Category: miscellaneous

Sunda’s Wandering Political Thoughts

This is about me. As my posts often are.

I’ve been undergoing treatment for lymphedema. It’s been going well. As part of that process, after the swelling in my lower legs, ankles, and feet were reduced, tailored-made compression socks to help me maintain my lymph fluid flow were ordered. Because the left side was ordered first, it was received first. I’ve been wearing it, and I’ve been happy with it.

My right side has taken longer. Part of that is because I was recovering from surgery on that side for a ruptured tendon. The surgery area ballooned up and fought against going down. Hence the therapy prescried for me to deal with the lymphedemia.

The right side has responded to it all and is much better after a month of special bandages, strict dieting, and a bevy of special exercises. The surgery is healed. I’m awaiting my special compression sock for it. It was supposed to arrived last week. We thought it’d be here by last Friday at the latest. It still hasn’t arrived.

It occured to me last night that my sock might be trapped somwhere as part of the Great Undoing. See, Medicare A&B cover me, backed up by the insurance from my twenty-year military career, Tricare For Life (TFL). But the socks ordered by my therapist through my hospital go through Medicare and paid for by Medicare and TFL. That’s done through an organization in Portland, Oregon, which outsources the sock production from a Germany company. The German company ships it directly to moi.

It leaves me in limbo at this point. I wonder, why hasn’t the second sock arrived yet?

Has it been affected by the Great Undoing and the PINO Trusk cuts, chaos, freezes, and tariffs?

Is it just standard logistical issues caused by weather and life?

Was or is it just a bureaucratic snafu?

Time will reveal all in the long run. In the meantime, like many Americans, I’m trapped in a loop of ‘wait and see’.

It’s a frustrating place to be.

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The Running Dream

I was set up to run. I learned that there were four courses.

All were unfamiliar to me. A young man, this was a competition. Someone else signed me up for it. Their faith in me — and I don’t know who signed me up — flattered me. I vowed to do the I could.

The four courses were laid out over the course of several green hills. They were long distances but we were expected to sprint over them if we wanted to win. As I chugged over them, I discovered various degrees of muddiness despite a wealth of sunshine. Other competitors were encountered but all of us were focused on learning the courses and practicing our runs. Dressed in dark shorts and a white tank top, I did this for three or four days in a row. Then, while running on another day, I discovered crowds gathering to watch. As I ran by them, I heard some exclaiming to others, “He’s running the race.”

From other comments, I learned that everyone else had quit or had been eliminated. This fueled me to go faster and try harder. But I also learned that many people thought the competition were over. They were crossing the courses, forcing me to go through crowds. Seeing me still running, though, some of the people acted like officials and cleared a path for me. Some now began applauding and cheering. Others said, “He’s going to set a new world record.”

I awoke as I began the final course. I felt strong, exhilerated.

Cool dream.

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Ambitious? Just Back Off

Daily writing prompt
Describe the most ambitious DIY project you’ve ever taken on.
View all responses

When it comes to DIY, ‘ambitious’ isn’t in my vocabulary. Honestly, I keep it simple.

I miss the old days, when part of my DIY routines were working on the car. Changing oil, cleaning or replacing the spark plugs, setting the ignition timing, rotating the tires, installing new brakes, bleeding that system, replacing the radiator coolant, etc. Those were fun and rewarding DIY projects. Then, though, cars became complicated. Engine bays became packed so tightly that reaching spark plugs was an ordeal. Getting to the oil filter was a nightmare. I’m reduced to installing a new battery in the car and topping off the windshield wiper fluid.

Around the house, I’ve done multiple small jobs. Replaced the furnace’s control board. Installed new thermostat. Replaced the filters, installed capacitators on the air conditioning, along with some other pieces on it. I’ve installed new light fixtures in various rooms, took the dishwasher apart and fixed it, and did troubleshooting on the microwave, replacing fuses and different parts. Likewise, I’ve done some plumbing work but I keep it simple. I’ve painted all the rooms except two, installed a blower in the gas fireplace, and do all my yard work. Yes, I’ve installed some shelving and assembled furniture.

On my computers, I’ve swapped out hard drives, processors, fans, video cards, and power supplies, and added or changed memory. In many ways, I think of them as the modern equivalent of working on cars back when cars had mechanical systems. I’ve installed and replaced routers and modems, replaced keyboards, added different streaming devices and printers, and did basic troubleshooting on software and security, uninstalling, reinstalling things as necessary, and took apart the keyboards and cleaned them.

Many of these things are driven by being cheap. I don’t want to pay others for what I think I might be able to fix. I’m also driven to understand these things more. I want to know how they work, how the parts interact, etc. These systems are mature and demonstrate ingenious engineering solutions. Finding how they work amazes me, and the Internet is a useful tool for that purpose. Then, to restore them when they’ve died is such a validating process.

That validation process is a big component. In a complex world, where so much seems beyond our control, it’s satisfying to take something broken apart, and make it work again. Just keep it simple.

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Twosda’s Theme Music

The clouds dominating Ashlandia yesterday went stealth mode and vanished. That cleared air permitted the temperature to drop like a stone in a well. But then night pivoted to day and sunshine shoved the cold out of the air, already carrying us to the mid 40s. We expect ten more degrees today. Rain? Hey, it’s always possible at this time of year, even though the sky is cloudfree and blue. Mo’ definitely feels like sprinter up this way.

My morning news scan depressed the Jesus out of me. Fair warning, didn’t have much Jesus in me to begin. The United States is now proudly *cough cough* aligning with the Iran and Russia in a U.N. votes against a resolution. Yes, we’re the new Axis of Evil. Took PINO Trusk less than two months to upend a military and political alliance that goes back decades. What’s to worry about, right? Wonkette has the full dispiriting tale for us. If you need an Axis of Evil primer, here’s a Wikipedia link.

Has the Great Awakening begun? I doubt it. In my mind, after the 2024 Elections came the Great Shitstorm of 2025. The Great Undoing began immediately after that. The Reciprocal Wave is next, as the consequences of PINO Trusk’s actions hit people like a pie in the face. Then comes the Great Awakening when people realize, “Hey, he’s not making things better for me!” But we know from bitter experience not to hold our breath that people awaken, realize they’ve been conned, and admit it. Many never will just to save face or because they’re lunatics or fanatics, i.e., MAGAts. But in a small burst of hope, PINO Trusk’s poll numbers show growing displeasure with his royal Trumpiness. Just wait until the RW starts pummeling them in their banking accounts. Then we’ll see some poll numbers worth cheering, I think. Of course, reading the linked Reuters story causes sustained concern, as many Republican streaked individuals still believe much of what PINO Trusk does is just smoke without consequences. Sure.

One bit of news did cheer me up in an oblique way as a little schadenfreude: North Korean hackers steal record $1.5 billion in single crypto hack, security firm says. Yeah, good, hit ’em in the old cryptocoin. More disconcertingly, North Korea uses such funds to fund its nuclear weapon development.

The Neurons have The Hollies singing “Long Cool Woman in A Black Dress” in the morning mental music stream. The 1972 song is playing just because of the song’s line about working for the FBI. That comes after reading news about the FBI. That’s just how the mind sometimes works. Hope you enjoy the song.

Coffee has infiltrated me again. I think it was an inside job. Hope your day becomes something awesome for you. And here we go, one more time, in three…two…one…

Oh, quick reminder. Friday, Feb. 28, 2025, is a planned day of boycott. Hope you’ll participate. We are. The more the merrier. While it’s targeted on corporations which rolled back DEI policies under PINO Trusk’s encouragement, like Amazon, Target, Best Buy, PBS, NPR, Coca Cola, Pepsico, McDonald’s, Starbucks, and more. Costco is one of the few major corporations which stood firm against DEI changes. Share the news. Make it real. It begins at 00:01 AM on Feb 28th and ends at 11:59 PM.

Cheers

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Keep On Keeping On

Daily writing prompt
What is the biggest challenge you will face in the next six months?
View all responses

Well, the challenge is to keep on keeping on. I get tired and frustrated. Like, “Oh my God, I have to vacuum the floor again? It’s time to take out the trash? I just took out the trash.” I mean, the tedium of these things… The weariness builds and grows…

My wife is with me on this. It seems like she’s washing clothes every other day. There are just two of us living in the house. How in the world do we use so many clothes?

Then there is the irritating, always-asked question: “What should we do for dinner?”

This is truly a song of the first world blues when you’re complaining about what I have to cook to eat. Like, waah.

Which delivers me on the doorstep of the biggest challenges facing me in the next six months. To keep perspective. To remind myself that things like higher gas prices are minor for me but major for others. To remember that my health complaints are minor and not to get too absorbed about who I am and what’s bothering me. Because let me tell you, brothers and sisters, there are many out there with a much worse fucking life than me.

That’s the challenge to keep in mind.

2

A Hybrid Dream

I called this one a hybrid dream. My ‘anxiety dreams’ often circle around my long-ago military career. Now my psyche has folded some of my civilian occupations into the mix.

This one began with me working with programmers. While they were busy on the daily stuff required for the present, I was focused on a transition planned for several years down the road. We were installing a new ‘smart’ support system. I was creating test scenarios. At one point, I stopped for a break and overheard someone say that the implementation date would be 2032.

2032. My spirit sagged. I’m going to be forced to wait that long for results?

The dream shifted. Now I’m at work in a military command post as I did for years. I’m working alone in the facility, monitoring different systems. While going back to get supplies, I notice a light blue telephone frame room door ajar. After another second, gathering someone is in there, I head back to the console area to call the security police.

The console is a mess. Phones aren’t where I expected them to be. I can’t find a hotline to the SPs. What the hell, there aren’t any hotlines to anywhere. What kind of command post is this? A dream twist causes me to get distracted. I begin cleaning and organizing the command post, cursing it as I do. What the hell is wrong with this organization that they let it get like this?

Going past the blue frame room door, I realized that I’d forgotten about the person in there. Now I see a woman leave that room. Past her is a cot, chair, clothing, and a small camping table. She’s living in there! Now, using a radio, I notify the security police.

They immediately arrive and take her into custody. Then I realize, I’m out of the console area, and I’m locked out. The console area is never supposed to be unmanned. What is wrong with me?

I hasten to get myself back inside. A person who works for me, a female, is just entering, so she let’s me in I hurry to the console. She accompanies me. We’re chatting, and then I remember and tell her, “I’m behind. I didn’t do my shift checklist, inventory the communications security gear, update the log.”

She says, “Wow, you are behind.”

I begin doing those things. Unlocking and opening the communications security safe, house to all the code books and crypto, I find food inside. “What the hell?”

Taking the food out, I stack it neatly. It comes to me that someone else stored the food there but I don’t know their intention. It looks like candy for Halloween, Valentine’s Day, Christmas, Easter. I organize it and start giving it away.

Dream end.

1

Wenzda’s Wandering Thoughts

“Watch out for those stairs.”

My wife and her friend are telling me this. Going down some steps, I’m wearing the blue and white flat sandals forced on me by my lymphedema wraps around my feet and lower legs. They’re a little clumsy to walk in but after five days, I have the measure of them.

“Be careful,” they tell me, hovering around me like I’m a toddler taking their first steps.

“Watch the snow and ice,” they proclaim as I step outside. “There’s a clearer path over there.”

Their concern strikes me as condescending. I mean, they’re with me for ten minutes; what do they think I’m doing for the other twenty-three hours and fifty minutes of the day?

“Are you okay to drive?” one asks me.

I smile and nod. I mean, I drove over there. I’ve been driving every day with these things on several times per day. Really, their concern says more about them and their fears and worries than it says about me and my condition.

6

Just A Dream

Daily writing prompt
Write about your dream home.
View all responses

I’ve almost lived in my dream home a few times. That whole personal paradigm of what a dream home is changes with time.

Living in Germany off base in a little town called Waldorf, I was quite happy. Up on the fifth floor, we had nice views and were short walks to some sweet cafes, bakeries, and gasthauses. The drive to the base was short. Not much traffic was encountered on a typical day until I reached the gate, so there was no frustrations or irritations associated with driving. Frankfurt itself, with all that it offered was just down the autobahn. The train or the autobahn easily took us other places, not just in Germany, but across Europe. It was wonderful.

But I rotated ‘home’, to the United States. Home was now Onizuka Air Station, previously known as Sunnyvale Air Station, in Sunnyvale, California. After living in an apartment in Sunnyvale, I moved to base housing. Then I retired from the military and lived in a Mountain View duplex on a cul-de-sac. But my wife and I noticed that we often spent time when we weren’t working in Half Moon Bay, California. So we found a place there, a beautiful townhome just a mile from the beach.

Half Moon Bay was a wonderful town. Our place was just a six minute walk from downtown and its plethora of restaurants, shops, cafes, and stores. We were in heaven for a while there.

But it’s Half Moon Bay, a small place. We still worked in San Mateo, Redwood City, Mountain View. Besides work, we needed to venture up Highway 92 and ‘over the hill’ to do shopping. The traffic there was bad and getting worse.

Then our housing association started going crazo. They began more stringent with the rules while increasing the HOA dues. We were soon paying almost a thousand a month for that and climbing.

So we moved here, to Ashland, in southern Oregon. The town initially offered a lot of promise but the promise has faded. We also know that, gosh, we miss that ocean. So, we want to move again.

To where? Well, probably the east coast in the U.S. Maybe to Europe. Perhaps Canada. Or South America. I want a small town with interesting stores and cafes, good food, and a sense of community. It’s a place where I can walk for coffee, food, beer, books. I’d also like to be by the sea and the churning, interesting facets it throws at my mind and senses. Will I find my dream home?

I don’t know. I think I’m still trying to dream it up.

0

WordPress Blues

I’ve read others’ comments about comments getting rejected by WordPress. Last week, it struck me. I’d type up a comment, click comment, and WP replied, “This comment couldn’t be posted” or words to that effect.

It doesn’t happen with everyone’s blogs. It’s irritatingly random. First time, the poster had written about bowel movements and their poo. I commented and added a facet about menstrual cycles. When my comments were rejected, I wondered if it was about the subject or my word choices. But since then, I’ve had comments rejected about car repairs, animals, food, news, and politics.

Just one of those mysterious afflictions which sometimes strike modern technology, I suppose.

7

Friedaz’s Theme Music

We’ve clocked into Friedaz, February 7, 2024. Snowfall greeted me when I checked the weather. A couple more inches had been added during night’s rule. Now 30 F, more was piling up.

Or was it? The temperature crept up to 31. 32. 32.3. 32.4.

Papi the ginger blade, aka, ginger butt, had a vet appointment. 10 AM. I’d made it three weeks ago. He was suffering fur loss, ravenous appetite and some weight loss. Hyperactive thyroid was suspected by us. We’d seen the same in Tucker (pronounced Tuck-ah). In fact, based on that, we’d started sharing Tucker’s medicine with Papi. Stopped it on Monday so we could get it out of his system and see the test results.

After strapping chains onto the tires and putting a complaining Papi into a kennel, I made the drive under heavy snowfall.

Turned out that chains were only needed for our driveway and street. The city’s main roads were plowed. As we traveled west and north, the temperature rose. Snow became rain. Precipitation ceased by the time we reached the vet.

That’s okay. Little inconvenienced. Important thing is to get Papi checked and healthy. Yeah, blood work shows hyperactive thyroid. Five hundred clams later, she prescribed the same med that Tucker is getting. Wants to check him in a month.

BTW, I researched why we call money ‘clams’. Turns out that it’s an old joke, based on settlers observing natives using clams for cash. Actually, I made that up. Figure that in this era of fake news, what’s a little more?

I have a 1974 Procol Harum song, “Pandora’s Box”, in the morning mental music stream. Procol Harum often brought interesting music to the scene. This is one I knew from their albums but I don’t believe I ever heard it played on the radio. Funny enough, Aerosmith had a song with the same title in the year before. That caused some confusion among some of us. The two songs sound nothing at all alike, with vastly different intentions presented by the lyrics. I later bet a friend about who performed the song, cleverly inserting the year as part of the bet. I won but he accused me of being underhanded and taking advantage of him. Guilty! But the bet was just a beer, come on. It was at the NCO club and was five dollars for a pitcher. Of course, it was American lager…Miller Lite, I think.

Coffee has resuscitated my energy levels again. Time to get on the day and ride. Hope your day fills your needs.

Hey, look, the snow has stopped and the sun is out.

By the way, I thought I’d utilize the original spelling used today, Friedaz. In doing research, I learned that ‘day’ was actually ‘daz’ almost universally until it became Anglicized. And the prefix, Fri, was originally Frig or Frigga, after a Nordic Goddess. Those rebelling against Nordic influence because they were chaffing from looting done during Viking raids in Europe, changed it to Frie. That spelling upset Christians, as Frigga day or Frieday was a day of fasting. People thought that calling it Friedaz gave them permission to eat fried food. Hence, they started eating fried fish on Friedaz, giving rise to the Catholic rule of eating fish on Friday. The spelling was changed to try to stop people from eating fried foods on Friedaz, but it had became too embedded. Even so, a last ditch attempt was made by religious authorities: they changed the spelling to Friday. And that’s why we have that spelling.

Naw, I made that up, too. Blame the coffee. It’s always forcing me to write and say crazy things.

Until another time, cheers

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