Update and Upcoming

 Whatever it was that Laid me low last week left and we were able to out to a 34th wedding anniversary dinner on Saturday, a day late of the actual date, the 26th. We went to Staunton to a restaurant we last ate at in 2010 when we first moved to Virginia. It is called Aioli and was very good. I had a blackened tuna steak. Lisa had a filet. We'll definitely go back before another 14 years - I would be 94 if for no other reason!

Today is a major crisis for me. I have a dentist visit to have three front-bottom teeth pulled. They have become bad and loose. It was originally four teeth, but one fell out about six weeks ago. To say I am nervous is to say the least. I hate going to the dentist - which is probably a major reason these teeth must come out now. I will be getting a partial in about 4-6 weeks.

I have just begun reading Moby-Dick. Let's see if I stay with it. I'm also reading two other fiction books - The Girl with a Clock for a Heart by Peter Swanson, and A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. The first one is for the mystery book club at the end of May.

I began again to place my Vietnam photos into a small album. A few each day. Maybe I can finish it in a month or so.

Now I have to get ready for the trip to the dentist. Results here maybe tomorrow.

From the Sick Bed

 I've been ill since Monday. Began with an upset stomach and quickly turned into diarrhea and throw-up. Still have got an upset stomach and am not hungry. I'm having to watch my blood sugar. 

I'm not going to write any more now. I feel very tired.

Road Trip

 We went to PA (actually Hagerstown, MD) to visit Summer for her 10th birthday. We met them at Ready, Set, Play. It's an arcade where children can play on slides and climbs, as well as arcade games that can earn tokens for prizes at the end of the visit. We did this last year and Summer enjoyed it a lot. This is an alternative to visiting at Sabrina's home that has 19 outside steps which I can't navigate anymore.

Summer is on her left. On the right is Aria, one of her very best friends from almost at birth. She doesn't get to see her very much anymore. Aria was very sickly as a child and was very much smaller than Summer. As you can see she grew!

Lisa also saw Serenity and played with her for a little while. Serenity turned 2 years old last November. 

All in all, it was a good visit though both of us are very tired; Lisa because she did all the driving, and me because I slept very little last night.

We ate some snacks and a slice of pizza while we were there. For dinner, we're having a small pizza!

Tomorrow I need to catch up on my English Premier League football (soccer) and golf. And try to sort through my writing folder.

Cleaning Up

 I have spent the past two afternoons going through my desktop file folders attempting to clean them up. The ultimate goal is to find all of the notes I have written about writing my so-called novel and other writings. I have only one more folder left - "My Book".

I'll try to work on it Sunday - we're going to PA for the day to celebrate Summer's 10th birthday - and finish things to the point where I am ready to begin treating my writing as a hobby and not trying to write the Great American Novel. I know that the preceding sentence is a terrible one. It is much too long. This is going to be one of the goals of my writing. To improve it. 

I'm also going to work on a notebook  I've titled "Memory Trees". I will attempt to show a picture of what I mean.

I'll talk more about this device in another post.

WhatAll

 Not really an original word I know, but it should convey the message I want and need for today. I have several things in the fire so-to-speak and wish I could say I've been busy, but in reality, I have been spending too much time napping during the day. 

I am not getting much sleep in bed at night. This is primarily due to not being able to lay on my right hip for any more than about two hours before I have to get up and go lie in my recliner chair. Before you ask, no I cannot lay on my left side for a variety of reasons.

I am still planning on trying to make an origami crane today. We'll see if it happens.

I also want to begin sorting the physical papers and files I have with my writing. I mentioned before that I decided to make my attempts at writing a hobby instead of attempting to write for money.

Come and Gone

 Well, my birthday came and went. There were some plusses and some minuses. 

I got my raw oysters - we went to a late lunch in nearby Stauntan to eat at The Blue Point, a seafood restaurant. We ate there once before; I think it was last year. I got a dozen oysters and then ordered fish and chips - another favorite.

The oysters were good. The fish and chips not so much; the fish was haddock and was one large piece and was overcooked. I had a Heniken non-alcoholic beer. But the worst part of all was that service was SO VERY SLOW. It wasn't poor, just slow.

On top of that, Saturday in the town meant the restaurants served lunch and dinner in the street. That meant finding another place to park from the usual one we used. That meant a longer walk. On uneven brick sidewalks. Oh, and did I say we forgot the exact location? Well, we did. Consequently, we had to retrace our steps on the streets.

On the positive side, I did receive over 200 birthday wishes and have spent the past two days answering them on Facebook with a simple "Thanks ....". 

I didn't get any presents (I got my tablet days earlier!), but did get a few cards. All in all, not so very memorable. 

Enough for now; have to get cleaned up to go buy a walker before this weekend (will explain in the next post).

A New Hobby Redeux?

 A couple of days ago - Wednesday, in fact - I mentioned that I would try to make an origami figure. Well, I haven't yet. But I have thought of ANOTHER hobby to start - writing a novel!

I have tried to write one before, always with the intention of writing the Great American Novel. But it has always fallen short. This time I am writing with a difference. It is completely for enjoyment, not for money. I've thought of several different genres but always worried about whether it is good enough to sell. I realize now that I don't have the writing ability to develop fiction well enough to make a book. So I am going to write for myself.

It won't be part of this blog. I might make another blog for it. Or I could keep it private and let it be a Word document. I already have a few Word documents that are notes, first chapters, and miscellaneous jottings to work from. I will start from there. Regardless, I think I will give it a try.

Tomorrow is coming closer.

A New Hobby?

 Somehow  last night I decided to try a new hobby, or at least a one-off. I'm going to try origami. I was going to say that I don't remember how I came up with the idea, but I just remembered. One of the NY Times games I play each morning in Connections. Combing four words together by some "connection" from a 4x4 matrix, one has to look for the answers for 16 words total.

 Yesterday one word was crane. When I Googled it one of the pictures showed a paper crane. I did a little reading about it and thought I would try it. I'll let you know how it comes out.

Good News for the Book Club

 I had a test run on my new tablet this morning and it works perfectly on Zoom! Can't wait until the meeting so I can actually participate instead of just listening to the other members.

Talking about the book club, I am reading next month's selection, Cover Her Face by P.D. James. I read the first fifteen pages yesterday, but there were so many characters that I stopped reading until I could prepare a character list. I did so this afternoon. It helps; slows the reading down a little but worth it.

In other news, I am going to try my hand at origami. I found some instructions online early this morning. I'm going to attempt a crane. It looked pretty straight forward.

My blood sugar seems to be coming down a tad. Using the FreeStyle Fibre 3 reader helps me see where it is anytime I want. And that is good. My Glucose Management Index I think that's what it is called) is 6.8 % for the last week, or 7 days. For the last 14 days, 6.9. I can't tell you how long I've had average readings this low. My appointment is in mid-May, so I am very excited.

Reading several books as usual, but not getting very far on any of them. Maybe I should briefly make a comment or two on the blog. That might spur me. We'll see.

Enough for now; I really need to do some serious writing about GTD. Maybe tomorrow.

Day of the Eclipse

 This day has finally arrived. And Good Riddance! It's as if we haven't seen an eclipse before. Maybe because it passed over so much of the US, millions would be able to see it instead of the relatively few who usually get to see one.

Because of cloud cover in our area, the event was a non-event. I didn't even go outdoors. Wife went out but didn't really see anything. 

I have a Zoom meeting appointment with Dave B. tomorrow morning to try out my new tablet. Hopefully, this will solve my problems with the rest of the members when we meet to discuss our book of the month. Stay tuned for this.

I finished the Sheehan book just before midnight last. I entered it into my  Goodreads account, but have not purposely written a review other than to say "I will write one in a day or so". A lot to digest. For one thing, I didn't realize he actually was writing it as he was dying. The epilogue was written by his son, George Sheehan III (He and his wife had twelve children). There is a lot to digest in the book. It will take time. And I need to be thinking about my life journey.

Going the Distance

 I will be 80 in one more week. Next Saturday. I've been reading George Sheehan's book Going the Distance which he wrote just before he died in 1993 of prostate cancer. His family published it in 1996. I bought it at that time. I had always been a fan of his - his writing especially. 

I have several of his books. I went to listen to him give a presentation in 1978 the day before I ran my first real race, the Kansas City Half-Marathon, in - you guessed it - Kansas City, MO.

All of his books are at least partly about running but are also about philosophy. This one is more so since it is about him as he dies of prostate cancer. I thought it would be an appropriate book to read as I approach my birthday. He was 74 when he died. One of the reasons I wanted to read it was to see if I could discover the real reason I stopped running - and then walking - and have essentially settled into a very sedentary lifestyle which is not healthy.

More later...