Cardiology update

Had a visit with the cardiologist. He says I’m doing fine. I shouldn’t worry about the blood pooling in my right foot. It’s just the blood coming from the lump in my calf. That lump in my calf is definitely not a blood clot. It’s probably just the result of a bump. With the blood thinner I’m on, the internal bleeding is no surprise. I bleed indefinitely inside or out. The swelling is on its way down, so it’s all better now.

One more month on the Plavix blood thinner and I’m done. I’ll get to be drug-free again. I probably won’t need so many band-aids either.

Otherwise, no change from last spring. “No change” means no improvement in overall energy or exercise capacity, but that’s not entirely bad. I still get to walk at full speed without chest pain. “No change” also means no new problems. That’s my monitor. In that regard, “no change” is a very good thing.

Can you spot the .

Can you spot the black vulture in this picture?

Paradise pond

But Paradise pond is a rainwater pond. If it doesn’t rain; no water. There are a couple hose drippers off in the trees so the migrating birds have something to drink when the pond is dry. This month, it looks like this.

Paradise pond

We spend a lot of time on the boardwalk at Paradise Pond watching birds. We get waterbirds, shorebirds, migrating songbirds, birds soaring overhead. When we’re there in the winter, it looks like this.

Trikke

Neighbor Sue got one of those tricycle looking things; a trikke.

No pedals. No pushing. You make it go by turning, leaning, and weight shifting. Best I could describe the motion is, it’s like rollerblading, but with handlebars, throw in a little turn carving from skiing, and it has brakes. It looks really easy on the video.

I have devoted a few minutes to it every day for the last week. From my efforts so far, I’ve discovered that:

Not all things are as they appear. Riding the trikke is not as easy as it looks.

Knowing that the theory behind the propulsion has to do with conservation of angular momentum doesn’t make it any easier to figure out how to make it go.

The trikke is best used on perfectly flat smooth surfaces.

Riding the trikke, you’ll discover slight gradients in the road that are not visible to the naked eye. It works best when you’re going downhill, even if only slightly.

You’ll discover which direction the wind is coming from even if the air appears to be perfectly calm. It works best going downwind, even if only slightly.

When you first get on the trikke, nothing happens. You turn the handlebars back and forth and it moves a little. If you use it as a skateboard with handles and give it a few pushes with your foot first, you have a better chance of feeling what’s supposed to happen when you’re riding. Once you start to get the leaning and weight shifting down, people comment that you make it look easy. Presumably, at some point, it actually will be as easy as it looks.

There are moments. The rhythm finds you. It does feel easy. The moment passes.

But there is hope.

Annie

That Annie can be such a pain. She starts the night at the foot of the bed or on the floor, but that’s not where she thinks she belongs. As soon as we fall asleep she works her way up toward the pillows. By the middle of the night Judy has a dog hat on. Once in a while I find Annie on my pillow in the middle of the night. I give her a poke. She doesn’t get down, but she will move from my pillow back to Judy’s pillow.

Except last night. Last night I woke up to Annie’s tail on my face. I brushed it away with my hand, but it fell back. I brushed it away again. Didn’t help. I reached out to give her a poke but she wasn’t there. Had to open my eyes to locate her. She was on the other side of Judy. That wasn’t Annie’s tail in my face, it was my own hair.

Oh. Nevermind.

I decided it was time for a haircut.

Political campaigns

Early voting. We voted. They can stop all those helpful television commercials now.