A Good Day

Yesterday...  Last night... 

First, I got my new iPhone XR working.  Not that it was EASY getting to Apple help, but once there, the assistance was great!  The agent I spoke to (on my old cordless phone) was patient, helpful and knowledgeable.  I also need Verizon help and got it.  5 hold minutes each is nothing to complain about.  I called my neighbor friend Deb to try it, and my sister later.  It worked.

HURRAY!

Apps and contacts come later.  Knowing the iPhone worked was the major event.  I do miss having a printed manual though.  Looking stuff up in print is "sometimes" easier than visiting a help site that makes you figure out even the QUESTION to ask.

Second, I cooked outside the first time this year.  The Boston Butt was cut into 2 slabs for greater dry rub exposure and smoked for 2 hours.  Well, quite frankly, after 2 hours the surface is sealed and it is easier to complete the cooking in the oven at 225F.

Third, removing the pork allowed space for 12 chicken boneless skinless thighs to get smoked for an hour.  They finished in the oven just as the pork came out.   

The pork was SO GREAT I just noshed on cut parts all night.  Best pork butt I ever cooked.  BTW to those with other names for parts of pork "butt" is not actually "butt".  Its' a shoulder part.   Sorry, sometimes I get "eww" when mentioning "butt" LOL!

I drowned the meat in dry rub overnight, and it really pain off.  I bet the chicken thighs are the same (dinner tonight).  

Sometimes I get lucky, and the pork was IT.  Maybe the chicken too. 

I walked better yesterday.  It comes and goes.  Yesterday was better than average.  Maybe going out to the smoker helped distract me.  Any port in a storm, as they say.

New seeds arrived in the mail.  I better get busy with some of them as I'm behind schedule with some early ones.  I've been spending more time in the basement lately (laundry, litter-boxes and some seedling tray platform tray repairs).  

Had to "glue&screw" some of the platforms.  The drill was "heavier than I remembered it".  I got by carefully.  It's funny how slight differences in strength make big differences in handling tools.  Took both hands to hold the drill straight, and also to move things around.

But I couldn't have done that at all 2 weeks ago.  

Next project is to get all sites listed in my password manager so that I don't depend on old lists and marked-out scribbles.  It's a pain to change everything, but I can see the ones I've done make life easier. The hardest part was figuring out how to add passwords to start.  It is easier after the first few.  

At least it seems to work.  And I have wicked long and complicated password manager password.  Takes minutes to type it, but I don't have to do it often.

I only wish everything went that easy...

50 Days Of Annoyance

This is an update, but not the usual one.  There are effects of injuries that aren't strictly sore muscles and healing ribs...

I've spent more time in bed these past 50 days than the previous 2 months.  Usually, about 10-13 hours per night.  While I may be healing and can get around better now, my body still reminds me that I'm not going on long walks for a while yet, and I may never golf or bowl again.  Not that I've done either for several years, but it is probably not an option anymore.  

I have to be careful lifting heavy pans.  I can feel it when I lift a full mug of tea above my shoulder (I have a M/W on a raised shelf and may change that).   Lifting Marley feels like lifting an anvil (he's 18 lbs now).   I still have to be careful on stairs.  

The right clavicle will never be the same.  The orthopedic surgeon was being optimistic when she said that unless I was a pro athlete I didn't need surgery as "I could do about anything else normally".  So, this is a bit awkward and I don't WANT to sound sexist or questioning her judgement (though I am), but I don't think she understands how much stress men (and some women) put on their bodies in some hobbies.

BEFORE I fell, I did a lot of things that pulled on most muscles and left me sore a few days.  Partly (for me) it is living alone and HAVING to do everything myself.  Partly, it is WANTING to (otherwise, why do it?).  I can hire people to do hard work, but I don't want to.  

Unless the shoulder improves dramatically in the next few months, there are a lot of things I used to do that I can't anymore.  I won't be digging up and chopping out invading tree roots entering my garden beds. I won't shoveling out a trailer full of mulch to add to the garden soil to keep it enriched.  I won't be climbing the ladder to cut off droopy tree branches.

There are some psychological effects of reduced mobility.  Some of you understand that personally.  This is MY first experience with it.  I sit a lot when awake and I mentioned staying in bed many hours.  When awake, it is just easier to sit.  Oh, I move around regularly (cook dinner, do laundry, water plants, clean litterboxes, take trash and recycling bins to the street, etc.  

But I sit more because I'm depressed.  I don't (think) I mean clinically, I just can't do much these days and it is frustrating.  I actively want to, I just can't.  Carrying around a stepladder on ice is just too much for now.  

And I probably lay in bed more hours because "why get up"?  The waterbed is warm, soft, and comfortable.  And The Mews collect around me much of the time.  It is easy to just lay there in relative comfort.  It's more comfortable than sitting in the easy chair, and sitting in the easy chair is still more comfortable than walking around.  

As I said, I still "feel it" when I walk.  There is a difference between "can walk" and "comfortable walking".  One day, I will just notice I am walking again normally.   Or not.  There are just somethings you have to wait to find out about.  And some things I can do well enough and some things that make me hesitate...

For example, I looked at the birdfeeders today.  I have gone out in serious snowstorms to refill them in the past.  I got myself up to fill the thistle feeders yesterday.  Well, they are reachable from the ground.  But I looked at the 8' high black oil sunflower seed feeder and hanging suet cages.   

I sighed at having to carry the stepladder to the feeder (it feels heavy these days) but went into the basement to fill the tub with seeds and open 2 containers of suet.  No suet left...  I went upstairs and added suet to my shopping list.  The cardinals will have to find seeds at neighboring yards tomorrow.  I feel very guilty.  

Before I fell, I had a flock of 6 male cardinals and some number of females (they are harder to see).  I wasn't able to refill the feeder for a month+ afterwards. I refilled it once and was empty in a week.  Most have moved on.  Or maybe died (that's the "guilt" part).  I hope they are finding another neighbor who feeds them.  

They can probably find some seeds, but suet is high-density calories and they need that in Winter.  When the sleet stops tomorrow, I will put a pan of seeds on the deck rail.  They'll find it; I've done that before.  And go shopping...  But I bet suet is hard to find now.  

On the other paw, that means people are putting suet out for the birds and that is a comfort to me.  As long as they get it through these days when I can't provide it well, they will survive.

It was about time that I started to feel age creeping up on me.  I am glad it took a while, I am grateful for all those years.  But just as our pets have to go over The Bridge sometime, I am feeling "aging".  

Aside from the effects of the fall, I already had a "trick" right knee. It will just suddenly weaken randomly. I have some routine muscle cramps in the calves and thighs in bed, and rib cramps while awake the past few years.  More annoying then anything, but painful.

I have the occasional "finger-clench" finger thing that probably is a sign of oncoming Parkinson's.  It used to happen only when I did hard-gripping of heavy tools.  Now it surprises me when I haven't done much work.  My Mother had the "clench" and lead to Parkinson's, and it seems to be genetic.  So that seems to be in my future.

I'm grateful for all the many years without any problems, but age does catch up to you eventually.  This fall from the ladder is probably not going to help anything, LOL!  Hey, all you can do is take what life hands you...

Well, I better end this for today...