We aw huntin' wabbit!

    My buddy Ossama was in town for the football game Thursday evening, and we got together for breakfast yesterday morning. His wife was busy working, but he brought along his 16-year-old son Omar, who proved to be a delightful fellow. We enjoyed catching up and we enjoyed the breakfast, although I don't think Omar is going to become a fan of white gravy. Only snafu was that the place (Just Us on Knox Abbott Drive) was so popular that we felt guilty hanging out and clogging up a booth. So we moved along after a fairly brief postprandial chatting period.
    Out of the blue, Ossama asked what happened to the Krogers around here. I was puzzled but told him that the one on St. Andrews had closed but the one in Forest Acres and the one out Two Notch were still there. It turns out that he used to buy frozen rabbit at the one in Forest Acres. So, what the hell, we went out to Forest Acres to see if they still sold bunny.
    Answer was yes and no. They still sell frozen rabbit, but they happened to be sold out Friday. The meat manager had ordered more and would have it again the next day. But we had to tell him that sadly, the party interested in bunny would be on his way back to New York by then. But now I know. If I ever get the urge to try rabbit again (not a high probability), I'll know where to go.
    The fellas had to get along to pick up Ossama's wife Laurie and check out, but I brought them in to introduce them to the world's greatest cat. They thought her cute but Ossama thought it unseemly that I call her "sweetheart." The very idea!

Football weather

    This doesn't really make the cut as a blog entry, but it was certainly funny-peculiar, if not funny-haha. The upshot of yesterday's very hot very not-football weather was... an electrical storm and a torrential downpour. All this occurred with eight minutes to play in a 27-10 game. I thought at the time that North Carolina really should have conceded, but the broadcasters pointed out that teams have made up greater deficits with less time on the clock. Because of all the lightning, the stadium was evacuated and fans were told to seek shelter. It being a football stadium, it's surrounded by parking, not shelter. So perhaps 90% of the 80,000 sought shelter in their cars and then as soon as they could manage in their homes.
    Ironically, perhaps, there was no further scoring in the remaining minutes, played hours later. Today of course we have perfectly beautiful, if hot, weather. We just have to get the networks and schools to bring flexible scheduling to college football. Me I'm just applying flexible schedule to hiking and photography. Since it cleared off beautifully, I may have to go out again on a sunset photo safari, i.e., hunting good sunset pics. Wish me luck!

What it was was football

    The college football season starts this evening. I have the usual mixed feelings. Although I'm excited about the resumption of play, I also live a few blocks from the stadium, so I have to plan my life around the fact that for game time plus several hours before and after, I can forget about being able to leave home except for on foot. Complicating the situation this year is that summer has finally arrived just in time for autumn. High today will be 93 or 95, depending whom you believe, so leaving on foot is not indicated. Also, Downtown U.'s football team is much ballyhooed, leading to great fear of disappointment. Still, hope springs eternal, so let's get going!
    Also also a buddy who moved away to New York state years ago is coming into town for the game. Obviously, the same traffic tangles that prevent me from leaving home this afternoon might also prevent him and his wife from dropping around this evening. However, we've set up to meet for breakfast tomorrow, so it doesn't matter particularly if we get together tonight. I offered them parking at my place. Hopefully I can fulfill this promise. Sometimes, friends of neighbors (or they might be total strangers) park up the whole street. In this weather, though, I bet people will be more willing to pay for closer parking rather than park for free on the street blocks away.
    The subject line comes from Andy Griffith's breakthrough standup routine; if you haven't heard it, you should probably try to track it down on YouTube.

Timing!

    The weather forecast for today said it would be mostly cloudy, so I was surprised when I went out for my hike in the early afternoon and the skies were cloudless. In fact, it was a perfectly gorgeous day for the entire hike. This kept up right until I got near my car, when the clouds rolled in. And while we aren't totally overcast, we're darned nearly so now. If only I could find some way to make money from my obvious weather control powers!
    I had set out to return to beloved Congaree Creek Heritage Preserve, but all the mosquitoes that had left Congaree National Park apparently had come here. So I strolled adjacent and largely mosquito free Old State Road, my Congaree Creek substitute of the past few weeks. There I was mobbed by butterflies instead of mosquitoes. I found this much more pleasant and also very funny.
    If you ever get a bug in your ear (figuratively, this time) to stop your car on an Interstate highway overpass to get out to take a picture of the dirt road being passed over, don't do that. Terrifying doesn't quite convey the feeling. I had been shooting so many pictures of I-77 from Old State Road I had the crackpot idea that I should do it the other way around. The picture came out pretty well, though.

Dreams past and present

    The other night I was going to go to a jazz show, the last one a friend of mine was going to play before leaving once and for all for California. I set out, but was defeated by a lack of parking. That night, I dreamed that Forest Whitaker and Denzel Washington were taking me to the jazz show. When we got there, my friend Walt was playing trombone instead of my friend Mitch, the one going to California. In dream life, I'm relieved that I've had an extended break from visits from deceased persons like my mom or my friend Evans Elliott. However, people like Walt who have absented themselves from my life as thoroughly as a dead person have tended to take their place. Odd.
    Night before last, I was having a dream where I was basically just sleeping. Then I had another dream where a bunch of fictitious people and I were trying to impress a small child for no apparent reason and I belted the heck out of "Born To Run" by Bruce Springsteen. Then my dream cross-referenced itself to the earlier dream and I apologized to the people where I was sleeping and explained that I just dreamed I was singing. I don't know if this as ever happened to me in a dream.
    Last night, I had somebody of indeterminate gender obsessed with me, mainly in the form of sending small sums of money to me anonymously. Creeped out, I rebuffed such assistance. Then the person decided to kill me. Fortunately, I woke up before finding out if s/he succeeded. That's the last time I eat split pea vegetable stew for supper!
    While I'm back to blithering about dreaming, there's something I'm puzzled about. (If I've blogged about it before, I'm still puzzled about it.) For years and years, I would dream that I had to go back to school all the way from kindergarten to high school. Mercifully, the dream didn't detail the whole journey, but usually would show me mired in some specific year, fourth grade or sophomore year of high school, say. For some reason, these dreams finally went away some years ago. I kind of wish I had kept a detailed (or even an undetailed) dream diary all these years so I could find out when. I'm really, really liking the idea that it happened when I quit gluten. I doubt it, but I'd love it if it were true.

Refuges and release valves

    Today I returned to Congaree National Park. What a difference a few days made! The Mosquito Meter at the Visitors' Center had been moved from 6 (War Zone) to 4 (Severe). Since I never felt that the mosquitoes were quite bad enough to merit War Zone status, I was a little unclear as to whether the meter (which, as you can probably guess, is just a big wooden lever whose reading is determined by the ranger who adjusts it) actually meant anything. It did.
    Regular readers of this blog will have noticed that I never stopped going to Congaree National Park. However, along with blood the mosquitoes have been sucking most of the fun out of visits. It's not that they were all that awful; they were just annoying enough to make visits more like work than fun. When you go for a stroll but you can't. ever. stop. because if you do you're going to be mobbed by bloodsuckers, well, that's not too fun.
    My chief refuges and release valves have been Congaree Swamp (national park) and Congaree Creek (heritage preserve). Both have been largely inundated from all these rains and overrun with mosquitoes. Congaree Creek has actually been closed much of the time. I had no grasp how badly I had needed these release valves. I kept hiking, sometimes at the national park, sometimes at other places. I seemed to be holding it together pretty largely.
    But my relief today at being able to saunter a bit, to be able to stop and take photos, even time-consuming panoramic ones, was tremendous, almost overwhelming. Maybe tomorrow it rains again. Maybe the mosquitoes come straight back. With autumn on the way, I don't think so. But it was so wonderful having my home away from home back again. Ahhhhhh!

Dismantling the wall of sound

    I have a CD. It's by Loudon Wainwright III's sister Sloan. She has a wondrous contralto voice (or anyway, a voice lower than mine). She has fine songs. She has been listening to very bad advice, in that the record is just grotesquely over-produced. I bought it on the strength of hearing a couple of songs on NPR, but as I recall that was a live performance, just her and a guitar.
    In 2013, there's no reason in particular we should have to put up with this. We ought to be able to download the raw tracks and mix them as we prefer. Or at least be able to specify a "produced for '80s MTV" version or a stripped version (which could also be called "produced for '90s MTV Unplugged"). If all this is already available, that would be really great. (I don't keep up all that well these days.)
    Anyway, Sloan, call me. My advice is at least as good as whoever you've been listening to up to now!

Bobby Sherman

    American Top 40's 1970s rebroadcast sent me straight down the time warp, playing "Julie Do You Love Me" by Bobby Sherman. I'm not sure I'm admitting at this time that I had the single back in '71 or so until my little friends explained that this wasn't cool and I gave it to Cindy around the block. I wish I could say that my little friends were wrong, but upon relistening I find that that cat really couldn't sing. It's a great, great record still, but almost totally in spite of the haircut at the microphone. I kind of wish I hadn't heard it so I could keep my illusions.
    Regardless, he was a legitimate phenomenon. I remember that the girl I had a crush on in 4th grade, whose name was Kimberly (isn't it always?), did a twirling routine to "In Seattle." Forty-odd years on, here I am still remembering. (I'm going to go ahead and keep believing that that was a good song if it's all the same to you.:))
    Anyway, the power of Bobby is still manifest. He's so awesome that he blew out the tubes or something at AT40. When I got back in the car after my walk this morning, the '70s had suddenly ended and AT40 from the '80s, which usually runs Sunday evenings, had taken its place. Quite a jump from Junior Walker and the All Stars (the record which had come on after Bobby and thus could legitimately be construed as the guilty party in the tubes-blowing) to "Hot in the City" by Billy Idol. Not that he has any connection to haircuts who can't sing.

Lost my walking stick

    I was strolling the elevated boardwalk at Congaree National Park. As the trails and the lower boardwalk were inundated, I didn't have a lot of choice, though I was delighted to be there all the same. Unfortunately, some of the boards have bigger gaps between them than others, and one caught my walking stick. Before I could grab at it, it had fallen through and floated away. I think I could have made the grab if I hadn't been so surprised, and maybe a little tickled.
    Yeah, it's only a walking stick, but I had it for a long time. More than ten years, less than twenty kind of long time. It fit me well. I didn't really whittle it or anything, but I stripped the bark so it was fairly attractive looking and comfortable in the hand. It was a lot of help in the days when my back gave me more trouble than it does now. More recently, it's been more useful for fending off spider webs on the trail. No, it is neither magic wand nor magic staff (at least I better hope not), but it will be missed. On the other hand, it makes a good excuse to go wandering in the woods to find another one. And it will be pretty funny using the Swiss Army (OK really LL Bean) flashlight to strip the bark this time. So there's that!

Sun!

    Sorry, when the weather is awful for ages and is likely again to be awful for at least another set of days, it's hard to think about anything except that the sun is shining RIGHT NOW. Well, that's hardly true, but considering how angst-filled my life is otherwise right now, it's at least worthwhile to dwell on mostly sunny skies and draw in all the vitamin D (I think that's the one) I can.
    The rest of life is a mixed bag. Dad was very weak this morning and will of course be weaker still after dialysis. Burping had been somewhat better, but continues on. I was scared to ask whether he had received the antibiotics, but assume that he has. I hope this wasn't an awful mistake, but am still very worried about it.
    On the bright side, I heard from an old buddy I haven't seen in a decade or more that he would be coming to town for the USC football opening game next Thursday and wants to get together. He's only in town for the one evening and following morning and my neighborhood is besieged by the football hordes for all of game day. But I'm sure we can work something out. Yay!

Watching paint dry

    OK, maybe it wasn't that exciting. Dad's breath test was something short of electrifying. They gave him something tiny to eat or drink (half a pat of butter in size; I guess it must have been semi-solid) then had him blow into a little hand-held machine. The technician came back every half hour and had him do it again. The goal was to reach a 20 score. His first blow was a 5. This could have gone on for 3 3/4 hours, but we escaped after 3.
    With the 20 score, he was given a prescription (rather, it was phoned in) for an antibiotic. We had another appointment and he hadn't eaten in 15 hours, so we went out for brunch at Lizard's Thicket, then went to his appointment at the dialysis access center (for a sonogram of his access) quite early. We also finished quite early and went to the pharmacists to pick up his prescription.
    This is where things become worrying. The pharmacist said that this was a very high dosage, so they called the doctor's office to confirm that they wanted him taking it three times a day. If the doctor so confirms, they'll deliver the prescription to him at home.
    The thing is, as I mentioned the other day, they wanted him to stop his laxatives for this test. What I didn't mention was that they wanted him to stop them for a week and that this was because laxatives can cause false positives. Couple the possibility of a false positive with what the pharmacist considers a very high dosage of antibiotic and you understand my anxiety. I take it out yet again in hoping for the best. Sad really when that's all you can do.

Hume Cronyn always trying to kill his wife

    I noted earlier that a recurring theme of old-time radio involved cary Grant getting hit on the head. Now I've noticed another. Hume Cronyn, that fellow with the very mild voice, seemed to be a bit typecast as a mild-mannered guy wanting to kill his wife. I've got two, maybe three episodes of "Suspense" where this is the plot and star. Not to provide any spoilers, but he doesn't necessarily succeed. Still, I wonder how Jessica Tandy felt about it.
    Last night, I went to the CSA (Celiac Sprue Association, not Confederate States of America) dinner out for the first time in years. Since I quit soy and dairy I had felt a lot less like going since so often I still found myself unable to eat anything on the menu. However, last night was a total delight, and it felt really tremendous not feeling like a freak from another planet for once. Also they dug my hiking pictures and were very, very nice. It was great for morale!

Hating hating

    Dad's appointment with the gastroenterologist this morning was almost totally a waste of time. We learned about the results of the endoscopy, which was that there practically weren't any. The doc found that there was a narrowing of the lower esophagus, which he expanded. But that was it.
    So more tests were ordered. They were trying to schedule him for September; I eventually got it moved to this Wednesday morning. There was also a lot of wrangling about stopping his laxatives. Finally I persuaded them that this would be a supremely bad idea. So all he has to do is eat a low fiber low spice diet tomorrow and then nothing after 9 tomorrow evening. Being from SC, low fiber low spice isn't exactly unusual anyway.
    I just kept finding myself getting very short with everybody, and I hate it. It hardly helps my case, but I can't help myself. Maybe it's the weather; maybe it's my total lack of a personal life. But somehow I have to get it back together and find some way to recover, if not my charm, than at least some semblance of a positive attitude. As Dad has doctor's appointments Wednesday at 9 and at 1, it'll probably be some time after that. But I'll certainly work on it in the mean time.

That's why I come to a national park

    All right, I admit it; I'm a total douchebag. I got to Congaree National Park for my periodic stroll around the boardwalk loop. Shortly after arrival, I started smelling cigarette smoke. Clearly, I thought, I'll pass this dipstick and be clear of it. But I went on and on, half a mile maybe. I began to think that it must be some kind of leaf fire somewhere, which would be odd after the torrential rains we had Friday.
    Finally I saw them ahead. I admit to a total douchebag move, banging my walking stick with every step as I came up behind them. Then I went one better: without breaking stride, I told them, "THAT'S why I come to a national park! To smell cigarette smoke!" But FFS, how hard is it to figure out that there are other people here, that they might have come for fresh air, and that maybe a little fresh air might do your hard-worked lungs a little good, too?
    I had earbuds in, so whatever FU type rebuttal they, or rather the one who was actually smoking, might have offered were lost on me. Anyway, they didn't turn around and break off my radio antenna, so there's that. It didn't make me feel better and it probably did nothing to educate them, but sometimes you just can't bite your tongue. Maybe one of these days I'll start working on learning how.

Accents

    Before I get started blithering, I just want to note for those getting their Dad news here that he's doing much better today. He's eating again and feeling much more comfortable. Hopefully it's the start of an ascending spiral.
    Nor do I have much to say about accents. It's more radio ad inspired kvetching and moaning-- sort of. I'm just bewildered when Hardee's for instance does an ad supposedly featuring a Texan where the voice guy sounds like he's from New Jersey and doing a half-hearted Sam Elliott impression. Similarly NBC Sports Network is starting to broadcast Premiere League soccer and they hired a guy doing about 15 British accents in about 20 seconds. Not, presumably, intentionally.
    My first thought was: why don't they just hire Texans and Britons? In an era of instant digital communications, how hard would that be? But my more useful thought was that the most important skill set in this field must be that ability to hit the post, as Dan Patrick says. In other words, to fill the available time exactly. Thus, the ability to do accents convincingly is not even a secondary consideration. Still, you'd think that there would be voiceover pros all over the world. Or that people who can do accents could be trained to hit the post, or people who can hit the post could be trained to do accents. Clearly, I'm part of a small minority that finds this annoying. Or in the case of the fake British guy hilarious. "England!"

Slightly TMI, but not gross

    Nor will this be long. Dad has had recurring problems with unending burping while on dialysis. When it happenend the first time, a friend at the dialysis facility who is the son of another patient said that his mom had had the same problem and they switched her to a slower kind of dialysis. I've been trying to find out what that would be ever since and whether Dad could do the same.
    Yesterday, I finally got to talk to Dad's kidney doctor. He still didn't have official permission to talk about Dad's case with me, but was willing to discuss generalities. It turns out that the alternative form of dialysis is, uh, peritoneal I think he said. It doesn't matter very much because he said that Dad wouldn't be a good candidate. It requires muscle control or coordination somehow, neither of which Dad has a lot of, I had to agree.
    So honestly, this isn't TMI because it's gross or at least not by my standards; just unnecessary information. But I had wondered about it a long time and I had probably blogged about it, too. In case anyone else was wondering, there's the explanation. He said that they also offer overnight dialysis, but that there's a waiting list for that. It might be a solution, but since the facility isn't in the best neighborhood ever, it isn't something I'm overly enthusiastic about. We also talked about maybe finding Dad a primary care provider who specializes in treating old people. Maybe we can get that done, too.
    In general, I'm a lot more plugged in with the facility and the doctors now, and they seem to be pleased to see signs of interest, which pleases me in turn. They did in fact make additional effort to get his feet less swollen at yesterday's session, but his blood pressure got relatively low (100 over 50), so they didn't make a lot of progress. But they know about the problem and will keep after it.
    Today I got a followup call from the nursing director, and related that I would appreciate it if the nutritionist would talk to Dad about reducing his sodium intake. I had talked to the doctor about this as well and he had said that that was definitely indicated. And I talked to Dad about it and all he said was that the dialysis people want him to eat more protein. I pointed out that there's protein that isn't in the form of sausage or bacon, but how well the message got across I don't know.
    Anyway, it wasn't a great day, but much better than I expected. He didn't need a wheelchair to get out of the facility; he walked by himself. He was very weak, though, and the next few sessions are likely to be at least as rough. Hopefully we'll get all this squared away ASAP. Anyway, we're trying.

Not likely to be a good day, but trending well

    I finally got the call back from the nursing supervisor at the dialysis facility. While it's still unbelievable to me that nobody had noticed Dad's swollen feet, at least they finally know about them now. Operationally, this means that Dad is likely to have a very, very bad day there today. He'll probably have to come out in a wheelchair judging from prior history. However, it had to be addressed because he's looking at a high chance of congestive heart failure otherwise. So I'm very sorry that he's going to have a bad time, but it couldn't be avoided.
    I also passed the word that he needs home health care help. It turned out that I had been right to call the social worker at the facility about that and it's just our bad luck that she is on vacation right now. So the lack of call back is explained, and one will be received sooner or later.
    So in general, the Dad situation is trending well. He should be able to wear his normal shoes again today or soon. And I have slip-ons in his normal size being shipped here any day now. My spirits are starting to rise; just have to get through one likely-to-be very bad day. Sure hope I'm wrong about the bad part and right about everything else!

Progressish

    I received a brilliant array of suggestions how to address Dad's swollen feet problem. I don't mean the medical problem, just the "how to get him something to put on his feet that will fit" problem. But the situation is complicated by the fact that his feet are plus-sized to begin with and are swollen several sizes beyond that. So although I followed up many suggestions, including trying Walmart, JC Penney, the diabetic shoe store and my own inspiration Bed Bath and Beyond, the best solution turned out to be Casual Male XL, the big and tall shop, and even they weren't good enough.
    He's getting by with bedroom slippers, but as it turns out, the biggest one anyone sells is XL which is equivalent to men's sizes 13 and 14 and he's a 14EEE (14W) even without the swelling. Casual Male had a slip-on shoe in 16W. It should have been great, but alas it just wouldn't go on. They also had Crocs, which only go up to 15. They're so wide though, that they might work, but I just wasn't confident enough to try.
    The medical problem is also a source of maximum frustration. I called his kidney doctor and eventually spoke to his nurse. She claimed that Dad had only authorized them to speak to Margaret about his care. She said I should call the dialysis facility and talk to the director of nursing. I of course have called and left a message and am waiting on Godot and her call back. I asked Dad please to call the doctor and authorize him to talk to me. He tried but all he managed was to leave a message that I want to talk to the doctor.
    However, at least I'm making little tiny slivers of progress, and at least I'm in there bashing my head against the problem. Unfortunately the best short-term solution was a pair of elderly beat up slippers that open up in front and close back with Velcro. Maybe those will also tip off the staff at the dialysis facility that "Hey, his feet are really swollen! Maybe we ought to do our jobs!" Maybe.
    The point of all this yammering was to thank all the great people for all their wonderful suggestions and support. Thanks ever so much! And, you know, to make a totally unsolicited and unpaid plug for Casual Male XL. If you have really big feet, it's definitely the first place to go!

Entertainingly crazy dreams

    It's interesting how the brain works. This will sound like a nightmare, but it was entertaining at the time. I was in the usual ultra-gigantic town-sized building, as usual a mix between a college and a shopping mall. As so often happens in dreams, I'm looking for a bathroom. As doesn't usually happen in dreams, if I choose the wrong one, I get killed. So I realize that it isn't real life but a role-playing game. Each bathroom is attached to a bar or restaurant and there is a little piece of paper by the entrance which includes what the attitude of the patrons is to you. (Or rather, me.) The ones where I got killed showed a -2 attitude towards me. (Lucky they weren't really mad.) Other places pretty nearly worshipped me. Presumably, I got into the bathroom there OK.
    I was talking about it to my friend whose birthday was yesterday and from whom I haven't heard in real life in years. I was definitely amused about the whole experience. I think he was fairly bewildered about it all, as who wouldn't be?
    The nightmare part was when I killed a crazy person with a penknife. Then my cat jumped on him, which did add a little comedy relief. But that definitely was the unentertaining part of the program.
    I got up in the night to check the weather to see whether it would be worthwhile to try to catch the Perseid meteor shower; indications were that it wouldn't be. So I went back to bed. At first the weird mall/college dream continued. But then I looked at my phone and Bing had a picture of the sky vault depicting what was called a bear's claw cloud formation. The caption said, "Do yourself a favor and go outside now." It wasn't really all that impressive a formation, just the same clouds over and over. What was impressive was seeing the whole gigantic sky at once. My subconscious topped the Perseids!

Signs signs

    I don't know about where you live, but around here there seem to be a great many sign ordinances governing businesses. Old signs are grandfathered, but new ones are stumpy and comparatively inconspicuous. A lot of businesses get around this pretty easily. They park a large truck or trailer perpendicular to the passing road with their advertising message written on it. I guess they get around the laws because it isn't a fixed sign, or maybe nobody cares that much.
    It just makes no sense to me. If you want to have a sign ordinance, presumably the intent is some degree of urban beautification. Trucks and trailers as a rule aren't conspicuously beautiful objects even compared to most large business signs. I don't have any particular brief for sign ordinances; in my travels, I mainly have noticed them coming into force in areas either with a lot of rich residents, a lot of rich visitors, or with delusions of attracting one, the other or both. I don't much notice that the little stumpy signs are noticeably more beautiful than the larger ones.
    However, if you're going to have a sign ordinance, you should have an all-encompassing one. Getting rid of big signs and allowing them to be replaced with big trucks with advertising messages on them is just crazy. Isn't it?

Jayquan is Stegaboo

    While we were waiting and waiting at the endoscopy clinic to be allowed out of the waiting area to wait some more, we were delighted by a young man and his antics. His mom was very happy to tell everyone all about him, so I know that he's three, that he's about to start three-year-old daycare and that by her own admission she's a little clingy. He was totally hyperkinetic for ages and ages, playing mostly with a paper tissue that he would sling into the air over and over again. Finally she clapped a pacifier in his mouth and damned if it didn't pacify him. Mostly.
    The little boy is named Jayquan, but prefers to be called Stegaboo. I mean REALLY prefers to be called Stegaboo. She kept explaining to him that his name is Jayquan and that Stegaboo is a nickname. She kept asking what he was going to be called at daycare and he said "Stegaboo." Over and over again, she would tell him that the daycare would call him Jayquan and then she would ask him again. He insisted he would be called Stegaboo. He never threw a tantrum; he just wouldn't be budged. It probably sounds annoying, but it was really cute. It probably helped having a little kid say a funny word like Stegaboo over and over. So remember: fifteen years from now if you hear of some major college athlete nicknamed Stegaboo, I saw him first!

Endoscopy

    This was going to be pretty nearly totally upbeat, but events have caused me to have to add a coda which is almost totally TMI. I'll add a few empty lines before it so you can bail if you want to.
    Dad was feeling a lot better, which is to say that his chronic burping problem was improving. However, he had his appointment with the gastroenterologist for an endoscopy yesterday, and decided to go through with it since he has been having trouble with his stomach for years and he'd like to know what is going on.
    Apart from the hour wait to be sent back to the endoscopy clinic and the additional half-hour wait for the actual procedure, it went totally great. We had asked for him not to be sedated, because he has quite enough trouble with his balance without sedation, and previous experience with anesthetics suggest that they hit him harder than other people. The tech setting him up strongly recommended sedation, but when we talked to the anesthesiologist he said that he could numb Dad's throat and they could hold off sedation unless he really needed it.
    As it turned out, he had no problems. He has no recollection of the anesthesiologist doing anything about numbing his throat, and in fact his throat wasn't in any way numb. But the procedure was quick and painless. The anesthesiologist had warned him that he couldn't eat or drink for another 2 hours because of the numbness (which would have been unpleasant since he had already gone 8 or 9 hours without at that point) but when Dad said his throat wasn't numb, the anesthesiologist said he'd leave it up to Dad.
    This morning, Dad called saying that he had had a rough night with gas, that he'd called the gastroenterologist and that the latter wanted to talk to me. I thought this was some kind of major crisis, but it turned out that the doctor was just trying to tell Dad that this was to be expected. The doctor is from India I think, and though he doesn't have a lot of accent, he tends both to mutter and to talk fast, neither of which work well with Dad's limited hearing. So it turned out to be a storm in a teacup, no emergency room trip needed, and an almost totally happy ending. Until...



    I took Dad to dialysis, got home and got most of lunch eaten, when Margaret called saying that Dialysis had called and Dad had failed to make it to the bathroom and needed a complete change of clothes. Margaret put it together and I got to her house and to the clinic ASAP to get it to him. They had left him in an infernally hot men's room wearing only a shirt and a sock. I was starting on his shoes (the only item I didn't have a change for) when a staffer came to help. She did all the really heavy lifting on cleaning him up. Still, it took almost an hour.
    She asked if he had home health care for this, and I told her that I had left a message with the facility's social worker asking for a referral. She said Dad's kidney doctor (also affiliated with the facility) could give us one. Hopefully the experience will help that process along. I told her in all sincerity that she was an angel, a pro and my hero, and how often can you do that?

Baseball

    So my hometown hasn't had an actual minor league team in years. What we have is a summer wooden-bat league team made up of college players. Unfortunately, the city decided to sell the land that the ballpark is on, so it looked like the ball team would have to go away, or at least out to the suburbs. Last night, the team was playing the second game of a 3-game playoff series after having lost the first game the night before. In other words, this might have been the last baseball game ever at historic Capital City Stadium.
    However, the suspense got blown pretty quickly when the gentleman doing the pregame announcements mentioned that the team and ballpark might get one more year. (The land had been bought by a developer with a track record of putting up Walmarts; maybe somebody finally figured out that putting a Walmart next to a busy railroad crossing might not be the genius idea of all time.) Well it cheered me right the heck up. And the hometown team eliminated the suspense pretty quickly, too, scoring three runs in the first, another in the second and coasting to a 9-0 victory.
    As it happens, it was guaranteed win night, meaning that if they win, you get in free for the next game. (I'd think guaranteed win night would mean that you'd get in if they lose, but I guess in the playoffs that wouldn't work too well, there not being another game if they lose.) So now I can go to tonight's game for free. I may; it's really really hot here in August, and it got to be a little uncomfortable. But it was crazy mad fun at the ballpark and it'll probably be even more fun with a bigger crowd. The bigger crowd ought to be inevitable what with all us free folks coming back plus Friday compared to Thursday and a deciding game to boot. Maybe this time I'll go looking for a breeze!

Special and limited

    Isn't it odd that when you're growing up, what you want to be called least is either "special" or "limited" (e.g. special education), but people will shell out extra for vehicles labeled "special" or "limited"? Maybe the automakers should branch out a little bit and try "fantastic," "wonderful," or "terrific." Or is it, yet again, just me?
    Meanwhile, apparently there's a new reality show about the Amish Mafia. In the 20th century, we all echoed Dave Barry saying, "I am not making this up!" But I guess nowadays, we say instead, "No, this isn't from 'The Onion'." It occurs to me, that if you're on a reality show, you aren't in the Mafia. If you're on any kind of television show, you aren't Amish. Reminds me of our old jokes about the existence or non-existence of Amish websites. Anyway, I still don't have cable, so I'll never know. But it'll probably be a big hit.

Munchkin Homicide Guild

    I think I blogged it before but it's still funny; the thing about being a fan of old-time radio is that the "old" part sometimes does amusing things to the audio quality of the programs. For instance, there was a suspense show called "The Whistler." An episode called "I'll Trade You Murder" at some point in the 60-odd years since its original recording got its recording speed all botched up. It's fairly hard to get all that scared when your killers sound like the Lollipop Guild from Munchkinland.
    Then again, the plot didn't make all that much sense anyway, so the fact that the episode accidentally became a comedy show after the fact is probably a great improvement. Anyway, it was a pretty silly thing to wake up to in the middle of the night a few days ago. Episode isn't on YouTube, but curious parties shouldn't have any trouble finding it on archive.org. Unfortunately, there are no Munchin-style ditties to be heard in it.

Further adventures

    See what happened was this: as soon as I got home from walking back from the mechanic's place, my dad called to say he had an appointment with a gastroenterologist for 11 that morning. I had to break it to him that I had no car and suggested he call my brother William. He did but couldn't reach him, so suggested that his sweetheart Margaret come pick me up and then I could take him to the appointment. I agreed, she did and I did.
    The gastroenterologist's office was at the far east end of town. Not getting out there very often, I had no idea that I-20 was under construction. Heavy construction. Heavy, heavy construction. Basically my entrance ramp became its own little Interstate, running for miles as one lane between Jersey barriers while the other lane minded its own business a hundred or more feet away to my left. Margaret's car has its own ideas on steering, but for once it behaved itself. Dad said that Margaret would have had a hell of a time getting out there. I found the trip kind of exhilarating.
    At the doctor's, they made him fill out the usual pile of forms, but it wasn't as bad as usual. Then we waited. And waited. After an hour, he was allowed back to have his blood pressure and other vital signs checked and to answer more health-related questions. Then we finally got to see the doctor.
    To make a long story short, the doctor is a great guy, but couldn't do anything for Dad that day. He scheduled Dad for an endoscopy Friday (after I begged and wheedled; he would have made it the Friday after) and noted that there are some conditions he might be able to correct during the endoscopy. But the likelihood is that it would be two Mondays after before he knew any results and could do anything to help. Which sucks rocks royally, but is still earlier than the initial appointment the other gastroenterologist would give Dad. The health care system in this country is totally broken, but that is a rant for another day.
    I took Dad home (using non-construction-addled Percival Road instead of the Interstate) and then had a problem. My car wasn't ready yet, I was miles from home, but quite near the mechanic. I asked Margaret if I could borrow her car for a few hours. So long as I would run an errand for her, she had no problem. So I ate my lunch, ran her errand (paying a bill at a department store) and was coming out of the department store when I got a voicemail that my car was ready. I took Margaret her car, strolled down the hill to the garage, paid, and now... I got brakes!

Brakes broke

    Sorry; not much more to say than that. The brakes on the Camry have been increasingly noisy and decreasingly stoppy for weeks. Last week, the noisiness started getting actively annoying. Yesterday, the intermittent stoppiness got actively scary. I couldn't get the car to stop without stomping all the way down, and then it STOPPED. I would have a certain difficulty moving again, which was also nerve-wracking. So the car is in the shop. Mechanic thinks he can get it done today, which would make for a very short story.
    If it develops into a multi-day problem, that could actually turn into good news, as I might then rent a fun car in the interim as a sort of semi test drive. (Not the same as test-driving a semi, by the way.) It's even possible that I could rent a Scion XB, though only one Toyota dealership does rentals and I don't suspect they'll make XBs (which are very popular) available. But I'll find out if need be. In which case, this entry might become much more interesting upon editing!

Edit: Ouch! No sexy car rental, because the work should be done today. It's pretty serious, though, as in replacing the pads, rotors and one cylinder (mechanic said piston), and $650. So ouch. Sexy car rental may happen later, though.

Dog planet

    Dogs are dogs because the wolf's genome is highly plastic. People domesticated a lot of animals over the millennia. While we made horses smaller (I know they got a lot bigger over the eons, but I think they did that without our help) and sheep fleecier, etc., we didn't change the basic animals in a vast array of ways. Except for dogs. They're tiny, they're huge, they're fast, they're helpmeets, they're a gazillion things, in a lot of ways dissimilar from wolves.
    But what if we were gone? What if some awful virus wiped us out but left every other species alone? Would there be nobody left but rats and bugs, as so many suggest? What about all these awesome dogs? Obviously, things would be unpleasant for a time, maybe a long time, but with so many sizes and forms, it seems to me that at least some dogs would survive. And with all those sizes and forms, they would be well-placed to start filling in niches in the ecosystem of some of the wildlife we've been wiping out these past centuries.
    Could dogs evolve to higher intelligence? Do they even need to? What would Dog Planet be like? (Notice that I don't ask what Cat Planet would be like; that's just my house.)

A waste

    This week's consideration of the works of Dick Francis and John D. MacDonald will cover a very irritating feature found in both. (Just kidding! I swear I'm not going to make this a recurring item.) OK, you have a sleuth. The first rule in detective stories is "Find the woman," so there's supposed to be a woman in there somewhere. Sometimes, the woman gets killed. In both Francis' and MacDonald's novels, when that woman is young and attractive, there nearly always is a lot of hand-wringing BECAUSE she's young and attractive, a lot of very creepy, almost necrophiliac-sounding "what a waste" type noises.
    For my part, I tend to feel that it's a tremendous waste if anyone-- young, old, male, female, pretty or ugly-- dies before their time, and feel very uncomfortable when pretty girls are singled out. Now, these are all or nearly all first-person narratives, so the opinion is meant to reflect the hero's attitude. And that again is presumably keyed to what the author thinks the reader's attitude would be. And maybe it's supposed to inspire in the hero a little added incentive to solve the case and catch the villains.
    I dunno; I'm a little insulted that anyone would think that any reader wouldn't be creeped out by that particular idea. A lot of fans think that Francis' novels were largely written by his wife Mary. I have no way of knowing if this is true, but if it were I'm not sure if that makes it better or worse. Would that reflect a jaundiced view of men on her part? Or am I just overdramatizing authors' attempts to humanize their hard-boiled characters by introducing a softer, if creepy, side? Probably B.

Silver lining department

    I swear that now I will stop flogging the dead horse of the time somebody bent my radio antenna at Congaree National Park. Readers do NOT have to start a collection to help me get it repaired. (It would be nice if you would put me up for either the MacArthur genius grant or for canonization, but that's another story.)
    All I want to say about this further is that whoever did it did me a favor. Since I bought the car and maybe since Alice bought the car (she bought it used in an emergency situation; I bought it from her in another one), that antenna has tried to raise itself automatically every time the ignition is turned on and to lower itself every time it's turned off. Poor thing just couldn't do it. I actually had contracted with the Toyota Center to fix it along with some other work they were doing but they forgot to do it so I just told them to skip it. It wasn't a major annoyance, just one of the little ones that get on your nerves slightly. So I have to thank the dipstick who bent it and finally stopped the futile attempts at raising and lowering. Nice work, accidentally.
    Things in Johnville suddenly improved markedly, as it had started looking like Dad's sweetheart (in whose house he lives) would have to go to the hospital for at least a few days. He was planning to stay by himself and have me take him out to local country cookin' restaurant Lizard's Thicket twice a day. Fortunately, she didn't have to go, so we didn't have to see if he could safely stay by himself. And she's fine. So double yay!

Fixed my pizza-free pizza crust!

This is an edit of an earlier post where the crust was almost but not quite good. I fixed it, I think.

    This probably will only be of interest to folks who are gluten-free, but I really like it. It's my latest effort to make pizza crust from potatoes. This time around, I shelled out for Bob's Red Mill potato flour, which is both expensive and hard to find. I found it in a Publix rather than in health food stores, but it's certainly the kind of item you could get a health food store to order if they don't have it in stock.
    First time around, I used twice as much potato flour as brown rice flour. The only problem with that approach was that once the crust cooled down, it started tasting a bit like mealy potatoes, which I guess is reasonable since it's made from potato meal.
    It turned out that switching the brown rice and potato flour quantities was all that was needed. So yay!
    Anyway, here's the recipe:
Edit: HERE'S the recipe (after I changed it around):
Pizza crust
Preheat 400
1 cup brown rice flour
1/2 cup potato flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
a shake each of dried oregano and dried basil
1/2 cup of almond milk
1/2 cup of water
1 egg
1T EVOO
Put EVOO on crust (or hands) while spreading dough out.
Bake 15 minutes with no stuff on. Put stuff on. Probably smart to spread EVOO on exposed crust. Another 20 minutes. Let cool 5 minutes.
    Best is to cut it up and then put the whole pizza back in the cooling oven while you eat each piece. Reheating at 350 for 20 minutes works well, and putting it back in the oven while eating still works.