Today, Dorothy my stepmother and I took her kitty to the vet to have her feline diabetes checked.  The condition is responding well to the dietary changes instituted earlier in June. So no kitty meds are needed now.

What knocked me for a loop was toting Sugar (the cat) in her kitty carrier. Too much weight was a little reminder that life before the fusion isn’t coming back. If I can’t lift a cat  (admittedly a little chubby) and a carrier  without feeling pain for the rest of the day , I guess I am disabled. For real.

After my ice pack afternoon respite, I made my daily visit to check on Grace, my sister’s cat, whilst she is on vacation. Grace is a sweet cat who rests her head on my thigh while I sit during my visit. I could be a cat person very easily.

I came home,  fixed a veggie and cheese wrap that reflected my Weight Watchers meal planning. I did some more cold therapy on my back, then got up for some cleaning.

Now I sit, sipping my decaf, writing the blog, and watching Lord Kenneth Clark’s epic documentary Civilisation.  The particular episode I’m watching, The Fallacies of Hope,  deals with the roots of Romanticism in the French Revolution.

I want sleep to come, but I want a sweet thought to spawn a dream. So I stay awake, hoping that sublime moment will creep in.

Oh Well. Good Night all.

In Fantasy Life, I wake up, Good To Go, ready to sit at the computer and bare my very soul in words that the Swedish Nobel Committee is reading approvingly as I write.   In Real Life,  back pain wakes me up. I go make coffee, text with a friend, think about the crap I have to do today which I subconsciously put up with, so I can avoid writing.

I had one project, to get the Weight Watchers mobile app working on my Smartphone. I accomplished that and also reset my page on the online site, so I can track my Weight Watchers SmartPoints.  It’s another activity I’ve been avoiding, thinking my post surgeries weight gain is going to manage itself, disappearing on its own.. It hasn’t yet..

Writing wise, there’s a poem I wrote and will publish today. I will try to do more, allowing for the back pain which comes when I sit for extended periods, say an hour or so.

Being an adult sucks, sometimes.

Time sure flies when you’re procrastinating. Not that I planned to be away this long. We  had several  dramas, “incidents and accidents”, to use Paul Simon’s marvelous little phrase.  My stepmother Dorothy fell at the Y and cracked her coccyx, AKA, “tailbone”. All in all, it turned out as well as you can hope for when a ninety year old falls. She just won’t be back at the Y til she’s healed a little more.

Then we had to deal with the final legal details pertaining to my brother’s estate. Part of the legacy was an envelope full of packets of stamps, mostly “Forever”, but some 42-cent  Christmas stamps from several Christmases ago.  That was so typical of my brother; to have a bunch of stamps.

The following week Dorothy’s Persian cat was acting odd, sort of lethargic with no appetite. I took Dorothy and Sugar to the vet, left Sugar for a work-up while Dorothy and I went home.  Turns out Sugar has  “the sugar”.  Yep, feline diabetes. She is not on kitty insulin yet, but she started a special diet.

During all these singular events, I continued with physical therapy for my back, twice a week. It was actually a workout disguised as physical therapy. It was tough, but I actually enjoyed it. This comes from a man who enjoys swimming 2 miles straight through. At PT I became very familiar with a device called the Total Gym, the apparatus for which Christie Brinkley and Chuck Norris do an infomercial.  The Total Gym is a serious piece of exercise equipment, sturdy and well-made. The particular exercise I performed was pushing my body weight with my legs while leaning back against the backboard. Serious stuff.

Going to physical therapy and doctors’ offices has reaffirmed my belief that I am an extremely fortunate 65 year old.  I’ll take my repaired rotator cuff and fused spine at L4/L5  any day over what I see my contemporaries  (and younger folks) enduring.  Specifically I see weight problems that put strain on joints; a man, crippled by Multiple Sclerosis, who gets in the pool and treads water every day. I am incredibly lucky.

Much as I would like to turn this into the next “Ring” Cycle, getting a modem is a bigger nuisance than I imagined.
First the modem I ordered from Amazon did not work. Back in the box and back to Amazon it went.
Then I called Verizon on the assumption that they provided my Internet. Wrong. They sold their book of Internet to Frontier Communications, whoever they are. I got hold of Frontier Communications and they could not find our account in their records. I told Jason, the call center peon, that I was ending the call because this wasn’t in the least helpful.
I always think of Eddie Albert’s character, Oliver Wendell Douglas, on the Sixties classic sitcom  Green Acres, when these little collisions with reality occur. I don’t have to climb a pole to use the phone like he did though. Another reason to be glad I have underground utility lines.

The modem for my big computer, the one with a real keyboard, is kaput. So a new one is on order. I have written a new poem, (I feel like Monsieur Gustave from The Grand Budapest Hotel.) but I have to wait for new modem to show up from Amazon.

One of the blessings of my disability is that I have been home most days and not driving. Thank God. This morning, I helped out a friend who doesn’t have a vehicle get to work. That meant I had to drive during rush hour. I saw what I was missing and I realized how lucky I am.
Anybody who criticizes conformity too stridently doesn’t take into account that conformity is what makes driving a viable means of getting places. We all agree to conform to the rules of the road. Being a unique driver isn’t particularly valuable.

Art is about increasing the likelihood of getting laid.