Well, let’s see. The AC got fixed. Jane and I have both had more doctor visits, all good so far, I have to have a couple of laser fixes on my lens implants this next month, and I have been regaining some physical strength—I am now able to life the water pitcher to fill the coffee pot, hurrah—which is how bad it was at worst. Now I’m on the mend.I thought you might enjoy two not-expert pix of the Terror Kitten, aka Finity. Finity leaving her exercise wheel. Finity taking a nap. I’ve begun to explore the picture-using abilities of this software, as I just got a new camera for my birthday and am trying to learn to use it.
ANd the good news is we have reached 110,000 words of 120,000 (target, which we are likely to exceed) on ALLIANCE UNBOUND (working title.)
Even better news, after a year long hiatus my ‘voices’ are back—you know, those things that get some people onto meds, but are normal for us writer folk, who make our living by reporting the fact. Seriously, I’m waking up thinking about the situation I left poor JR in, and that is a really excellent thing.
It’s getting close to time to put the koi to bed for the winter—the water lilypads are yellowing and soon we’ll have to stop feeding them and let them go to sleep until March—October to November is their normal bedtime.
I finally got a camera, so I may be able to post pix. This is a good thing.
And that’s what I know this evening.
Just got back from grocery shopping. Jane and I did this one together. I’ve gotten very philosophical about the need to use one of the carts, which i have hated to use when there might be someone needing it more—I do walk, and even walk for exercise, but shopping is just different, and involves way too much standing, which for me is even harder, for some weird reason—the doc had to cut some nerves, and this didn’t help. Anyway this store has enough carts. And right now it means I’m not wiped out for the rest of the day and can get some writing done. So I’m not taking anything anybody needs.
For you new folk, remember I have to ‘approve’ your first post to be sure it isn’t offering tix to a Belgian lottery or something, so just be patient, and I’ll get there, and after that you can post away ad libitum and I don’t have to punch any special buttons. It will just appear.
What is the policy on thread necromancy? If some asked a question three years ago and no one answered it, is it bad form to do so now?
No problem. SOmeone is bound to be interested.
Hurray for improvements! (I got mammo’d this week: all normal, so I’m clear for annual until further notice. Now if the chemo-induced neuropathy would go away…and the unrelated backache.)
Blood work for 2nd anniversary of colon surgery was good. No colonoscopy this year!
I’m using a cold laser (veterinary) on the hands and just got a Homedics foot-bath with tea-tree oil powdered stuff—it leaked, so it’s getting returned and a new one, but the one hour I did use it, it was a real relief to the feet.
I tell you this neuropathy thing is not for the sissies….there was a time I could only type 4 correct letters out of five and every word was a case of backing up and correcting which itself could go wrong. And the feet thing was so my balance was real iffy. But—it’s getting better. Also recommend Alpha Lipoeic Acid (pill) and vitamin B.
I still have the fulltime tingling, but at least my typing speed is back to normal.
The neuropathy will get better but nerve tissue grows slowly. I couldn’t button my sweater post chemo and I was numb to the knees. It took me a year before the neuropathy went away in my hands and another year till I could crochet without the tips of my fingers tingling when the yarn went through. All eventually went away. So glad you are back to typing effectively again!
Yay for good bloodwork!
I haven’t had any of your problems, thank heavens, possibly because I didn’t have chemo or radiation. I did have PCPS (Post Colon Polypectomy Syndrome) after the follow-up colonoscopy at 12 months which sent me to a sub-ICU ward for 5 days on IV antibiotics. The colon is a dirty place. So, we still keep on trucking and don’t go anywhere w/o knowing where the facilities are 🙂
Jane and I have decided to go back to a keto diet for a while. We seem to be plateaued on this one. Besides, winter is coming, (kettle drums) and one thing you are not on keto—cold. We know the diet works for both of us, and if there’s one thing *I* am it’s conscious of keeping up the post-chemo nutrition.
So after eating like rabbits most of the summer, it’s pork chops and green beans for a few months.
ReadyGuy and I are so happy the voices are back. Even your blog writing and Facebook posts are sounding more like the CJ of old. Next thing you know we’ll be planning a ShejiCon!
Yay! Lookie who’s here! That last thread was getting a little long.
Eight or ten years back I had a synovial cyst at L5. It was necessary to buy a cane, but I never got the knack of using it in the proper hand and swinging it with the proper foot. I never gave in to using one of the carts at Costco, but I dreaded going there–as did drivers when I had to cross the road. Since then I’ve had steroid facet joint injections about once a year, which the insurance says they will no longer cover; I must have a neural ablation. 🙁
OMG, am I still one of Augustus’ Legions? Well October is almost here. No prizes for guessing my costume for the month.
Isn’t the best prize guessing correctly? Panther?
Hi! I’m so glad to see you here again, though I quite understand you didn’t have the mental bandwidth to grapple with a site that needed more than you could spare.
It’s good to hear everyone’s health checks are positive, that you’re feeling a bit better, and have got the mental space back to start hearing the books again. I do hope the neuropathy will continue to improve.
Also that the AC is fixed, even if winter is coming now, and that you are going to be able to prepare the pond for that.
It’s going to be busy at work for the next few months, as my town will be merging with the neighboring small town to become “Dike and Polder” (Dijk en Waard) on the first of January – no Christmas holidays for anyone in the IT department this year (just the day itself, with a bit of luck), in fact no vacations at all from September until the end of January 2022. We’ll see how things go.
Spokane underwent the opposite: a portion of our city far more conservative than the rest of us split off and became Spokane Valley, and then spent scads of the citizens’ money erecting a fancy new city hall and developing its own police and fire department, so I’m not sure they came off ahead in the deal, not alone that they are not a zero-crime area. Usually in my experience it’s the posh folk that want to separate off, like Nichols Hills in Oklahoma City, so I’m wondering if the average folk of the area came off ahead in that deal, but there they are. Our county is half a million people, Spokane with outliers like the Valley, Medical Lake, Spangle, and Deer Creek, which makes us the largest collective metro area in eastern Washington, nothing like Seattle, with Maple Valley, Renton, Bellingham, etc, but still metro enough for us. We still have no real rush hour. And hope it stays that way.
I’m one of the late “Silent Generation”. Hitler owned Europe when I was born, still, if not for long without serious challenge. (“Ike could wait a day, Mom couldn’t!”)
I recall back, oh, I guess it was the 60’s, when critics were complaining that the Baby Boomers had been spoiled children, albeit understandable with Greatest Generation soldier fathers. To be sure, not all were, but I’m guessing we now see which were.
I’ve been wondering if that wasn’t spot-on and we’re now seeing the consequences of that, Americans demanding to have it their way. (“This is not Burger King…”) I can’t see that changing by any deliberate process, it’s too ingrained. I think this is one of those generational change processes, where a whole generation has to “die off”. Will Gen-X bring more cooperation?
Solving problems by waiting for a generation to die off? We’ve been trying that in the US since the ’60s. The 1860s!
No, you can’t seriously claim that our culture hasn’t changed since the Civil War era. Some of the “problems”, e.g. the strength of group/tribal affiliation, that have persisted need to be examined in inherent evolutionary terms.
We are animals. Animals have instincts. It past time to quit using instinct as a pejorative term, and deal with it. That said, I don’t believe this current “individually soverign” movement is grounded in instinct. To the extent it isn’t just “spoiled child” behavior, it’s politically inspired.
We have yet to come to terms with fundamental differences between people, and I’m referring not to superficial differences (though those seem to be problem enough) but to people whose brains are “wired” differently in several fundamental ways. (Present company not excepted.)
p.s. WRT “ageing out”, I think Congress won’t start functioning better until some people “age out”. 😉 We have that to look forward to.
I’m early GenX, and given that we are all middle aged now, it’s fairly safe to say we aren’t the solution to the problem any more, we’ve BECOME the problem. Hail to the new boss, same as the old boss. Even at that, our power as a generation isn’t what is should be; we are (still) being squeezed from both sides by Boomer dinosaurs clinging to relevance past their time and aggressive Millennials just beginning to hit their prime.
I disagree. It is your time! Power isn’t given, it’s taken. It’s like the old song from “A Chorus Line”, I can do that! We are at a time of nothing less than the destruction of civilization. It must be stopped. “If not now, when? If not me, who?”
In middle-age you should be old enough to have some perspective. Unfortunately your education was sacrificed by said Boomers in favor of tax cuts, for which we have little to show. The 3Rs aren’t enough! You needed History and Civics. But you should see the consequences of that and be able to be a force for education. “An alternative story” to the Holocaust? The mind boggles. But we didn’t learn the “Never Again” lesson: Ruanda, Cambodia, Bosnia, Rohinga. (At this very moment our classical music broadcasting/streaming station is playing a medley of the music from “The King and I”, by Rodgers & Hammerstein. The words are going through my mind, not irrelevantly.) It’s your time to be mentors and leave us better than you’ve found us!
I like to teach those who want to learn, and to learn from the new things they discover. It gives me a warm, comforting place in the space between my stomach and my navel. Those who don’t want to learn, not so much. I am a boomer, though.
We’re not that large, Sir Hugo’s Polder (Heerhugowaard) has about 60.000 people, and neigboring Marsh at Long Dike (Broek op Langedijk) has about 25.000 – together we’re almost as large as the historic regional central town of Alkmaar.
The fusion is necessary, as towns that are too small (like our neighbors) have trouble dealing with the full diversity of all the local government tasks – if several jobs can only be done by one person on staff, that’s a very vulnerable situation if that staffmember gets sick. So we’ve been providing IT backup for them for years, and our “organisational cultures” are not too dissimilar. But still it’s hard to give up one’s historical local identity and merge with a larger town, and local politicians and citizens need time to accept it.
Dutch municipalities have been consolidating since at least 1950, nearly halving by 2000 to 537, and by 2021 to 352, as more public service tasks are delegated from the national government to municipalities (often with an “efficiency cut” to the financing 😒).
I can’t remember reading about one splitting, unless a part gets split off in order to join another neighboring municipality. They’d have to prove to regional and national government that the split-off piece would be large enough, solidly funded and capable to fullfill all the usual municipal functions before getting permission to do so.
Hi Hanneke. Love your comments re local government in NL. Sounds spookily similar to my own experience as an IT worker in local govt in UK where most of my later projects were all about efficiency savings and pooling IT resources across what used to be very rigid municipal boundaries. Why this seems strange to me is that you mention your regional centre of Alkmaar which is always on my must visit list when we visit NL. I lost my heart on my first visit when I exited the car park to find myself opposite a cheese museum. Point is, that to me Alkmaar, and really all that part of NL just spells holidays and fun. I would never have thought of comparing life there in any way to mine in the post industrial north of England. I loved imagining you sat in the same sort of IT workshop I’ve been frequenting for years and probably also wishing you were reading sci fi instead!
CJ, Would you consider appointing a manager of the site? I would nominate Paul as he seems to be both reliable and knowlegeable enough to maintain the site for you while you are busy with the more important stuff: writing.
Me? I may be a “mod” on “Nemesis Rising”, a SMALL recreational site for former Galaxy Zoo netizens, but no, I know nothing of WP, and am probably too old to learn. I haven’t even been able continue building new versions of my LFS-based Linux. My short-term memory is shot. I can’t “juggle all the balls” necessary to coordinate the building process.
The “reliability” you ascribe is a property of my Asperger’s. Stuff that gets neurotypical people excited doesn’t phase me. I usually say, my emotions are tied to persons, not people, if you get the distinction.
“And if nominated, I shall not run.” Know who?
General Sherman, a very wise decision on his part. Not a job I would want, back then or now.
No, within living memory. I remember it.
We’ll see how we go. I kind off like to understand the tech myself, and we’ll see if I can do that, now I’ve bent my mind to it.
Several years ago, I took a community college course (Part I and Part II) on WordPress. I built up a new website for my kendo club, but due to the rising cost of the domain/server/etc., and the dwindling sources of income for the club, it’s now gone defunct. I used the Atahualpa template, which is the one on this website, because I liked the layout. The instructor thought it was a bit dated, but didn’t tell me I had to change. I still have my course books with me. The club decided to use the Facebook page I’d set up before, as it’s cheaper, and seemed to reach more people.
So lovely to see a new post from you again! Especially one full of such good news. Look forward to hearing more updates on your progress.
My husband and I have had good luck with Keto, despite breaking training for an occasional biscuit or no-knead bread. I tried most of the “alternative” flours and absolutely hated all of them. I’d rather do without normally and enjoy the once-a-week slip to the side.
Evidently K12 English believes our students are time travelers ala Dr. Strange, Dr. Who, and the Time Lords. Verb tense is an amazing concept to them, and they don’t even believe Grammarly when it indicates problems. Our college library pays for the premium version of Grammarly for all our students.
After mom’s little attack of hospital in July, she decided she wanted us both to buy into a local retirement community, so in the past two months, I’ve gotten an F*ton of paperwork together, got us “bought in,” sold mom’s house (Supposed to close on the 4th of Oct), got people to do an estate sale for her (she lived in that house for 60 years, so every closet, every drawer, under every bed . . . ) and me, got me moved into a two bedroom apartment in one of the retirement community’s buildings, got her the requisite equipment (adjustable bed, wheel chair, bed table, etc., etc.,) so she can move in with me on the 18th of October. I’ve lost 11 lbs since May, partly from being about 75% more active than I was, partly from my thyroid dosage being upped, and partly lymphoma recurrence — and that’s despite not being particularly careful what I’ve been eating. (I’m eating healthy, just making no effort at all to cut calories.)
The good thing about where we are living now is that they have accommodations that range from independent living, to assisted living, to skilled nursing to “memory care” and once you have bought into the place, you pay the same monthly fee no matter what level of care you need. Mom’s in the snf finishing her rehab which would cost upwards of 8 grand a month if she had to pay out of pocket, but we have “LifeCare” now so we on’y pay a fourth of that. Even in the apartment we’re living in, we get one meal a day (which is plenty of food for me since I’m doing intermittent fasting), and a maid comes in and cleans twice a month. When I inevitably have to have chemo again, somebody will come check on me on a regular basis, and mama can go to assisted living when I won’t be able to care for her because of chemo. (She turned 97 this past Thurs).
I am among the neurodiverse myself and people are hard. About half the time I feel like I’m in Stepford’s retirement community, and about half the time I feel like I’ve been mistaken for June Cleaver and am trapped in a 50’s sitcom. CJ would recognize the type we have here — the beauty shop every week, helmet hair set, with husbands who were big noises in some kind of agribusiness. I haven’t even managed to find a knitter yet, never mind a SciFi fan. (that’s that weird Star Wars stuff, isn’t it?)
Just to give you an example of what I’m dealing with, one of the sets of movers pulled the legs of one side of my sideboard apart from the carcass to the point where the cabinet door was hanging askew — but nothing a little wood glue and a ratchet strap wouldn’t fix. You should have seen the look I got when I asked one of the residence “counsellors” if somebody in maintenance would have a ratchet strap. Blank look. I ended up ordering one on Amazon and fixing the durn thing myself.
I’m probably the only person you know who has bookshelves in her closet — with as complete a set of CJ’s oeuvre as I can get my little hot hands on. I’m down to three bookshelves now (from five) and it was tough letting some of them go. Putting two of the bookshelves in my walk-in closet was the only way I could keep them.
Anyway, glad your nerves are starting to sort themselves out, CJ. Delighted that “inner voices” service has been restored. (Would that be VOIP — voice over imagination protocol?)
I’ve moved myself to a Retirement Community because all of my family is 8000+ miles away. It’s a similar setup to yours … I’ve the smallest 2bed 2bath apartment and my 2nd bedroom has computers, books, etc etc. Cleaning is weekly, we have a meal allowance and you can eat in the dining room or bistro and even order wine with meals or at Happy Hour. It’s a different way of life and I’m now set up in case colon cancer resurfaces.
ANd you’re not the only person whose 2nd bedroom closet is a library. We also have a pretty decent library and are only 2 miles quick drive from the nearest city library branch.
Glad you’ve gotten settled. Maybe an sf fan will move in and you can stand off the Good Housekeeping brigade. I know whereof you speak, for sure. The sun’s a star? Eh? Uh…..
Great to hear from you and glad that things are going well for the both of you (Hi Jane).
And don’t stop at 120,000 words, the more time I get to spend in the Alliance Universe the better it is.
Welcome back, CJ and Jane! So good to hear that life and VOICES are doing better :). The cart at Costco … oh, yes. After a year of knee scooters, walkers, canes and brain surgery for husband, he’s up, around and doing fantastic, and I’m the one relegated to “the Costco cart”. I had that guilt too, but there have always been plenty of carts; you’ve certainly earned a ride, CJ!. Adjusting to new lives indeed. A kind cousin gave me her spare scooter, and I’m busy ordering LED color changing lights to keep up with the grandson, and … bags for our BOOKS ;). So looking forward to what the VOICES have to say 🙂
Those little buggies are kind of fun to drive. Both times I had a knee replaced, I had to go for groceries while still in a walker, (zimmer frame), and they were so very useful and fun. Not s much fun as a wheel chair, but still fun.
CJ, I’m so glad to see you and Jane remain overall healthy and hard at work on the fiction that all of us here know and love 🙂 I’d gotten worried, I do lurk even if I don’t comment hardly ever.
Thanks for what you do. Noone else can do Science Fiction better!
I’m one of those new members after having followed you on FB for some time now. Considering the Foreigner series was one of the things that kept me going in two longer than I would have liked hospital stays after a diagnosis of Pancreatic Cancer*, I can safely say I’m so glad to hear that your health is improving.
*Relatively happy ending, after surgery it turned out to be a misdiagnosis.
So glad it was a misdiagnosis! –cj
good to hear!
Welcome aboard, Joe! We’re a talkative lot, courtesy of our hostess’s blog space.
Years ago, I had a misdiagnosis of breast cancer. Very weird (but not unwelcome) to be a cancer reject. I wish more ended people ended that way.
As many have remarked, this getting older stuff isn’t for wimps! Glad to hear, however, that many of the salads, when forced to it, are coping with grace. Also glad that our Gracious Hostess and Jane are both doing better after their last round of fix-em-ups.
After many alarums and excursions, DH and I will be visiting the east coast for a bit. Originally we had wanted to see FiL, but he has decided that at his age and with COVID running amok, he would rather see us when it is better controlled. We will schedule a later visit for when he feels safer; meanwhile, we will be meeting up with many friends, some of whom we only know from long online acquaintance. Partially we are going because I planned this when it looked like COVID was getting under control, but after 4 years with no travel, I’m getting a bad case of ‘island fever’. We will take all due precautions, and the aim is to neither get nor give COVID while having a good time visiting.
BTW, Many Felicitations to Warrior of Worry, today is her Natal Day.