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...

Hello Again

 This is just an experiment to see if I remember how to use the blog and post to it. Some things will be different - fewer photos. More about books. And more about the end of times - my times. No, I am not dying. But I am getting old. And since two years ago, some things have significantly changed. But more about them in future posts. Right now, I just wanted to re-establish my connection with the blog.

I will be 80 in less than a month. I have been trying to come up with things to go to, to do, and maybe even get. It's harder than you might think. 

Until next time.