust but embedded prejudice—plays a significant role in avoiding conversations that veer too sharply into either subjects that are judged feminine or feminine treatment of subject that otherwise might fit into masculine conversations. I just feel more comfortable in the presence of women. I feel that I can safely let my guard down, whereas I am almost always cautious among men, careful to avoid conversations that might lead them to judge me. Maybe that’s a form of misogyny; judging women as less threatening than men. Ultimately, though, I think it’s simply a matter of commonality of interests; I’m more interested in subjects often deemed the province of females than in subjects deemed the province of men. Football, baseball, golf, hunting, etc. appeal to both men and women, but more so to men; except this man. Art, architecture, philosophy, psychology, etc. appeal to both men and women, but more so to women; and to this man.  But it must be more than common interests; it’s the way interests are discussed. I think. Maybe.

I sometimes wonder what I would choose to occupy my time if I lived in total isolation, with no opportunities for any human contact, for a period of years. Would I make art? Would I take up hunting? Would I plant gardens or write? Absent the pressures of socialization and human influence, how would I evolve? There’s that perpetual question again: who am I, under these hundreds of layers of veneers formed in response to all the people whose lives intersect with mine? That’s my hobby. Wondering who I am. And I wonder who lives beneath the façades of all the people with whom my life intersects? Is the world really a stage? And are we all really just players? Shakespeare’s assertions, through his characters, reveal that he was as much a psychologist and anthropologist as a writer.

My mind wanders when I let it. And I almost always let it. Thinking in broad, shallow swaths is appealing. Sometimes, when the shallows grow deep, the waves of thinking can inundate entire days or weeks.

+++

I saw my wife yesterday. She was weak and I could barely hear her words. The therapist was about ready to work with her, so I spent only twenty minutes or so with her. Then, last night, she called me. It was rather early, around six-thirty or thereabouts. Again, her voice was extremely weak. I will try to see her again today and tomorrow. Having no direct contact with her is awfully hard. I cannot measure how much she is eating or drinking. I have to rely on strangers to do that. And I have an automatic wariness of strangers, wondering whether their compassion extends as deeply as I think it should. Hobbies can’t catch hold when one’s mind is on survival.

Chrestomathy. I was introduced to the word yesterday, thanks to Word Genius, which occasionally attempts to improve my vocabulary. A.Word.a.Day, by Wordsmith, highlighted the word in January this year, but I missed it. And forreadingaddicts.co.uk called attention to it in June, but I was unaware of that until this morning. Apparently, the word has attracted quite a bit of interest this year, for reasons that remain unclear to me. The definition of the word is as follows, according to Word Genius: “A selection of passages from an author or authors, designed to help in learning a language.” The correct pronunciation is [kreh-STAH-mə-thee], in case you were wondering. And the etymology of the word, again according to Word Genius, is as follows: Chrestomathy can be traced back to the Greek words “khrēstos,” which means “useful,” and “matheia,” which means “learning.”

+++

After a very long day, and several attempts to reach her after 7:30 last night, I received a phone call from my wife around 9:00. Her voice was weak; almost too weak to understand. I did understand when she said she did not have therapy yesterday. She said she “ate and slept” during the day. I hope she ate more than she has been eating of late. According to the nurse with whom I spoke in the morning, my wife was to be evaluated by the therapists to determine what therapy she needs. I will attempt to speak with therapists today. And I will attempt to speak with the facility administrator, if there is one, to inquire as to why there is only one phone line into the building and why it rang 50 times last night without being answered. I am quickly becoming a fierce critic of rehabilitation facilities geared toward older patients.

+++

I have decided it is time to sell the 2002 Toyota Camry. It needs a good cleaning before I attempt to sell it, but otherwise it needs nothing that I know of. Obviously, we do not need two cars at the moment. We may never need two cars again. If we do, we can deal with that when the time comes. In the interim, I would rather not pay for insurance and upkeep on a car that is not being driven. It’s hard to believe we’ve had that car for almost 19 years; maybe longer, actually. I don’t remember whether we bought it in 2002 or the year before. I am sure, though, we’ve owned that car longer than we’ve owned any other. It doesn’t look quite new, but it’s in remarkably good shape (in my opinion) for a car that’s been on the road that long. The unfortunate reality is that it will not fetch anything like what it’s worth (in the real world); in the world of auto trading, it will get what someone is willing to pay. I’d almost rather give it to someone who needs a car, but we could use the money, given expenses we are incurring. The question, of course, is when I will get around to cleaning it up and deciding how to market it. Lethargy and sloth are not my friends.

+++

Last night, as I was watching an episode of the third season of Bordertown, I paid close attention to the house occupied by the series’ main character, Kari Sarjonen. I paid attention, too, to the furnishings. The architecture is quite modern; lots of glass and stone—straight lines without frills, the sort of architecture I prefer. And the contents, too, were reminiscent of mid-century modern, updated to reflect the latest finishes and materials. And I found the appliances and fixtures intriguing. If Sarjonen’s house is even remotely typical of Finnish housing, I could easily find life in Finland quite appealing, save for the bitterly cold winters and snow. But even the snow, as shown in the series, is pristine white and glistening; nothing like the gritty, dirty snow on the streets of Chicago two hours after it falls. Or, for that matter, the gritty, dirty snow on the streets of the Village. Back when it snowed in the Village. Before the climate transformed Arkansas into a near-tropical winterland. Back to the character of Finland; I want to go there and experience the place for myself. Without COVID-19. And without political intrigue involving Russia. And without neighboring Scandinavian countries morphing into right-wing immigrant-hating cesspools.

+++

Caustic. That’s my mood at the moment. Maybe that’s my mood most moments. I seem to cycle between caustic and mellow, with mellow becoming less and less common. A thirty day hibernation might correct that.

+++

Showering and shaving should be more inviting. They’re becoming more and more like work, for some reason. I’d like to be able to snap my fingers and be clean and close-shaven. No such luck. I have to take the soap and water and foam and sharp blade route. I might as well get to it and get it over with.

My wife was transported to her temporary home yesterday afternoon; she is in the rehab wing of a nursing and rehabilitation center about mid-way between town and the Village. I spoke to her briefly last night; she seemed comfortable in her new surroundings. It’s my understanding that I will be able to see her through a window in her room. I’ll verify that soon. And I’ll put Google Duo (and my wife’s willingness to use it) to the test. The first step for her, I think, will be to eat enough to begin to rebuild her strength; it’s impossible to regain strength without adequate fuel.

+++

After a rather long day yesterday, I was visited by an angel. A friend from church had offered to bring soup to me yesterday and, though I have been feeding myself reasonably well, I accepted the offer. Because I got home considerably later than I had expected, I called and suggested I would be happy to wait to get it until today. She insisted she would bring it by. And I am so very glad she did! It was among the best soups I have ever had. I had envisioned a thick soup  of ground beef and cannellini beans. Instead, it was a delightfully spicy mix of chicken (or was it turkey? I am poultry-knowledge-deficient), garbanzos, and green chiles. And she brought marvelous toasted bread as an accompaniment. I could not have asked for a more perfect meal yesterday. And, to think, I was prepared to be satisfied with a frozen dinner or soup from a can. That meal put me in a much better frame of mind. I hope I can get the recipe.

A week or so ago, another friend dropped by to deliver something I asked her to get for me when I learned she was planning to go to Trade Joe’s in Little Rock. In addition to the requested bag of elote-flavored chips, she came with a bag full of surprise goodies including a sampling of Spanish cheeses and an assortment of antipastos. And, a few days ago, I was the happy recipient of a mango and some persimmons, gifts from a couple of other friends (apparently, my love of food is obvious to those around me).

I feel incredibly fortunate to have found a community of good-hearted people. I’ve lived almost my entire life wondering whether people are, at their core, caring and altruistic or self-involved and selfish. Until I found this cluster of genuinely good people, I leaned toward thinking the latter. But, now, I think I may have been purposely distant, hence my skepticism.  I wonder how many other good people I may have been keeping at arm’s length all these years.

+++

A word popped into my head this morning and refuses to leave: constabulary. I cannot think of a recent occasion when the word was used, either in my personal experience or on television, so I have no idea about its source in my brain. I do not recall ever having used the word, either.

+++

I fell asleep during a phone conversation with a friend last night. I suspect my napping was helped along by a glass of wine, but I think the primary culprit for my nodding off was an overwhelming sense of being thoroughly tired. When I awoke before 4 yesterday, my energy was already at a low ebb. Focusing, as I was, on getting approval for my wife’s admission into another rehab facility had the effect of draining me even more. After awaking from my telephone nap last night, I decided to go to bed early again. I was in bed before 9. This morning, I got up about a quarter to 5 and felt generally rested, though in need of a neck and shoulder massage. I got more sleep last night than is typical for me, which might explain the aching need for a professional masseuse. But I think I slept at an odd angle, which also might explain the aches.

+++

Stacks of receipts, financial paperwork, medical paperwork, etc., etc. have been piling up ever since my wife came home from the old rehab center. The routine I had developed during her absence disappeared with the presence of home care people scurrying around the house. It’s now time for me to catch up on the work I let slip when she was at home and continued to let slide during her stay in the hospital, where I visited her every day. I will give myself a day to relax and be utterly indolent, then I will dive into the delayed paperwork.  Somewhere along the line I also will attempt to get the illusive haircut (I’ve been promising myself for many, many days that I would get a haircut, only to break that promise repeatedly). It reached the point that I attempted to trim the hair over my ears; I discovered (again) that is an unwise endeavor. Soon, though, all these delayed engagements will be tackled. I need to recapture the pattern of productivity.

+++

It’s 6:30. Time to think about breakfast. I wish I had saved some of last night’s soup. That would have made an ideal breakfast, just as it made an ideal dinner.

The hospital was ready to discharge my wife yesterday, but the rehab facility we chose was unable or unwilling to accept her. So, we’re waiting on word from another one. I hope we get word early today. The difficulty in making the decision to go to another rehab facility is that, unlike the hospital, those facilities do not allow visitors. That’s a distinct danger, I think; the isolation has real potential to cause or exacerbate depression. Yesterday, I asked my wife to promise to call me every day and to answer my calls every day. She agreed, but it’s easier to say than to engage the discipline necessary for her to do it. I need an ally inside the facility, someone who will make it their mission to ensure daily communication between us. That will be my mission; finding that person and getting a commitment.

+++

Despite going to bed early again last night and getting up early today, my energy level lags behind where I hoped it would be. I can imagine going back to bed and staying there for several hours. But I can’t do that. I have to go to the hospital to await news of my wife’s rehab destination. The sky, though clear and muted blue, appears drab and somber. Morning light is tinged with a dull hint of darkness, as if a filter is blocking out certain rays of the sun; the ones that spark smiles and glad spirits. Nature has billions of ways to shape one’s moods. Every single shred of the spectrum of color is at Nature’s beck and call; the most accomplished painter is not enough of an artist to compete with Nature’s sophistication and complexity.

It occurred to me just now that Nature has the capacity to create storms without clouds and without rain or wind and without any hint of dynamic air movement or lightning or sounds. Nature can create storms of dull silence, hidden between ordinary molecules. Today seems like one of those invisible storms. Chaos hidden and disguised to appear placid and gentle, but full of unchecked rage. Anarchy in the atmosphere, concealed by artificial tranquility.

Humans get our cues from Nature. Our façades can appear gentle and serene, hiding cauldrons of volcanic pandemonium just beneath the surface. Conversely, we can falsely appear tightly wound and ready to explode into a raging fury, while experiencing supreme calmness within. “Looks can be deceiving.”  “You can’t judge a book by its cover.” There must be more. I’m just unable to think of them.

+++

It is possible to be so tightly wound for so long that the acidic atmosphere inside our brains causes the coils to corrode. They snap but do not immediately come unwound. When the corrosion wears and weakens, though, shattered pieces of pent-up energy spray in all directions, like shrapnel meant to cause maximum trauma. I do not know this to be factual, of course, but I sense that it is a true reflection of what can and sometimes does happen. The worn and weakened coils, when they fracture, illustrate what we mean when we say someone is “broken.” The pieces a person has tried to control have taken on unruly lives of their own, bursting forth in an uncontrolled flash, tearing into everything and everyone in their paths.

+++

My mood this morning could be lighter and brighter. It could be less sinister and more cheerful. I will try to sparkle a bit. Not so much like broken glass, but like polished costume jewelry.

Yesterday, as usual, the television in my wife’s hospital room was tuned to The Food Network while she drifted in and out of sleep. And, as usual, I divided my time between the harder-than-I-would-like-sofa and the not-as-bad recliner/sleeper positioned so it can operate as neither; it functions only as a chair.

When I was ready to leave for the day, as the afternoon was nearing four o’clock, my wife asked me to lean in so she could tell me something (her voice is extremely weak at the moment). She told me she thought she experienced a hallucination sometime earlier in the day. I inquired for details. She explained she thought she was at a Willie Nelson concert and he was playing music from The Muppets. The idea that she was having hallucinations concerned her quite a bit. She’d had similar concerns a day or two earlier. I asked why she thought it was a hallucination and not just a dream. She wasn’t sure. It was a vague sense, she said.

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” I told her. “I suspect it was just a dream. Even if not, you’re taking so many medications it wouldn’t surprise me to learn some of them might interact to cause vague hallucinations.”

Then, she mentioned that Willie Nelson was singing Rainbow Connection. That triggered my own vague memory. Sometime during the day, while my eyes were closed, I heard a country-style vocal of Rainbow Connection.

“It wasn’t a dream! While I was drifting in and out of sleep, I heard someone on television singing that! You weren’t hallucinating. You just heard the music while you were half-asleep. It wasn’t Willie Nelson, but it was a country singer.”

And that settled that. But I kept thinking, all night, that maybe Willie Nelson had, in fact, recorded Rainbow Connection. This morning, after I showered, shaved, had my coffee, and took care of some financial matters, I searched for “Willie Nelson” and “Rainbow Connection.”  And here’s one of the several hits I found:

I was certain my wife was not hallucinating. And I was certain she had not heard Willie Nelson. But certainty was improper in one of those determinations. I will show my wife the video today. I hope it makes her smile.

Finally, I spoke to a couple of doctors yesterday. One was a hospitalist (I think) whose demeanor was more like a patient care technician; soft-spoken, compassionate, and caring. I thought she came into the room to get water for my wife and ask whether her pillows needed adjustment. But she was the rare physician who engaged fully as an equal. The other was a palliative care physician who, similarly, was an engaging listener and who seemed equally as caring and concerned. Both spent more time with us than I am used to spending with doctors, especially in a hospital setting.

I learned yesterday that my wife’s medical condition has sufficiently stabilized that the doctors think she should be ready for discharge within the next few days; perhaps as early as today or tomorrow, depending on plans for where she will go upon discharge. We were told she will need 24/7 care for the immediate future and, depending on progress, for much longer. After listening to the palliative care doctor speak about options, my wife said she wants to go to a rehabilitation center to try to recover her strength before going home. She will not return to Good Sam; both of us were firm about that. Not knowing much about any other facilities, we opted to ask the social worker to explore a newer (within the last two or three years) facility about ten or twelve miles outside the Village. Like other skilled nursing and rehab facilities, patient visits are not permitted due to COVID-19, but I told my wife I would insist she learn to use an app on her phone that will allow us to see and speak to one another daily.  So, we wait until we know more about next steps.

+++

I remain convinced that nursing and rehabilitation facilities, under COVID-19 rules, are being forced to engage in dangerous practices that are injurious to their patients. Those practices keep patients socially isolated and treat them like unruly prisoners forced to spend time in solitary confinement. Some facilities are making what seem to me to be half-hearted efforts to overcome isolation by allowing rather rare “window” visits and video visits, but they are not exploring truly creative ways of allowing patients really meaningful contacts with other human beings.

I remember, years ago, learning about the “boy in the bubble” whose immune system was utterly compromised so he could have no physical contact with other people and who had to be kept in a sterile environment. Paul Simon wrote a song about the child, Boy in the Bubble, in the mid-1980s. As I recall, the hospital/doctors/scientists created a sterile bubble environment that enabled the child to experience at least some of the joys of childhood while being kept safe from harmful germs. Sadly, the boy died before he reached his teenage years, but use of his blood cells led to treatments that saved other children from his sad fate. NASA engineers, I think, were involved in creating the environment that allowed the boy to live an admittedly unnatural but as-close-to-natural experience as possible for several years. Given the horrors of COVID-19 and its impact on the mental health of people who must be kept in isolation, I think the same creativity used to enable the boy to live for years should be brought to bear to protect the sanity and well-being of people in nursing and rehab facilities.

Our country’s culture has changed dramatically since that time, though. That was a time when we took enormous pride in accomplishing the impossible, the costs be damned. Today, it seems to me cost-benefit analyses replace immeasurable compassion in so many aspects of our lives. It’s depressing to think we might dismiss the idea of spending a few million dollars that could improve or save the lives of so many people because “it’s not worth the expenditure.” What a hideous attitude.

+++

My energy this morning is at a low ebb this morning. Regardless, I need to get to the hospital before too long, just in case they sped through the process of rehab placement. And I have to go to the post office soon after it opens, as well. A package I took to the P.O. to “refuse delivery” apparently got put back in the system; I had a notice in my mailbox yesterday that a package from the company was being held at the P.O. because I owe $13+ in postage. Ach! Why aren’t the simple things simpler?!

Until this morning, the term “anxiety attack” was etched into my consciousness. But it occurred to me moments ago that it’s called “panic attack.” Right? Whatever the term, until  yesterday, I had heard of them but, as far as I know, I had never experienced one. And that may still be true, but an experience yesterday morning convinced me I had one (and I’m pretty confident of it).

The morning was flowing along relatively smoothly, except for periodic flutters of worry about my wife; wishing I could talk to her to ask how she was feeling, but not wanting to call and wake her, if she was sleeping. Finally, around 9:30 I left the house  to visit her in the hospital. About a block from the house, waves of sensations sweep over me: heartburn, lightheadedness, heaviness in my arms, aching jaws, and a sense of fear or dread or…something. The sensations scared me; I thought for a moment I might be having a heart attack. But I doubted that aching jaws and lightheadedness and vague fears were symptomatic of a heart attack. I decided to ignore them and keep driving. But after driving another block or so, the symptoms continued and seemed to get stronger, so I made a circle and headed for home.

By the time I got the car into my garage, I felt like I might pass out. I thought about calling 911, but something prompted me to just sit in the car and rest. After two or three minutes, the symptoms had all but disappeared. I got out of the car, went into the house, and grabbed some Tums. Another couple of minutes and I was fine; no more sensations at all. I decided my experience was my first and only anxiety/panic attack. I am not sure what convinced me that’s what it was, but it seemed logical to me. I had been under stress, I had been worried, and I had allowed all sorts of issues to claw at me; it was anxiety, distilled into a powerful potion.

A while after I got to the hospital (where I found my wife sleeping), I decided to send a text to a retired nurse friend to ask whether such symptoms were likely symptoms of an anxiety attack. Fortunately, she did not see the text until a few hours later; otherwise, I might have taken her advice and gone downstairs to the ER (she texted back that they were indicative of a heart attack and, then, almost immediately called me). By the time I had written my text, though, I had already decided it was nothing. By the time she got back to me by phone, I was certain of it. But after speaking with her, I decided it was not especially bright to have made the decision I made. Even though it would have been a false alarm, it would have been far wiser to have let medical professionals make the determination, rather than making it myself. Lesson learned.

+++

Most of my four and a half hours at the hospital yesterday were spent in my wife’s dark room while she slept. She woke briefly to eat some yoghurt, drink some cranberry juice, take some pills, and ask to be repositioned on the bed; most of the time she slept while the Food Network attempted to entertain me.

During one brief interlude, a social worker peeked in and asked me to come chat. about plans for my wife, post-hospitalization. The outcome of the conversation was for her to commit to arranging a meeting for me with members of a hospice team, who will explain to me the pros and cons of hospice care. The social worker has no idea how long my wife will be in the hospital; she said “the doctors wanted me to talk to you about your plans when your wife is released.” She suggested a nursing facility would be appropriate because “she will need 24/7 care.” I rejected that suggestion. My wife does not want to be in a nursing facility. She confirmed that to me a little later. And I have yet to speak to a doctor about my wife’s prognosis and whether she might regain enough strength to stand or move from a bed to a chair. Frankly, I do not think I will place my trust in doctors who have not, to date, taken the time to actually visit my wife (at least to my knowledge and hers), opting instead to make decisions on the basis of third-party reporting and machine-captured data.

+++

I came home to find my “yard guy” working on relocating a fifty-thousand ton pile of approximately 200 trillion leaves from the lot next to my house. He hauled them down the mountainside, where he deposited them into the forest. I suspect deer will wade into those leaves, disappearing completely until Spring, when rain will wash away their crypts, leaving only perfectly preserved skeletons. The piles are very, very deep.

+++

Finally, I finished the last couple of episodes of Deadwind. I mourn for the completion of the lengthy binge. I turned back to Bordertown, knowing that series, too, is nearing the end. I am forlorn. But my Mexican sister-in-law has recommended Hinterland, a British police drama, so I shall try that. She mentioned others: The Unforgotten, Vera, Shetland, Happy Valley, and DCI Banks. I’ve seen Happy Valley, but cannot find the others on Netflix. However, I found Forgotten, a Korean crime-drama involving a mysterious kidnapping, so I’ll add that to my list. And I’ll search Amazon Prime for the others; I rarely go to Amazon Prime, which is probably an unfortunate oversight. Apparently, I need escapist entertainment; things so remote from my life that they transport me to other countries to immerse myself in experiences unlike any I have ever had nor will ever have. It is not simply entertainment for me, I think. It is a means of retaining my sanity by erasing my worries, at least for a while.

+++

Still no haircut. But today may be the day.  I told my wife yesterday I would delay my visit until a bit later, hoping to be in her presence when she is more likely to be awake. So, I will try to time my departure from the house and my arrival at the hospital to allow me ample time to visit Happy Clips or whatever it’s called. For some reason, I suspect the chain haircut place will be more likely to insist on masks that the down-home barber shop I used to frequent. But I could be wrong, in which case I will turn around. I could cut my own hair with pinking shears, perhaps triggering people in these parts to want that unique local hairstyle, “the one the Village geezer created.” Delusions of insignificance.

+++

I am in the mood for a thick ribeye steak, grilled rare over mesquite embers and served with a side of slices of Beefsteak tomatoes and purple onions, alongside a generous helping of cold pickled asparagus, with a nice glass of cabernet sauvignon or malbec. I gladly would have that for breakfast. But I do not have the steak, the tomatoes, the onions, nor the asparagus. I don’t have adequate mesquite, either, so I may have to settle for cereal. I wonder whether malbec pairs well with bran flakes?

+++

Aljazeera online is reporting that: Moroccan troops are launching operations in the Western Sahara border zone; Ethiopia has appointed a new leader for the Tigray region amid reports of civilian massacres; Algerians approved a new constitution; and French troops killed the commander of an al-Qaeda-linked group in Mali. These are headline stories on Aljazeera, but they get little or no mention in U.S. media.  Nor is the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war, an armed conflict between Azerbaijan and the self-proclaimed Republic of Artsakh in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Until this morning, I knew virtually nothing of these very consequential events because I had not taken the time to take a break from the highly filtered reporting to which we are exposed in U.S. media and to look, instead, at some of the news other people around the world consume. It frustrates me that we think the media keeps us informed; the media keeps us aware of a narrow band of news the media judges of sufficient interest and importance to share with us. I applaud the media as far as it goes, generally; but I give U.S. media low marks on keeping us informed about the world outside our insulated bubble.

+++

I will approach the remainder of this day with a positive attitude. That is the best I can do. I hope it pays dividends.

This morning, when daylight begins creeping over the horizon and sunlight touches the treetops, I will drive to the car wash and give the Subaru a bath. The exterior, at least, will then be sufficiently clean to be presentable. The removal of a million bug splatters, from tiny through small and with a few large ones thrown in, will change the appearance of the car. I suspect removing the remains of bug corpses will reduce the car’s weight and improve gas mileage. And I will be able to see through the windshield. If I had the energy and discipline, I would clean the inside of the windows; but I have neither, so I will just deal with the reduced vision that comes along with windows coated with breath film.

After the cleansing, I may stop in at Walmart, if the store is open by then, and pick up some eggs. Somehow, I let the egg supply dwindle to dangerously low levels. I’m sure I could use plenty of other groceries, but I’ve been worse than lax about keeping track of what I’m using up. A more complete list will require more focus than I am willing to give to the task at the moment. Laziness fills every empty space in my head of late; that must stop.

I’ve made a deliberate decision about this morning’s ritual; I will not shave today. It requires too much attention and too much effort. I need that effort and attention to go toward washing the car and buying eggs. There’s only so much to spend. I think I will wash my hair, though. My beard is thin enough and grows slowly enough that a day without shaving is noticeable only to me and to anyone touching my face and neck. People rarely touch my face and neck, so there’s not much danger of my beard being noticed. My hair, on the other hand, needs its daily shampoo. If I skip that important activity for just a day, my hair looks like it has not been in touch with shampoo for several weeks. Not a pretty sight.

After getting the car washed and buying the eggs, I will return home for a while to have more coffee. My sister-in-law, whose coffee maker abruptly quit working earlier this week, will come for her morning cup of coffee and we will discuss the latest about her sister/my wife. And, then, I will head in to Hot Springs. My first stop may be at Happy Clips or whatever the haircut chain near Lowe’s is called, assuming I can get in without a wait. If not, I will take my unkempt head of hair to the hospital , where I’ll visit with my wife. If I can get a quick haircut, I’ll surprise my wife with a new, nicely-trimmed, look. And then I’ll let the day take me where it will.

My mood this morning is not awash in flippancy, despite the style of writing I’m employed in this post thus far. As forecast yesterday afternoon, I did not sleep at all well last night. I think I set a record for pee-break-interrupted-sleep. And I checked the clock roughly every fifteen minutes to see whether it was time to get up. Finally, at 5, I decided it was time to get up. At 4, I refused to get up, insisting to myself that I would, by God, get an hour of sleep before rising. I did not get that sleep. But I made note of the absence of sleep at 4:15, 4:30, and 4:45. Like clockwork. Haha. I suspect I may fall asleep in the chair in my wife’s hospital room, mirroring her naps during the day.

Hmm. Maybe I can tolerate unwashed hair for just a day. Perhaps I can tolerate the judgment of the washed and preened masses. Maybe I can endure their disapproving stares as they conclude I must be just another derelict; a sorry vagrant whose value can be measured in worn pennies.

Off I go.

Time got away from me this morning. I had planned on going to the hospital to visit my wife much earlier, but did not get there until about 10:40. She was asleep when I arrived and I had to work hard to wake her. That was an unwise move; she was not happy to have her sleep interrupted. After a few attempts to understand her very weak voice, I got the message; she was displeased with me for failing to listen to her admonitions to stop asking her how she was doing. That, despite the fact that I asked only once. I let her go back to sleep for about an hour and a half, when the nurse came in to transfuse a unit of blood into her arm. The explanation, the nurse said, was that my wife’s red blood count was very low. That, she further explained, can cause extreme tiredness, confusion, and other symptoms that generally spell discomfort. I left the room while the nurse was orchestrating the transfusion, opting to go downstairs and get lunch in the cafeteria.

A while later, the tech arrived with food—finely diced roast beef awash in gravy, along with whipped potatoes and diced cooked carrots. My wife loathes cooked carrots; after the tech learned this from me, and my wife, she swept them to the side of the plate. The tech then spent twenty minutes or so feeding my wife roast beef and potatoes, until my wife said she had eaten enough. After a while, my wife engaged me in a bit of conversation before she asked to have a tech come adjust her in bed so she could be more comfortable. We chatted just a bit more before sleep overtook her again, after brief periods of watching some shows on the Food Network. I woke my napping but not sleeping wife around 4:00 p.m. to tell her I was going home. Before I left, though, I put the newspapers, magazines, and Sudoku puzzle book on her overbed table, within reach and wished her good night. “Call me anytime you’d like,” I told her. I told her I would not try to call her, though, to avoid waking her. She appreciates being left uninterrupted; she received my assurance well.

When I got home, I had a message from the social worker at the hospital. I assume she wants to talk to me about what my plans are when my wife is discharged from the hospital, an eventuality whose time frame is completely unknown to me. I tried to call her, but it was nearing 5:00 p.m. and I got her voice mail. I expect to talk to her tomorrow.

My wife was much more alert and awake yesterday and the day before than today; today’s lethargy probably is due to her low red blood cell count. The nurse does not know the cause of the low blood count; they will continue to explore possibilities tonight and tomorrow, she suggested.

I know already I will not sleep especially well tonight. Leaving the hospital with concerns about my wife’s extreme tiredness and her inexplicably low red blood cell count is sure to translate into insomnia or, at the very least, anxiety-ridden shallow sleep. Perhaps a gin and tonic or three will remedy that prospect.

The plan today was to buy gasoline, get a haircut, wash the car, and visit the grocery store. What the hell was I thinking? How could I possibly do those things and also spend several hours at the  hospital? Not impossible, but I felt—and feel—thoroughly worn out when I got home; in no mood to go grocery shopping, stop for gas, or get the car washed. I will ask Alexa to remind me early tomorrow to go do my errands before I stumble into the day. Someone stumbling upon this post might assume Alexa is my mistress. No, I do not have a mistress at present. Does that statement convey sufficient ambiguity, enough to cause tongues to wag and faces to flush?

This morning, I allowed myself to think my wife’s improvement upon moving from the ICU to a standard room on a regular hospital floor was the beginning of what could be a complete recovery or, at least, a recovery that will allow her to leave her bed and spend enjoyable and productive time in her wheelchair. But I do not know what to think today. I do not know if I dare get my hopes up. On the other hand, I do not want pessimism to interfere with progress. Sitting here in my house, alone with my thoughts, I feel isolated and distant from everyone. As lonely as that is, I think I’d rather be lonely than feel obligated to engage in conversation with anyone. The middle ground, the physical presence of a person who does not feel compelled to talk to me or to hear me talk, would be ideal. I suppose that’s why some people find blow-up dolls appealing. As weird as it is, perhaps they see that artificial human as a surrogate who does not require anything from the human “companion,” but who offers some strange form of solace to that companion. Here I am again, psychoanalyzing people I do not know, have never met, and about whom I know virtually nothing. Why do I not feel more embarrassed than I do to intrude on lives that do not need me to invade them?

One gin and tonic down. More to follow.

Is there a term for the inability to remember any details of a precise recent memory of a long-buried recollection? Yesterday, and again today, on two separate occasions, two different flashes of memory from my childhood popped into my head. Both occurrences involved events or emotions I feel quite certain I had not thought about in fifty or sixty years; maybe more. And both were crystal clear for several seconds. Yet, almost as soon as I recognized them as real—legitimate snapshots of fleeting moments in my life—they were gone, leaving only a deep imprint in my brain of the absence of a clear memory. I know only that those memories were real; but I do not know what they were about. I do know, though, they did not involve life-changing events; they simply cataloged moments of experience. They were neither especially relevant nor particularly irrelevant. The experiences were like sorting through a huge box of old photos and seeing a couple of pictures that expressed the mundane reality of an unimportant activity; like a photo of a child sitting on a swing set or standing proudly next to a misshapen sand castle on a stretch of empty beach.

Even though I am confident the two images that flashed through my mind were, indeed, mundane and not otherwise meaningful, I think they expressed to me something profound about my early life. And maybe, if only I could remember them, they would help explain who I am today. Those two concepts are at odds with one another; I know that. How could a fleeting memory of a meaningless experience have such a potentially profound impact on one’s personality and/or the way one’s life has played out over five or six decades?

How, indeed. Maybe I’m making far more of what may be only a misfiring synapse than it deserves. Maybe that’s all those memories were; misdirected nerve impulses that ricochet off of artificial memories. Artificial memories do exist; I’ve had more than my share of them. I remember events that never happened—could never have happened. These memories are similar in many respects to déjà vu. According to an article in Scientific American, déjà vu might be explained like this:  “We encounter a situation that is similar to an actual memory but we can’t fully recall that memory. So our brain recognizes the similarities between our current experience and one in the past. We’re left with a feeling of familiarity that we can’t quite place.” Perhaps that sort of error in memory processing can explain my two strange “memories” from my childhood. Or, perhaps not.

+++

I spent four and a half hours with my wife yesterday, helping her eat some “thickened” chicken broth and some vanilla-flavored Greek yoghurt. The pureed chicken breast and whipped potatoes she asked me to order went untouched. In fact, she claimed she did not ask me to order them; but when, after the order-taker on the other end of the telephone asked me whether my wife wanted gravy, my wife responded to me that she did. I hope a more appealing meal appeared after I departed. I thought I had to leave by 3:30 in order to get to return a “wedge” (used to help position bedridden people to avoid bed sores)  to the Village Health Mart; as it turned out, the wedge had to go to the pharmacy, not the medical supplies store. Long, convoluted, uninteresting story. At least I got it returned and, if all goes according to plan, will see a $46 credit on the credit card I used for the purchase. (I bought two; only needed on…a smaller one, at that.)

+++

Despite promising myself I would make congee today, I did not. Instead, I made a chicken and rice dish last night, using the Instant-Pot. I ate more chicken and more rice last night than I should eat in three days; apparently, I was ravenously hungry. I have had only coffee this morning. That probably will suffice; I’m still digesting from last night’s glutton-fest. I ate while I watched another episode of Deadwind. I’m beginning to understand a few words in Finnish. Give me another season or two and I may be able to successfully converse with the locals after I move to Helsinki. I think I might enjoy a job as a Finnish homicide detective. This assumes, of course, the television series portrays (like American television) absolutely realistic experiences.

+++

I took a pause from writing to shower and shave, take the trash to the street, and drive to the post office to pick up several pieces of mail. Most of the mail was marketing materials of no interest to me. When I got back to the house, my sister-in-law came by to borrow nutcrackers and to have a cup of coffee. Her coffee maker died. Until a replacement arrives later this week, she will rely on me for a cup each morning. She says the replacement is orange (she could have chosen teal or one of a couple of other colors). The one she bought has no water reservoir; it produces a single serving based on the amount of water one pours into the machine. And that exhausts my knowledge of her replacement coffee maker, soon to arrive.

+++

If the universe is properly aligned today, I will get a haircut before the day is out. First, I will go to the hospital to visit my wife and will take the magazines, etc. I promised to take yesterday, but left on the kitchen island, instead. When I returned home yesterday, I put them on the passenger seat; I wish I could set a reminder to myself to pick them up and take them inside once I arrive at the hospital. I do not trust myself to think clearly enough to ensure I take them inside. Whether I get a haircut today or not does not matter a great deal. I can live with my shaggy, unkempt look for a while longer. If my hair becomes sufficiently annoying, I am capable of using scissors to remove the offending strands, stopping them from dangling in my eyes and tickling my forehead.

+++

The sky is brilliant blue this morning and the temperature is just a tad over fifty degrees. A long sleeve shirt, sleeves rolled up a bit, over a t-shirt is adequate to keep me comfortable.  It’s almost a quarter after nine, five hours into the day. I should have accomplished more thus far this morning. But what do I really need to do? The house needs cleaning. That will wait, though. It will still be here—ready for vacuums and mops and other implements of housekeeping—when I return. Whether my mood will support the need to do housekeeping remains to be seen.  Off to face the day.

After six nights in ICU, and just after I arrived at the beginning of ICU visiting hours, nurses transferred my wife to a regular floor yesterday afternoon. Her blood pressure had stabilized enough, without the aid of IV medications, for the hospitalist (I assume) to judge her safe to remove from 24/7 close monitoring.

The process of readying her for the transfer was fairly lengthy, involving the removal of heart monitor lead wires from her. It also involved the extraction of a main line (the entry point for multiple IV drip lines) from her neck, among other wires and tubes tethering her to monitoring devices and sources of medication delivery. After she settled into her new—much quieter—room, she was able to order some food and drink, though not precisely what she wanted. Her diet is, for the moment, restricted to pureed foods and thickened liquids. The reason is that the muscles for swallowing have become weakened; until they regain adequate strength, she had a very difficult time chewing and swallowing food. So, for now, she can get roast beef, ham, beef patties, turkey, and other meats, but they are in the form of purees. And her cold tea comes, thickened, in a sealed container in response to the aphagia. I hope that affliction is short-lived.

I stayed with her well beyond my intended departure at 4:30, leaving around 6 or thereabouts. She watched a rather interesting baking competition program on the Food Network, apparently enjoying the efforts of contestants to create complex Christmas cookies and such stuff. We talked a bit, too, though I still have a hard time hearing her, because her voice is so weak.

Last night, as I was watching another episode of Deadwind (I’m taking a break from Bordertown), the land line rang. It was my wife, calling on her cell phone; a truly happy and unexpected event! As far as I know, she has not used her phone at all the entire six days she has been in the hospital (I took it to her a couple of days after her admission to the ICU), so it was a pleasant surprise to hear from her last night. She said she would call me this morning to let me know when she wants me to come visit (regular visiting hours are considerably longer than the hours available for ICU visits). And she wants me to bring some reading materials and her sudoku puzzle book. I hope this sudden burst of energy and interest portends the start of a strong recovery. Crossing my fingers.

+++

The only downside of hospital visits these past six days has been the inability (and lack of energy) to plan nutritious meals for myself. I have not wanted to thaw food that I have neither the time or the energy to prepare when I get home, so I’ve been winging it. The pasta night before last was fine, but otherwise my meals have been either snacks or one-component dinners, like last night (a quick-thawed cube steak cooked rare on the stovetop). Several members of my church had planned a “meal train” which involves preparing and delivering a full meal several times a week, but my wife’s sudden trip to the ICU derailed that train (I should be punished for that) for obvious reasons. People still want to help, but uncertainty about when I will be home, among other things, makes food preparation and delivery impossible to plan. That notwithstanding, I need to get in the habit of organizing quick and simple-to-prepare and nutritious meals for myself. It’s not hard; I just have to get in gear and do it. A single short trip to the grocery store will enable me to get all I need. I think today is the day for that trip. So, it is done; the plan is in place.

+++

One of the episodes of Deadwind last night introduced me to a phrase and a concept I find fascinating. The episode’s title is Whisper of the Stars. The phrase, in the context of the Finnish series, is an awfully macabre one, but its origin is not. A book of the same title, by Janine Scott, addresses the phenomenon. An article from Wall Street International Magazine has this to say about the experience, in relation to an exhibition held in 2014 at the Horniman Museum and Gardens in Forest Hill, London.:

The name of the exhibition, Whisper of the Stars, comes from Sakha Republic (Yakutia) in Eastern Siberia, where the extreme winter cold creates a strange phenomenon. When the temperature drops below the mid minus-50s Celsius, a soft whooshing sound can sometimes be heard, like rice or grain being poured. This noise is caused by the moisture in one’s own exhaled breath turning to ice crystals in the cold dry air. The native Yakut people call this the whisper of the stars.

The phrase, quite apart from the phenomenon it describes, appeals to me. For me, it conjures ideas based not in physical realities but, instead, in magical dimensions beyond my understanding; the idea tests my certainty about the physical world, suggesting a connection between the universe beyond me and the world I see and experience daily. It’s almost mystical, which flies in the face of everything I believe. Odd, that.

+++

The word “whisper” has an odd appeal to me. I use it in such different ways, depending on context, but no matter the context, it has an inexplicable magnetism about it. Different words have had that same allure for me over the years. The words change; their draw ebbs and flows, but certain words seem to have an unusual charisma for me for a time. Eventually, their attraction fades, but for a while they occupy my mind and capture my attention in ways I cannot explain. I just find them attractive and thought-provoking. Whisper is such a word, for now. I’ll reserve the word to serve as a character name for a piece of fiction I will write one day. Whisper Kneeblood, perhaps. A relative of Calypso Kneeblood, the man I model after the man I sometimes wish I were. Maybe. Maybe not.

+++

Though I did not wake up as early this morning as I did yesterday, I was awake long before I got out of bed at 5, though “awake” might be stretching it; I was between dreams and fantasies and wakefulness. I distinctly remember noticing that I had left the light on in the master bedroom closet; I distinctly saw a shaft of light spilling from the vertical gap between the door and the frame. But when I actually got out of bed, intending to go turn out the light, the closet was dark. I flipped the switch to make sure the light had not burned out; it came on. The light had not been on, but I saw it quite clearly in my threshold consciousness. But, obviously, I did not see it at all. One’s mind can play convincing tricks on itself.

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Again, I wish I had made congee last night. I will add that to my to-do list for this evening; I hope to pay attention to it. I already feel the satisfaction of having a nice warm bowl of congee in t he morning. I’ll flavor it with ground pork, fried shallots, green onions, soy sauce, Sambal Oleek, and over-the-top amounts of freshly-grated ginger root. I could do it this morning, but I won’t, will I? No, I’ll probably poach an egg, instead. Or maybe soft-boil an egg. If I don’t get in gear, I’ll do nothing of the sort. So, enough finger pumping for this morning. On to tackle the day.

Whether the culprit was the 6.5-ounce can of minced clams, the remnants of the week-old half-can of diced tomatoes, or the similarly aged half can of tomato sauce that went into last night’s pasta sauce for dinner, I do not know. Or maybe it was the Italian spices or the crushed red peppers. Perhaps none of them deserve blame. Something, though, has been causing my stomach to growl and gurgle these last few hours, beginning sometime around 2:00 a.m. I finally gave up my attempts to get back to sleep around 4:30, when I arose to discover I had not organized my medications for the week. Rather than do the work then, I opted to put off taking my meds until I feel more fully awake and alert. So, I went in to the kitchen to make coffee. There, I realized my lethargy is not new; it began last night, when I casually rinsed my dinner dishes, rather than wash them. They waited for me in the sink, scolding me for being lazy last night and demanding I take action this morning. So, I washed the cookware and put the dinnerware in the dishwasher, punishment for failing to take appropriate action last night. I hate waking up to dirty dishes in the sink; I have only myself to blame.

Pasta takes far too long to cook. Twelve minutes can seem like twelve hours when one feels ravenously hungry and inexplicably exhausted. And the twelve minutes begins only after the water begins to boil, a process—from turning on the heat to reaching a rolling boil—that seems to last as long as adolescence. It’s a good thing I like my pasta al dente; if I liked it soft and slimy, I would still be waiting.  The right time to cook pasta, I think, is early in the day, long before one plans to eat it. Then, when it’s time for dinner, it can be popped into the microwave with a few splashes of water and, presto, it’s ready in a flash. At least that’s how I envision it. I don’t think I’ve ever reheated pasta; I tend to enjoy it cold, if it’s not freshly prepared.

Food was on my mind sometime during the night last night, either in my dreams or while I was battling my growling innards. I was wrestling with a decision on how to cook meat loaf; if I permitted it to spread out, it would not fit in the oven, but if I did not allow it to spread out, it would be too thick to cook throughout. I think it must have been a dream; it makes absolutely no sense. The night before, I was in a similar nonsensical situation; sitting in a rowboat in a placid body of water, viewing a glass and steel elevator at the water’s edge. I do not need irrational dreams to complicate my life; it is complex enough without them.

Last night when I got home from visiting my wife in the hospital, I was quite tired. Even though I stayed only three and a half hours, it seemed longer; probably because she was asleep most of the time and I simply sat at her bedside, occasionally reading or rereading email or just fidgeting. A nurse told me it’s possible my wife will be moved to a regular floor, out of ICU, today. That’s assuming her blood pressure remains in safe limits without IV medications. The nurse said my wife did not require the medications for most of the day yesterday, a good sign her sepsis is healing.

I took a container of watermelon balls to the hospital, hoping to give my wife something she would enjoy eating. When I got there, though, someone (a dietician?) was evaluating my wife’s swallowing, trying to figure out what causes her to cough when she is trying to eat or drink. The woman doing the evaluation told me my wife, for the time being, should eat only soft foods and liquids that had added texture until her aphagia has been addressed. My wife has grown so weak, she said, the muscles she uses to swallow have begun to atrophy; those muscles need to be strengthened before she can safely swallow food that must be chewed. Ach! My wife cannot get a break from all this!

The haircut I did not get several days ago still eludes me. Today, Monday, is a traditional rest day for barbers, so I will not get my haircut today, either. Tomorrow is iffy, in that I do not know what to expect from the hospital; the doctors may opt to release my wife, rather than keep her on the regular floors. I just don’t know. Better, then, not to make any plans; that way, I will not have to cancel them.

My fantasy life seems to be in odd bloom lately. Mostly, it plays out when I go to bed, before I go to sleep. I envision myself in a secluded and remote location, in a private lakeside house; the lake is private, too. It belongs to me. The architecture of the house combines mid-century modern with contemporary design. I feel safe and alone. A small dog keeps me company. I am lonely, but I cannot figure out why. I am not asleep during this fantasy, but not fully awake and aware, either. It repeats with some regularity, though the location varies slightly from time to time. And, on occasion, I interact with visitors, though I cannot recall who just now. Sometimes, in my fantasy, I work crossword puzzles. A day or so ago, one of the clues was “carefree.” I wrote “insouciant.” I think insouciance was a “Word of the Day” recently, so that explains that; it’s not a word I would have remembered from my own vocabulary. I probably will not remember the definition a month from now.

Lazy. That’s the way I feel at this moment. The idea of shaving and taking a shower does not appeal to me; too much effort is involved. But I will do it, nonetheless. I have to get it over with. First, I’ll have something for breakfast. I wish I had made congee last night; congee strikes my fancy this morning. But it takes too long and too much effort. So, I will have something simpler; like cereal or a banana or a protein bar, if I can find one. Lethargy. Laziness. Sloth. My photo appears beside each of those words in the New American Dictionary of Impoverished Emotions.  Enough. Absolutely enough.

It is true; anxiety has the capacity to sap one’s energy in much same way as insomnia and lack of rest can drain one’s stamina. One’s reserves of vitality and strength can bleed away, almost unnoticed, simply from anxiety. Both mental and physical energy are subject to anxiety’s power to siphon off vigor and intellectual acumen. We know these things from a cerebral perspective, but when we experience them, the knowledge sinks in. It tends to stick when the real world offers undeniable verification. A tangible example: last night, I began writing what would be today’s post, while the details were fresh. But instead of writing a little and then saving the draft to be finished this morning, I hit “Publish” instead of “Save Draft.” It’s a little thing, but it illustrates (for me, anyway) how anxiety or simple tiredness might lead to far more catastrophic outcomes. Think, for example, of an overtired Navy officer on a submarine, practicing responsibilities for launching retaliatory nuclear missiles in the event of an attack. That is, of course, an extreme, dramatic example, but it emphasizes how anxiety might result in horrendous unintended consequences.

As I ponder that awful scenario, another one—more plausible and more likely—comes to mind. A tired, overworked nurse, working a twelve-hour shift, administers the wrong medication or the wrong amount of the right medication to a patient. The outcome could be just as individually catastrophic, though on a smaller scale than one involving the launch of nuclear missiles.

The outcome of my simple mistake—publishing instead of saving a draft blog post—does not begin to compare to the horrible effects of my examples. But it illustrates the continuum of the impacts of anxiety (I’ll assign anxiety, more than overwork, as the cause of both awful events). I think the spectrum of anxiety is just as complex and just as long as the color spectrum. Much of human experience can be compared to the color spectrum; almost everything in our experience takes place in degrees, both in intensity of understanding and in impact.

I look back on what I’ve written and wonder if my words offer yet more evidence of the potential for anxiety to cause confusion or disorientation. Does any of what I’ve written make sense? Does it have any discernible purpose, other than to attempt to excuse my mistake in posting a draft instead of saving it? My mind is jumbled this morning. It was just as scrambled last night, as I watched an episode of Bordertown. I kept drifting off during critical scenes, springing awake after the fact, requiring me to replay several minutes of the program to get my bearings and understand what was happening. Finally, after completing the episode, I turned off the television and sat there, thinking about whether I wanted to start another one or go to bed. Ten or fifteen minutes later, I became aware that I had drifted off again while attempting to make my decision. This happened more than once. Finally, I called it a night and went to bed.

This morning, fog enshrouds my neighborhood. It’s impossible to say whether we’re simply covered with a cloud, while the air down the hills on all sides is clear, or whether it’s a foggy morning all the way around. My sister-in-law will be over shortly to borrow a stand mixer; she can tell me what the weather is like in the “lowlands.” In the meantime, I will force myself to look at online news. I do not know why I feel compelled to know what is going on in the world around me; I cannot control it. I cannot even react appropriately to it. But I think I should know. I’d rather watch the two woodpeckers outside my window; they either are engaged in battle or in a mating ritual. Whichever it is, it’s fascinating to watch. Maybe I’ll wait on the news.

Yesterday’s visit with Janine was shorter than the day before, despite my intent to boost her spirits with some of her favorite treats. I took watermelon, sherbet, and cranberry juice to her, but she was in no mood to consume them for the first three hours, when she opted to sleep, instead. Finally, she consented to have some watermelon, but only about half of what I had for her. And, then, she agreed to eat some sherbet; it had thawed, in spite of my best efforts with an insulated carrier and blue ice. Still, she had a few spoonsful of the melted goo before suggesting I dispose of the rest. I left the cranberry juice and two frozen containers of sherbet (given to the nurse immediately upon my arrival), which were labeled with Janine’s name and put in a fridge/freezer somewhere in the bowels of the ICU.  By 4:30, I decided it was rather pointless for me to stay, in that I would be sitting next to Janine while she slept, so I opted to head home while still daylight.

The nurse told me Janine had eaten virtually nothing again today. Janine says even the smell of food makes her cough. Neither the nurse nor I can understand that. Somehow, some way, I have to insist that she eat nourishing meals, at least enough to provide basic life-sustaining nutrition.

The postal carrier, day before yesterday, delivered an unpleasant surprise. Apparently, I somehow had missed an earlier notice, a few months ago, that property and personal taxes were due before October 15; the piece of mail bearing that news notified me of the oversight and informed me that I owed a delinquency penalty. Not much money, but too much, nonetheless. At any rate, yesterday morning I pulled out the checkbook, made copies of the tax notices, and headed to the tax collector’s office to pay my bill. I could have paid online, but the transaction fee was an absurd $57, which I refused to even consider paying.

At the tax collector’s office, I went inside to pay my bill, where a long line of people stood waiting to do the same thing. I stood in line for about twenty minutes, listening to an idiot in line behind me complain bitterly about the “socialism” of having to pay property taxes and his outrage at having to stand in line; if he were in charge, he said, he would “run things” far more efficiently. Just before my place in line reached the entrance to the office where taxes were to be paid, I reached for my checkbook. It was not there. I looked around me; no checkbook on the floor. “I must have left it in the car,” I said to myself, and left my precious place in line, knowing when I returned I would have to wait another twenty minutes or more to get to the place I lost. I went to my car and searched for the checkbook; I could not find it. “I must have left it at home,” I said, as I drove away, thirty-plus minutes away. When I got home, I parked in the driveway and conducted another thorough search. I found the checkbook, lodged between the console and the passenger seat. Apparently, it had slipped out of the console on a turn and found its way to its hiding place.

Angry with myself, I snarled and took the checkbook in the house. I called the tax collector’s office to verify that I could write a single check for both property and personal tax. Then, I completed the check, prepared a self-addressed and stamped envelope, and drove to the post office. I had opted not to do this earlier to save the cost of a certified, return-receipt-requested, letter. I was unwilling to make another trip to the tax collector’s office; I was, though, willing to pay the $6.95 fee to avoid making that trip. Bah!

My plan had been to go get a haircut after I paid the taxes. But, by the time I went through the process I just described, it was too late. I had just enough time to buy and eat a fast food lunch, then drive to the hospital, arriving just a few minutes after visiting hours began. My wife asked me, after I had been with her for two or three hours, to stay longer than I had originally planned (I intended to leave at 4:30). Of course I readily agreed; I left at about ten minutes before 7:00, the time visiting hours end.

Shortly after arriving my wife’s tiny room in the ICU, a nurse entered and told me I would need to don protective gear, consisting of a thin plastic/latex robe and nitrile gloves. She said my wife was in isolation because of her diagnosis of clostridioides difficile (C.Diff.). I did not bother to tell the nurse, who had not been there the two days before, I had not been asked by other nurses to wear the gear on those days, even though the diagnosis had been made on my wife’s arrival at the ER; I simply did as I was asked. The fact that two sets of medical professionals approached the reality of contagion in such different ways reminded me that medicine remains as much a human endeavor as a scientific one. As is true of so many aspects of our lives, context plays an enormous role in how we behave.

A few hours into my visit with my wife, she asked me to call her sister. That was among the only times my wife seemed truly engaged during the visit; it was good to see her at least modestly animated during the call. Afterward, though, she returned to what seemed to me a combination of exhaustion and sleep deprivation. Both she and the nurse told me she had not slept well the night before. She had thrown up shortly after being given one of her medications shortly after I had arrived, she said, and that experience robbed her of strength, as well. During my visit, she had another bout with the heaves; a nurse called a doctor, who prescribed an anti-nausea medication. The nurse said all the antibiotics my wife was being given could cause nausea.

By the time I left last night, my wife had told me things she would like me to try to bring to her today: watermelon, ice cream/sherbet, and cranberry juice. I have the first two at home; I will stop at the grocery store this morning to try to find the latter. The need to keep those items cold for the trip to the hospital rules out a trip to the barber shop again today. That’s all right, though; “urgency” and “haircuts” do not belong in the same thought bubble.

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The sky this morning is a gentle mix of cerulean blue and soft white. As I look up through the trees out the window, orange and gold leaves against the sky seem to define my sense of what Autumn should look like. The dappled light filtering through the thinning canopy of leaves reminds me of my favorite Japanese term, komorebi; English should adopt that word or create a new one that translates the Japanese concept precisely.

The forest floor is littered with millions of leaves, appearing collectively as an intricately textured sheet of light brown and tan. The spots where sunlight touches them are bright; in the absence of sunlight, the shadows hide the texture and reveal only dark, indistinguishable shapes. It’s interesting to me that, every morning, the ground and the rocky outcroppings look different; they are the same every day, but my eyes and my imagination change them, as if I am seeing a new view with each new dawn.

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I must go to the Post Office again this morning to return a package that was left at my door yesterday. I mistakenly ordered a box of size small latex gloves on Ebay; within seconds of realizing my error, I contacted the seller and asked that the sale be cancelled or replaced with a size large. Two days later, I received an email, telling me the shipment had already been processed and could not be recalled. I would have to refuse it, after which my payment would be refunded. So, I will ask the Post Office to take the package and return it to the sender. I should pay closer attention to what I am doing. I am allowing my distractedness to amplify my little annoyances.

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It just occurred to me why I feel such hunger this morning. I did not have a proper dinner last night. I opened a bag of Trader Joe’s elote-flavored corn chips when I got home last night and munched on a few of them, but did not take the time to prepare a meal. Instead, I plopped down in front of the television for another episode or two of Bordertown. At 10:30, I awoke on the couch in a state of confusion; I have no idea how long I had been asleep, but I think it may have been more than an hour. I’ll have to go back and find a scene I recognize from the series to know where to retrace my “viewing.” Before I do that, though, I’ll have a variation on breakfast and will experience another full day; no more television until the evening hours. For now, I’ll start working on the day ahead.