Over the weekend we spent a fair amount of time rearranging the furniture. There were two goals in mind. First a shared desk/office space with room for various computers, printers, camera USB cords, pencils, scraps of paper, and good luck Buddha’s. Oh, and two people. Over the winter of 1992-1993 I built a wooden desk reminiscent of the teacher’s desks the public school system placed in all my childhood classrooms. By turning it ninety degrees and using a couple of TV trays as a printer stand we were able to fit all our computer stuff on the desk. She sits on one side and I the other. So far it is working out extremely well. The timeless design of the wooden teachers desk has proven to be incredibly versatile.
With our nerd needs well taken care of we turned to the rest of the apartment. We needed room for two upright pianos, each approximately five feet long. By giving away (“free to a good home”) a cheap corner desk we made room in the spare bedroom for the television and all the DVD movies. This has now become our media room. The addition of an end table and lamp makes this room very cozy and comfortable.
With the television and DVD stands out of the main room we were able to move the couch and chairs around creating a space along one wall long enough for both instruments. The wall the pianos rest against is an interior wall giving some buffer between us and the neighboring apartments. Still we may add some insulation or other sound baffle between the pianos and the wall to keep them from overpowering the space.
After two fairly active days moving furniture, vacuuming, and cleaning we were in need of some reward. Take out Chinese and a DVD in the new media room was a perfect end to a beautiful weekend.
Over the weekend we started to combine our households. The first step was introducing the cats. The initial stages have included some hissing and general tentativeness, but on the whole I think the melding is going rather well.
Nekko, the oldest cat, has spent sometime in the kennel recently and therefore is used to other cats. She has been surprisingly casual about the introduction of Bootstrap to the family. She boldly approached him and his food dish the first night and hasn’t displayed any reticence at all since then.
Taz, the 4-year old, has been out of sorts and is presently camped out on top of the kitchen cabinets. As a kitten she was part of a group of pets that visited nursing homes, and she lived in an enclosure with several other cats. However, that was all far enough in the past that she has forgotten about other cats and her reaction the past two days has been, ah, hissy. Still, I think she is slowly coming around. The hissing is from closer distances and she is out more rather than hidden today.
Bootstrap is also 4-years old, and at one time lived with other cats himself. He seems least bothered by the other two cats, but then he is also coping with a strange new home. He hasn’t been very vocal and I think I’ve only heard him hiss once in the time he’s been here.
Hopefully soon they will all be co-existing with each other peacefully.
For the last year, maybe year and a half, I have tossed my pocket change into an old tupperware bin in the kitchen junk drawer. The bin finally filled to where coins were falling out of it into the drawer itself. And the drawer was getting harder to work as the weight of the coins was causing it to bind in its tracks a bit.
So today I took them all to the credit union and made a little deposit. Before going however, I stood on the bathroom scale and weighed the coins. 13.6 pounds of them. In all I have 1682 coins: 755 pennies, 180 nickels, 326 dimes, and 421 quarters, for a total of $154.40.
A nice little bonus this month.
Next Monday will mark the one-year anniversary of my mom’s death, and for the past few days I have been acutely uncomfortable. Nothing big, or easy to put into words, just a feeling of being antsy, itchy to do something and yet too tired to move. Uncomfortable in my own skin.
At some level of consciousness I knew it was related to approaching anniversary but I didn’t want to look at that fact, or even think it for fear that it would overwhelm me. Grief has stalked me for such a long time now that I am weary of leering grin creeping into even the sunniest days and moments. However, ignoring it won’t make it go away; pushing the emotions down only causes them to come out sideways. Facing her death again, head on, is the only way to move through this emotional doldrums and on to the fresh, moving air on the other side.
Last night was the worst and I eventually dissolved in to a pile of tears. Crying was a good release and I actually felt better as a result. Again, lessons I already know but are reluctant to act upon. The tears are cathartic but exhausting. Actually what is exhausting is holding everything in, when the dam bursts and the tears come you get to relax and the exertion you’ve been under finally goes away. I slept deeply and peacefully last night and feel better today.
In the coming days I want to do somethings to acknowledge my loss and to remember Mom. Perhaps making a cheesecake they way she did. Some kind of ceremony. Memorial Day weekend indeed.
I’m late coming to the whole Podcast scene. To me it seemed like talk radio, only performed by amateurs. Recently, however, at a friends recommendation, I have started actively listening to one. My Daily Phrase: German.
I’ve been learning a word or phrase or two every day on my way to work and back. It’s basically a free language tape that I can play on my iPod. This is where the Internet, and the wealth of services and information really shines. That I can get, for free, a high quality language learning system delivered to my home is amazing.
If you haven’t explored the range of Podcasts, if you were like me and thought there is nothing there of interest, I suggest you go and look again.
My physical therapy appointment yesterday shed new light on the condition of my lower back. The more common term for severe degenerative disk disease is arthritis. Somehow it doesn’t seem as scary or bad described that way.
The initial treatment, regardless of what it is called, is to strengthen the muscles in the lowest part of the abdomen, and to stretch the hamstrings in the legs. There will be more exercises added later, but for now I’m doing four different strengthening exercises and two stretching ones twice a day. Each week I have a PT session with a therapist to monitor how I’m doing and to add new stretches or exercises to the routine.
Having endured months of off and on pain, sometimes extremely debilitating pain, I am very motivated to work two exercise periods into my daily routine; one when I first get up and the second when I arrive home from work.
I’ve also been working for months now to get a better chair at work, one that doesn’t aggravate my back just by sitting. The initial choice of chairs included only ones that were fairly beat up. Eventually I found on that only had a slight tilt to the right. Working with the “chair accommodation” person in the HR department I completed some paperwork, and had my doctor submit a questionnaire about my back condition. This resulted in several different chairs for me to try. Each was a “demo” chair and consequently somewhat beat up themselves. After a long series of events I now have a decent desk chair that is level; both side to side and front to back. However it does not have a tilt lock so I am unable to prevent the chair from leaning back when I do, and there are days when that backward lean is very uncomfortable. The company has ordered parts for my chair that will convert the seat pan tilt feature to a working back lock. I have no idea how long that will take - hopefully not very.
In keeping with my doctor’s orders to exercise at least 30 minutes five times a week, I took another walk this evening.
Nearly eleven months after I set out to lose weight I have not only lost 50 pounds but managed to keep it off. As a result many of my work clothes no longer fit. I can still wear them, but I am swimming inside of them now. At my peak weight I was wearing pants with a 44 inch waist line and using suspenders to hold them up. Over the weekend, with some birthday money in hand, we went shopping for new work clothes.
I am happy to say that the first pair of size 40 pants I tried on were too big. I was forced to go to a size 38. And the 38 inch waist line isn’t any too tight. This was a huge boost to my self image.
For the past several months my weight has been hovering around 200 pounds; some days a bit lower and some days a bit higher. Persistent back pain has prevented me from exercising very much at all and I think the inactivity has contributed to the slowing and stopping of my weight loss. Half of eating less and doing more is to do more. While I wish I was still losing a little weight I am pleased that my normal diet isn’t putting any weight on me, regardless of my slothfulness.
Later this week I am expecting the results of an x-ray series of my lower back. Hopefully we are eliminating structural problems like cracked vertebra or bulging or ruptured disks. Even if we identify a structural problem at least then I’ll know why my back isn’t healing like I think it should. Once I know what is (or isn’t) wrong with my back then I can start a measured program of walking and mild exercise to strengthen it once again.
At my physical last week, in addition to blood work, the doctor ordered an x-ray series on my lower back. I’ve had persistent, chronic lower back pain for eight or nine months now and she wanted to rule out structural problems first.
The x-ray shows severe degenerative disk disease. Calling it a disease is a bit of a misnomer; everyone as they ages has disk degeneration. It is a part of the aging process. In my case it appears to be accelerated or at least more advanced than one would expect in a 46-year old. I haven’t had a second opinion yet, or seen the x-rays for myself, but as I read over the literature on this condition it all rings true.
The next step, in addition to a second opinion, is to start physical therapy. As odd as it sounds, increase physical activity may actually improve the situation as it will strengthen the surrounding musculature and aid the ailing disks in their primary role of supporting the spine.
The good news is that my blood work came back normal across the board. My cholesterol is 148, and all the functions (thyroid, liver, et cetera) are within the normal parameters. The HDL component of cholesterol (the good stuff) is a bit low and I’ll be adding a daily supplement of fish oil to counteract that. In three months we’ll test it again to see where I’m at. The triage nurse assures me that the fish oil doesn’t taste like fish oil, and even it it does it can be frozen and taken as a lozenge.
So I’m a healthy 46-year old with degenerative disk disease.