I couldn't sleep, and I had a long day ahead of me

 

The above caricature seems fitting for today, as I had to go in for my colonoscopy today and then be awake enough to deal with a co-op board meeting.  Of course, I didn't get much sleep last night, so staying awake until I'm back home would be the most important thing on my mind.

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Around 6:00, I drank the last of the ghastly fluid, and I spent the next 2 hours treating myself like royalty - if you get what I mean.  And then I had the last liquid of the morning, as I wasn't allowed to have any fluids within 2 hours of my procedure.  Shortly afterward, I got myself ready to go to the hospital, and Vicki was waiting for me as scheduled.  She noted that it was a little bit of a surprise to see me as Mario today.  But then, she knows me in both modes, and part of her didn't realize that I'd have to present as Mario today.

Normally, I'd budget about 30 minutes to reach the hospital.  That's about how long it took, in spite of a few slow moving trucks that got in the way.  But we were there early, and that worked to our advantage, as I still had more paperwork to take care of when we got to the hospital.  And then it was upstairs to the floor where my procedure was to be performed.

Of course, my doctor was running late with other patients, and our expected procedure time was being delayed 30 minutes. Getting into my hospital gown, I realized that I'd be handing Vicki two of my most valuable things: my cellphone and wallet.  So I made sure to hand her these things before I packed my clothes into a small bag that would follow me into the procedure room and then to the recovery room.  At this point, I was "in for a penny, and in for a pound."  Any ambivalence I might have had became meaningless, as I was committed for the next 2-3 hours.

By the time the doctor was able to get around to me, he was an hour behind schedule.  Vicki noted that the doc looked like a famous singer - and I agreed with her.  Soon, I was whisked away to the procedure room, and was unconscious a few minutes later.  When I regained consciousness, I wasn't groggy, but I knew I was off.  Having Vicki with me gave me the confidence that nothing would be missed when the doc came to tell me what he found - nothing to worry about, but tissues were being sent to the lab just to be safe. Soon, I was dressed and ready to go.  Vicki and I went to the local diner where we both ate more than we should have.  The food was good, and well worth the extra calories.  And then I was dropped off at my apartment, where I'd spend the rest of the day.

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Once home, I took a nap, and woke up just in time to start the co-op zoom meeting.  It was a struggle to stay awake, as I was still recovering from both a lack of sleep and being anesthetized,  But I made it through the meeting, and was ready to go back to sleep once I finished my dinner....

The day before, counting down the hours

 

Today was one of the two days I dreaded this week; this was the day I had to start my prep for my colonoscopy.  And the "fun" began when I had to think about what my last solid meal would be and that I didn't have any yellow Jello in the house as I thought I had.

One of the "pleasures" of the day involve having a light meal before noon.  Given that one should have avoided vegetables, fruits, nuts and seeds for two days before the procedure, this limits a person to meals high on protein.  (I wonder how my niece, a vegetarian would deal with this limitation.)  On the day before the procedure, one stops eating solid food and starts consuming both laxatives and fluids to purge the remaining "stuff" from the colon in advance of the procedure.  Given that I hate to wake up early, I knew that I had to do so in order to have something to eat before the noon deadline.

Two hours after the last meal comes the laxatives.  And you can guess what's coming next.  Another three hours go by, and then I start drinking some ghastly fluid geared to keep this queen on her throne as much as possible.  If I had my way, I'd have already started to feast on a huge steak.  But I'm following doctor's orders, and putting up with a little bit of hunger for the evening.  (I can only imagine how I'll be feeling once the procedure is completed tomorrow afternoon.)

Hopefully, I'll be able to go to sleep a bit early tonight, so that I can wake up early and finish off the remaining 32 ounces of the ghastly fluid.  

More on this tomorrow....

A woman's work is never done - A short post

 

Tonight, I left RQS to take care of things at home.  But I notice one thing about her: She's always trying to take care of the little things that I'll let sit for a while. As much as I am grateful for this, I also wish that she could put down her burdens for a while and relax a little.  And this got me thinking....

How much of what could be perceived as male laziness around the house can be attributed to women taking on responsibilities too quickly?

A while back, RQS had a situation where her brother should have stepped up and taken on some responsibilities on his own.  (I won't go into details here.)  He didn't step up, and she had to take on the bulk of these responsibilities.  What would have happened had she not stepped up?  Chaos to say the least. Why do women let men get away with this?

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Years ago, a Jewish woman and I had a conversation regarding the roles of men and women in the faith. One of the prayers that the men chant has a phrase that thanks god for not being born as women.  They recognized the role of women in the family, yet treated women as if they are subordinate.  What lazy bums!!!!  Shouldn't the men be taking on more responsibility to make their women's lives easier?  Instead, they seem to be giving thanks to be allowed to be deadbeats.

Similar attitudes can be found in many faiths and cultures.  And having been raised as a male, I absorbed some of these values when young, and have had to work to erase the dysfunctional subset of values from my belief system.  Yet I wonder: Why don't more women just say NO and let the system that enslaves them fall apart?

America gets the government it wants to pay for

 

Today's post will be short and sweet.  Around 10:45 am, I called Social Security to see about having Federal Taxes withheld from my monthly payments.  One problem - they do not have enough staff available to man their phone lines.  As a result, people can be kept on hold for over an hour.

Normally, I would find waiting 60+ minutes to reach a human inexcusable.  At least, SSA has a system where they will call a person back on the same number from which they made the original call.  Yet, I find this a little off-putting, and quite understandable given how many Americans think of the role of government and its funding.  

Americans like to think that we can get good things by paying prices for items that "fall off the back of the truck."  This helps to explain why government does so many things and does them in a half-assed way. It is much easier to say that we fund a wide range of services than to say that we fund none of them particularly well.  For example, let's talk about Social Security.  We charge employers and employees 7.5% of each employee's salary to fund future retirement benefits.  Yet, by 2040, the Social Security Trust Fund will run out of money, and benefits will need to be cut by 20%.  Instead of explaining to the public that longer lives require that we put more into the trust fund to pay for longer retirements, we keep passing the buck into the future as if we will get something for nothing.  So, we will likely find ourselves getting benefit cuts when we need them most.

At the end of WW2, the United States found itself as the dominant super power.  We invested in global military superiority for the sake of our prosperity - by fostering peaceful trade with our currency being the world's exchange standard, we could buy things cheaper than if another country's currency was the exchange standard of choice.  Yes, we made the mistake of exporting production to countries where labor was cheaper than in the US.  But we were able to maintain a standard of living as long as the domestic job market kept growing.  Unfortunately, it did - but in ways that didn't benefit the American worker.  Part time jobs without benefits became the norm, and both our government and its citizens started living on credit.

Sooner or later, we will have to pay the bill for borrowing more than we can afford.  Hopefully, our children and grandchildren will be able to do so.

It's been a long while since I've been in Queens

 

It's been years since I've been to Zum Stammtisch in Glendale, Queens.  The QCLC used to go there on occasion, as it was one of the last good German restaurants in the area and we knew that all beers served there would be acceptable under the Reinheitsgebot (German Beer Purity Law).  I have enjoyed many a good dinner there from the time I was attending college, and wanted to introduce RQS to some "stick to your ribs" German food.  So, a visit to RQS's place was a perfect excuse for me to invite my brother to join us for an after work dinner.  

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On Friday, I started running errands in order to prepare for an upcoming colonoscopy, as well as depositing a 401K distribution in my local bank.  Now, I have enough money available to buy the new car that I put off buying due to the Covid-19 pandemic and its associated supply chain disruption.  Unlike most times I've driven to RQS's place, I knew that I had to make it to her place before 4:30 pm, as people would not be moving their cars from their parking spots until Monday.  (One can usually find a spot during the day on Saturday and Sunday.  But with a winter storm coming, no one would want to risk not having a parking spot to last the weekend.)  I was lucky - I found a spot in front of RQS's building, and there was no way I was going to leave before Sunday.

My brother arrived at RQS's place at 6:00, and we drove over to Zum Stammtisch for dinner.  My brother had been to this place once (or, so he said), but this was RQS's first time there.  So we sat down to enjoy a deceptively filling meal.  About 2 hours, we finished our meal and it was time to go home for the night.  And this was just as well, as both of us fell asleep before the 11 pm news.

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I have nothing much to say about Saturday, as we didn't bother to go out of the apartment for anything.  But Sunday was something else.  I had to leave, and start getting things ready for my colonoscopy prep to start on Monday.  So, I packed up my stuff and left for home with a quick stop at Stew Leonard's along the way.  Looking at the road, I noticed that NYC had been spared the brunt of the storm.  But as I crossed into Westchester, snow had stuck on the ground.  By the time I got home, I figure that there was 3 inches of the white stuff on the ground near my place.  I can only imagine what it was like further North and West of here....

Sometimes, one has to seek out help

 

 

I've never tried to hide my age, as I'm an old TG woman and see my time on this earth getting shorter and shorter.  This doesn't frighten me as much as the thought of not being able to have my affairs in order at any time.  So, the thought of losing control of things as I'm coming to full retirement benefit age worries me a bit.

- - - - - -

About a month ago, my long time tax preparer decided to retire.  Although I knew this would eventually happen, I was still a little bit shocked when I heard the news.  I never had to look around for someone to take care of this need, and now I have to do a search when I need constancy the most.  The 2023 tax year had me receiving an unexpected bonus payment of a survivor's social security benefit from which taxes should have been withheld. And the 2024 tax year will require that taxes get withheld from benefits paid to me.  Dealing with these things should be simple.  But there are so many of them coming in at once to be dealt with that I can get overwhelmed thinking about them.

Luckily, I have one person I can call for help with my taxes and with tax planning.  Yet, I am looking for more than this person to choose from.  Hopefully, I will find the person I need soon, as I am not looking forward to this year's tax season....

Ambivalence and why is can be useful

 

I've mentioned in the past that I was ambivalent about taking my last cruise before and after the cruise itself.  There were good things I could say about the cruise line/ship and bad things I could say about the cruise line/ship.  But I ended up having the same mixed feelings after taking the cruise.

Why do I mention this?

Well, I still participate in the ship's Facebook forum and post appropriate things there.  I also watch an occasional Vlogger video about their experiences on the ship and a thought came to mind: We search for meaning in the things we have done, and often need to examine the experiences of others to determine the meanings of many of our experiences.  This tendency of our species isn't as crazy as it sounds.  There are some things that need to be examined by the many, so that a common understanding can evolve.  

The other day, someone asked a GOP candidate for the presidency a simple question: "What was the root cause of the American Civil War?"  Most of us would give the simple answer: "Slavery."  But this woman couldn't do so.  Even when asked this question 10 years before, she couldn't bring herself to give this simple answer.  Why would someone have problems giving this simple answer to what should have been a "softball" question?  The answer to this question is just as simple: The base of her political supporters rejects both the cause and result of the war between the states.  And behind her non-answer is a denial of the common understanding of the war that most people in most of the 50 states have come to accept.

When 160 years have passed and a political candidate can not give the simple answer to what should be a simple question regarding our civil war, that candidate is not qualified to be president.  Hopefully, this person will never be closer to the White House than on a guided tour....