Tag: health

Saturda’s Wandering Thoughts

“Easter is a week away,” my wife said. “You need to get a haircut.”

I just got one last month. Her observation annoys me. I spent twenty years in the military. Keeping your hair cut and neat was, like, an actual regulation. After being freed from military constraints, I’m not interested in being so neat and tidy when it comes to hair. I will lose this discussion, though, and cave. Being neat is extremely high on my wife’s list. She is also adept at being severe and disapproving.

“Want to hear my sister’s text?” I ask.

“Go ahead.”

I read my sister’s updates from Pittsburgh. She’s buying her daughter a new phone. Several features on her present phone are failing. Replace it before Trump’s tariffs add hundreds, she reckons. She used the same logic to replace her eight-year-old ride. She also cashed in her small 401K and put it into certificates in December because she believed Trump was going to trash the economy. She tells me about my other sister’s financial worries.

Four sisters share Mom. Two of them are extremely responsible. The other two are not exactly flighty but they seem to have many crises and make choices that cause more problems. I probably would make more choices that aren’t wise ones, but I’m married to a diligent person.

My sister also comments about how expensive everything is, and how hard it is for young people like her twenty-something daughter these days.

My conversation with my wife swirls into a new zone. “Mom should be using red-light therapy to help with her healing, injuries, and inflammation.” My wife and I both champion red-light therapy. It has helped us in numerous ways. Besides that, NASA, soccer leagues, and the NFL are all red-light therapy true believers.

My wife tells me that Jan approached her for help with another person. The other person suffers Renaud’s disease in her feet. She’s been warned that she might lose her feet if she doesn’t get treatment. The woman doesn’t like going to the doctor. Almost has a pathological fear about it.

Renaud’s has plagued my wife for years. She once showed me her finger. White as a candle, bent and misshaped, horrifying to look at. She aggressively applied red-light therapy and resolved the problem.

“I told Jan to tell her friend about red-light therapy,” my wife says. “She can at least buy a belt and try it.” Pros and cons are discussed for a few more minutes. My wife complains about friends who were told about it but haven’t tried it. She doesn’t understand their reluctance.

I text my sister to ask her if Mom has tried red-light therapy. Then I get online to make a haircut appointment.

There are some things which must be accepted and done.

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Twosda’s Wandering Thoughts

I’m in shock.

I tell my wife, “I’m wearing over eight hundred dollars worth of clothes.”

She looks me over. “Gold-plated underwear?”

“That wouldn’t be comfortable nor practical.” I reconsider the gold-plated undies for a few more seconds. “How would that work?”

“Why are your clothes so pricy?”

“My socks,” I admit.

I’m wearing my compression stockings, as the medical ‘they’ likes to label them. I received a statement about them last night. Review, sign, return. Custom made in Germany to help me cope with lymphedema, the statement reveals that each stocking costs $366.

I explain this to my wife. “Good thing that they’re paid for by Medicare and Tricare for Life. I would have never bought these on my own.”

“No. You’re not comfortable with a pair of shoes that costs over a hundred dollars,” my wife says.

This is true. Fashion doesn’t interest me. I like to be practical. Today’s shoes cost me about sixty. They’re several years old. My jeans are a pre-COVID purchase. Forty dollars. My shirt was bought at an outlet store for $25, I think, over ten years ago. My Columbia fleece is even older. I think I bought it for $40 on sale. Other than the stockings, my undies are the newest things on my person.

Four more stockings are on the way. $366 each. I think about getting a safe to keep them safe.

I begin typing on my computer. Goldplate underwear for men is available at Kohl’s, a search result says. I click on the link. It comes up with gold-plated stainless-steel chains.

Just as well. I don’t think I’m up for gold-plated underwear.

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Stopping You There

Trump Said Auto Emissions Don’t Affect the Environment. That’s Not True.

President Trump announced on Monday that he planned to relax limits on pollution from cars, saying that the move wouldn’t “mean a damn bit of difference to the environment.”

But decades of science show that the pollution from automobile tailpipes has harmed the environment and public health, from the days when leaded gasoline sent neurotoxins into the air and soil to the carbon dioxide emissions that are heating the planet right now.

No need to read any further. ‘Decades of science’ means nothing to PINO Trusk. Those are facts. Facts do not count in Trumpworld. We’ve already seen that with vaccinations and COVID-19. Measles and vaccines. Anything and vaccines.

Trump’s vision for the United States is a dark and poisoned place.

He’s just a monster.

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Wenzda’s Wandering Thoughts

I announced, “They want me to send them a photo.”

This aggrieved me. Everyone wants photos of things sent these days. I consider the trend of wanting photos part of the inexorable enshittification of modern society.

My wife was non-committal about her take on it. Sympathetic noises were made. I suspect she wasn’t paying attention.

Breaking down, I dragged out my phone, opened it to the camera app, and took a photo of our Lifepro Near Red-light Therapy belt. Yes, it took about twenty seconds. The time is not the point.

The belt had ceased working. We’d purchased it in October of 2023 through Amazon. It has a lifetime warranty.

The RLT impressed my wife and me. She used it to cope with painful back and shoulder flares caused by RA. I regularly used it to reduce swelling on my legs, ankles, and feet, where I’ve been dealing with lymphedema. I missed using it.

After the belt quit working, I went into my Amazon records and contacted the sellers. Happiness responded for them. Seeing that it was ‘happiness’ answering made me suspicious. We’re in a world where a documented liar calls himself the most honest man in the world, a world where the same man has cheated throughout his life but is supported by people as the Second Coming of Jesus. It has made me a little cynical.

Happiness asked for the order number and date of order. I provided that. Now they wanted a photo and directed me to a form.

The photo was part of an online form I needed to fill out. Grumbling about it, I put the order number in — again — click/copy/paste, filled out all the info, repeating many of the things already done, and then attached the photo. It took almost two minutes. Yeah.

Returning to email, I replied to Happiness and told them that I’d submitted the form. They thanked me and told me my issue would be reviewed and they’d get back to me in two to four days.

I expected to be given a return number. Told how to box it up and where to send it.

Instead, they sent me a new product. This wasn’t from Happiness but from Lifepro Support. Gave me a UPS tracking number and everything.

“What trickery is this?” I asked myself.

The replacement arrived yesterday. Brand new.

I wanted to verify some things for myself. I connected the new cord to the old belt. The cord has three separate segments which can be plugged in and unplugged, etc. This allows you to plug it into a UBS port or plug it into the wall. I always use the UBS port. Through my tests, I confirmed that it was only this segment of cord which didn’t work.

I wrote Lifepro Support to inform them that it was only the one piece that wasn’t working. That meant that I now had two working belts. Asked if they wanted me to send either back.

No, they responded. You can send it back if you want. or keep both. If you do want to send one back, tell us and we’ll give you the instructions. They thanked me for my honestly.

It was a good experience. Happiness and Lifepro Support always responded fast. They were friendly and professional, and the company stood behind their product. When I began, I thought I’d be chewing my nails in frustration by the end. I’m pleased that this wasn’t the case. Kylie, Jae, Renee, and Chad did a great job. The entire process took nine days.

And one photograph.

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Munda’s Wandering Thoughts

Arias ring through the room’s air. These originate in my wife’s digestive system. She’s on day 3 of a fast. A lacto-ovo-pescatarian for over 30 years, all that she’s permitted herself during these days is green tea and water. Plenty of both have been consumed.

Fasting is her go-to response to matters. First time that she fasted was while I was in the Philippines on military assignment. Living with her parents, she decided to fast and did so for ten days. In this case, she’s dealing with two fronts: RA flares afflicting her shoulder, and being dispirited about the current political clime in the United States. She’d taken to long days of doom scrolling. Friends finally told her, “You need to stop.”

So stop she did. She stopped eating and doom scrolling. How long will she continue, is the question put to her. She’s not certain. She’ll reach some point where she’ll decide she’s clean enough and will resume eating.

While she isn’t eating, she’s still treating herself to warm epson salts baths and near infrared red-light therapy in our home pod. She’s also staying in the house, limiting social contact and physical activity. She’s reading a lot of fiction.

I hope it all works. I hope she recovers and is eating again soon.

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A Chaotic Mom Dream

Not surprising, given my conflicting attitudes about Mom, a chaotic dream had her front and center. My family was also there; not just my real life extended family. My dream added a few extras.

We were at some huge get together. This was at Mom’s place. It was a place I’ve never seen in real life. Ramshackled, part park and house, the boundaries between inside and out were nebulous and ever-changing. So were the rooms. I kept getting a little lost but then recovering and figuring out where I was.

Meanwhile, my relatives were a chaotic bunch. A person who dislikes chaos as much as cats dislike loud noises, I took charge and imposed order, telling each what they should do. I couched it in a way that it sounded like advice. Agreeing to my suggestions, they packed food, piled into cars, and left.

Ah, the silence was comfortable. Then Mom hurried in. Loose piles of money had been on one table. I remembered seeing it, I agreed. It was all gone, Mom said, frantic. She thought someone broke in and stole it.

I challenged that. She didn’t see anyone break in. No evidence of a break in was there. It was possible that the family took the money. Wasn’t that why the money was there? Mom bickered with me about it a bit, changing the history and the reason the money was there. I grew weary of it as I realized that nothing I said or did would appease her. Suggesting she call the other family members and talk to them, I wandered off.

Then came the dream’s climax. I sat down and picked at my little toe’s toe nail. This would be toe number five. The small toe. I picked at the nail; it felt like the nail was loose. Like something was under it. Unable to help myself, I conducted some prying with a finger nail.

My little toe’s top lifted off. Like the top quarter inch.

It was a bloodless event. Beneath it was another small toe nail. My toe was intact, just stubbier. To cap matters off, I did the same thing with the other toe.

Then I tossed the two toe tips aside, amusing myself with how Mom would react when she saw them, chuckling to myself about what my wife would say about my new truncated toes. I was dubious she would notice.

Dream end.

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So Easy

Daily writing prompt
What do you wish you could do more every day?
View all responses

This is such an easy question to answer. I wish I could write more every day. Yes, fill my cup with coffee and let me write without end. I’m talking about fiction writing. Novels and such. I really enjoy writing fiction.

I also wish I could eat more every day. I’m limited in my eating by obscure factors like sodium in foods, gaining weight, and staying healthy. So I’m restricted in how much I can eat every day. It’s a shame, too, because there are many foods which I really enjoy and would like to eat more every day. Like, right now, I could really go for a piece of pie. Blueberry. With ice cream.

Of course, I’d also like to socialize more every day. I’m writing, and that’s not a social activity, speaking for myself, of course, so that limits how much time I have to socialize. A few more hours of socializing every day would be good for me, I think. So I wish that I could socialize more every day.

Spending more time reading is also something I’d wish to be able to do more every day. I love reading, and there are so many awesome writers out there. So many great novels, books, essays, and articles to read. While I’m at it, I also wish to study more every day. I would love to be able to spend time deeply studying art, architecture, and history, along with literature and quantum mechanics.

Then again, if I could, I wish I could spend more time with my wife every day. She’s an intelligent person and a lot of fun.

Another wish I’d have is to be able to visit with my family more every day. They live in other parts of the country, so it takes time and money to visit them, and doing so interrupts my other wishes. But if we had a teleporter, I could probably make it work.

While I’m thinking about it, I also wish I could travel more. I’ve done some traveling, mostly around the United States, Far East, some northern Africa, and Europe. I’ve rarely been south of the equator, so I’d like to visit ruins and cultures in the southern latitutes. I wish I could travel more every day and go to places like Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, and Antarctica. I’ve also always wanted to visit Sri Lanka.

I also wish I could time travel more every day. I’ve learned through hard experience that time travel has a lot of perks but man, when you screw it up, it’s downright hard to fix. There’s a lot of things I need to apologize to the world about which has happened because of my botched time traveling. I feel really guilty about it, too, but if I can just find the time — ha, sorry about that, that pun wasn’t planned — I wish I could time travel more every day.

Since I’m confessing, I’d also wish to be able to see the future more every day. You know, predict things. But time travel has screwed that up, too, as has my dimension clones. If it wasn’t for them bouncing between dimensions, I’d have a much better life and would be way better at seeing the future. I think we all would. But, anyway…

Other than that brief list, there’s nothing I wish to do more every day. Oh, except exercise. And paint. I painted a great deal when I was young but not so much as an adult. I wish I could paint more every day.

Oh, and go fishing.

Other than those few things, there’s nothing.

Oh, except sleeping. I really wish I could sleep more every day.

But that’s all.

Except, I wish I could just relax and do nothing more every day. Because I really am lazy at heart.

And that’s it. There is no more.

Well, except for a few DIY projects around the house. I wish I had time to do more DIY every day.

And that’s all.

I think.

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Frieda’s Theme Music

If you’re feelin’ some heat, that might be cos it’s Fried-day. Not much heat to Ashlandia’s thin sunshine. Black clouds dropped in and held like smoke curling against a low ceiling. Rain has been jumpin’ in and out, heavy at times. We have jumped from 37 F to 47 F, which is about as high as we can expect. This is Frieda, March 21, 2025.

Out to a late start. Final therapy session for the lymphedema. Things lookin’ good, fingers crossed, knock wood, ‘cetera. Just gotta keep it so.

As it was an early AM appointment and it was in Medord, my wife tagged along so we could do some shoppin’. Pick up ‘sentials. That done, since we’d not eaten, we took a late lunch at a restaurant where we chowed on eggs and hash browns with coffee and toast. Then it was back home and back here and at last I’m sat up in the writin’ position. I jumped immediately in novel writing because some muse critters were hammering at things they felt needed done. With those checked off, I’m turning to posting.

Today’s song comes from offhand exchanges between the other and me. Coming into the house, we chatted about getting online “to see what the orange hooplehead has done now,” as she put it. So we were asking of our computers, what’s going on?

That exchange gave The Neurons ammo to introduce “What’s Up” by 4 Non Blondes to the morning mental music stream, afternoon edition. But in my search for a video, I came across a cover by Pink which took me in, so here we are.

I also offer the song as theme music for all those coping with the crap which the Trusk Regime is lading on us. As one line goes, “And I pray. Oh my God, do I pray. I pray every single day for revolution.”

Coffee and I have met up a few times today, and I’m doing fine. Hope you are, too. Onward. Courage. Cheers

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Munda’s Wandering Thoughts

Mom isn’t speaking to her live-in boyfriend again. Hormones? Mom is 89 and her boyfriend is 95.

The cause of the rift is ‘his girlfriend’. His best friend died last year. Mom thinks her beau has a thing for the man’s widow. The widow called him last Saturday. Mom said she and her boyfriend haven’t spoken since that phone call.

I blame it on drama. Mom lives for being the center of a dramado. If one doesn’t naturally occur, she’ll conjure it.

Take her falls. She falls a lot. ‘Bout every six weeks by my estimate. Ends up injuring herself. She generally falls while cleaning or dressing herself.

Now, the situation can be changed. Mom can move into assisted living. My sisters and I encourage her to do that. We told her we will pay for it. But nope. Mom won’t because her boyfriend — the one she isn’t speaking to, because, per her, he has another girlfriend — says he doesn’t want to move out of the house and they are a package deal.

Okay. How ’bout if we have someone come in and help her? I did hire someone to come in and clean. Originally twice a week. Then once a week. Then every other week. Then once a month, Mom slowly moved her back out. The cleaning person then experienced her own health issues and has never returned.

How ’bout having some medical assitance come in a few times a week then, etc? No, Mom doesn’t want to have anyone coming to the house. That would mean she would need to clean herself up first, clean the house, etc. No, no, no.

Bottom line, she has established her path and remains firmly on it.

Yes, I’m writing simplistically about the routines, emotions, psychology, etc., of these decisions. I do sympathize and empathize with her position. But this challenge has been going on for half a decade. My sisters have each bowed out of the discussions. It’s only Mom and I talking about it now, and she doesn’t really talk. She just says no.

She wrote last week and asked, when can I come back again? Sadly, my life is out here, in Oregon, with my wife and my own issues. So, sorry, Mom, can just vacate my life again, as I’ve done a couple times before.

So there we sit, awaiting the next drama.

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One More Time

Daily writing prompt
What strategies do you use to cope with negative feelings?
View all responses

I regularly endure negative feelings, but weirdly, I consider myself an optimist.

Dealing with negative feelings, though, had to be, um, dealt with. By the time that I was in my teens, I knew that I tended to be negative. I’ve always felt like an imposter, less capable, less intelligent, less talented, than others give me credit for being. It’s difficult for me to accept praise. I literally cringe from it.

I found answers in books. From them, I evolved some coping mechanisms.

One, I write down the worse that I think can happen from a given situation. Somehow, writing that down like that lays bare my concerns. It helps me visualize that the likelihood of many of my fears are not as great as they loom in my mind. Secondly, writing them down helps me develop insights into how to counter these fears and make them less likely to come about. It also helps me perceive the emotional side, where my negative feelings reside, and the intellectual side, where the wherewithal to learn, try, and succeed, actually resides.

Next, I learned to grit my teeth and accept that I will not succeed at everything I attempt. I will often fail. But if I don’t give up and try again, then I can learn from my mistakes, keep trying, and maybe, just possibly, succeed.

Third, I let myself rail at myself. I do this alone and I’m pretty hard on myself. But after railing, I feel an emotional release. I’m ready to take a deep breath and try again.

Lastly, I let myself procrastinate. I know that probably sounds flimsy as hell, but giving myself time to find the right energy to take things on has proven to help me overcome my fears and worries. Along the way, hand in glove with that, it gives me time to think back on similar situations where I thought I would fail or something bad would happen, but then ended up with a good outcome. That fosters encouragement that maybe this isn’t as bad as I’m making it out to be.

And now, really, lastly, I learned to laugh at myself. To not take myself and my failures or my successes too seriously. I learned how to have fun while trying these things, to admit that I screwed up, to mock myself for screwing up.

That always made it easier to try one…more…time.

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