Happy Independence Day!!

 And a nice windy day it is too!  (Well, yesterday, I'm having too much fun to write a whole post in one day!)

In the good news department my wife had her surgery on the 2nd and seems to be doing fine even if she is in some pain.  She broke her ankle just a bit over 2 years ago and had it operated on then.  Unfortunately that surgery didn't work and now she is having it done over again.  She came out and basically feels ok but she is going to be in a wheelchair for at LEAST 6 weeks!  So Don is getting his exercise doing stuff around the house including pushing that chair.  With any luck at all I won't poison us both with my cooking.  Lots of fun but if it works, that will be great.  

The surgery day was kind of nasty I must say.  We live in the boonies so we went to Vegas on the 1st and spent the night in a hotel.  We were told she had to shower that morning, not the previous evening, so we were up at 04:00 am to shower and get to the hospital by 05:30 to do paperwork.  Yeah, special!  Of course we then waited until the surgeon showed up about 07:45.  She got to go in to her hospital bed and I got to sit in the waiting room.  They have a special room for people waiting for people getting 1 day surgeries but I must say I was there more than most of the other family members.  It was 11:15 by the time the surgeon came out and told me the surgery was successful and she was in recovery.  It was shortly after 1 pm when I got to see her and by 1:20 we were loading into the car to come home.  There were 2 nurses helping me get her situated in the car so you can guess that getting her out when we made it here was LOTS of fun!  But we managed it (by 3:20 pm) and she's been holding down the recliner, her bed or the wheelchair ever since.  She's got quite a bit of pain and tons of pills but who knows what is going to happen.  I'm sure I'll be talking about it here.

We live in a weird world.  We live in Nye County.  In our county it is legal to possess fireworks and there are 3 large sellers of fireworks and a couple smaller ones.  However, it is illegal to use the big fireworks in Nye County except in a designated area and for a few days around the 4th (https://pvtimes.com/news/officials-urging-safety-this-4th-of-july-144905/).  In Clark County, where Las Vegas is, it is not legal to possess fireworks.  So every year around Independence Day there are large signs put up saying 'Do not take fireworks into Clark County'.  And others saying 'Do not buy illegal fireworks'.  Of course people ignore all that.  Just this week some guy from Las Vegas came into one of our large stores and bought $500 worth of 'safe and sane' fireworks.  The problem is that Clark County does it's own testing and that stuff hadn't been tested so the the stuff was illegal.  He was stopped as soon as he entered Clark County, the stuff taken away and he's gotten a fine.  How did they know he was carrying fireworks?  There was a cop in the store observing him!  What a deal.

So now for the bad news which is, of course, that the Big Bill got passed and that's going to be nasty for lots and lots of people in this country.   I have no idea what something like my wife's surgery will be costing when the bill goes into effect.  But the real people I feel sorry about are in two categories:  very poor and immigrants.  I heard that children born here of immigrant parents may not be legal citizens.  Well, I don't have any problem making a choice like that for children being born today or tomorrow but to force that on some kid who is 15 or 18 or even 30???  From what I'm reading the kid loses his/her citizenship automatically if the parents were illegals.  Really?  That's just wrong. 

And, of course, there are the people depending on Food Stamps for dinner.  And now they are in limbo.  The federal law is being changed; the states laws are going to be changing; it's a unknown world.  I feel for those folks.  I read where $350 a month is the average benefit.  That's just over $10 a day; and Smith's Food and Drug is offering hamburger at $5.33 a pound.  Don't forget toilet paper at $2 a roll.  If you've got a couple of kids they'll take care of that $10 a day quick enough!  

Enough!  Sorry I'm in such a happy mood.   Have a great weekend; try to stay away from the fires and storms and crazy folks.  And keep those hands clean!

Another wonderful month!

 Life in the old lane!  It's been quite a month.  We can start with the 7 doctor visits we've had this last month plus my wife got one trip to the Emergency Room.  Around here the ER tends to be conservative and unless there is really something going on they just tell you to go home and that's what they told her.  Maybe with a new prescription or maybe not.  Anyway, that was fun even if we didn't get home until something like 2:00 in the morning.  And now that it is close to the 1st of the month I'm happy to say that we have 7 more doctor visits/tests scheduled for July not including my wife's surgery.  Yes, she's having another ankle surgery to hopefully repair the one she had two years ago.

Then there are our 'children'.  I'm talking about people over 50 years of age but still they did have parents!  Don't get me wrong, it was great to see both of them and we had a good time talking up a storm.  Anyway our son was here for 3 days and a week later we had our daughter for two days.  Her visit was part of a business trip; his was just to check up on his mom.  My wife is having trouble walking and talking.  When she is on the phone especially her voice will kind of break up and I'm sure that motivated his visit.  We have no idea what's going on there and her doctor is no help either.  Her walking is going to change dramatically on July 2 when she has that ankle surgery!  Then she'll be confined to the wheelchair for at least a month and who knows how the walking will end up.  What the hell happened to taking the summer and seeing new parts of the world?  Oh well.  

Otherwise it's been a pretty normal summer in the Nevada desert.  Our daily high is usually around 100 F (38 C) with breezes in the 10-15 mph range (15 to 25 kmph).  That's the reason we have one air conditioner system for each side of the house!  Nights get down to 65 to 70 F (18 - 21 C).  If I fall asleep in my recliner and wake about 01:00 I can usually open the windows a bit.  Rain?  You've got to be kidding!  We haven't even had snow on the mountains for at least 3 months. 

So I've been sitting here at my computer reading the news quite a bit.  How the hell did we get that group of idiots running our country?  I didn't agree with Mr. Trump in his first term but I wasn't really worried about the way the country was being run.  Now I'm getting pretty close to terrified.  Is there a law or article of the Constitution that he hasn't broken?  I think Mr. Trump is bad enough but that collection of sorry jerks he has 'helping' him is what is worrying me.  Suppose he were to be found incompetent?  President Vance?  OMG!  And Vance would be run over by the other idiots in the cabinet.  Jeez!  It's going to be a LONG 3 & 1/2 years let me tell you!   Already you go to the grocery store and see the price differences; in another year it will be in everything from electronics to vehicles to gasoline to drugs.  And, of course, when the prices of 'things' go up; so will service items.  Already we have seen prices of lunch items go up or the item just disappears from the menu.  We used to think that $30 for dinner at the local casino restaurant was a lot; now it's $50.  And, trust me, that doesn't include wine or a tip!  But we'll see what happens.  I'm not optomistic.  

So that's our world out here:  aches and pains, lots of warmth and a bunch of idiots running the country.  Talk about wonderful times!  Hopefully I'll get back here before an entire month is up!  Take care & be careful.

Life in the slow lane!

 Well, it's been a while but I really don't have much of interest to talk about.  We are still hitting the doctors way too much and they still aren't doing much to help either of us.  My wife's ankle fusion surgery just keeps getting farther and farther away.  My doctor and the ER people just don't have a clue what's going on with me so that's kind of dull too.  My wife has been going to the gym and meeting with a personal trainer trying to build up some muscle since after the surgery she is going to be confined to a wheelchair for a month or two.  I've been going with her and using the treadmill and the back strengthening exercises.  Helping her in and out of that chair, bed and everywhere else isn't going to be fun for either of us!

I did come up with my own version of excitement.  I was walking over to the window to close the window blind at night and managed to kick the leg of a chair with the little toe on my left foot!  Talk about fun!  Well, it slowed me down some but not all that much.  I had a doctor's visit a couple days later so I asked him to look at it and he doesn't think it's broken or anything so it's just hobble around for a bit.

Yesterday we got up to 105 F so if you want to be outside you do it early!  We've had some weeds growing in our front yard so I decided to work on removing them.  I can only do about an hour a morning so it's taken me 3 mornings and I've still got some little stuff right next to the street.  Now it's time for me to work on the back yard but I need to wait until next week; our trash can is full of weeds with no room for trash!  LOL  This pile is about 20% of what I did yesterday a.m.  This bending over and pulling weeds at 76 years of age is no fun!

 There was one fun thing I got to see.  This guy was thinking of landing his balloon.

 I don't have any idea why but he decided that he needed a different spot so he moved on to the right (south) in the photo.

 He's not really landing in those trees.  He's in a place about 2 blocks past (west) them.  That whole lot is a weird thing.  It is an acre just like ours.  When we moved in there was a hole dug like someone was going to lay gravel and put in a foundation for a house.  The trees were MUCH smaller.  There is a well on the property and it's been pumping water to those trees for the 16 years we've lived here but there has been absolutely nothing done about building a house.  Weird.  

Anyway, that's all that's fit to print about life out here right now.  We can't go anywhere because of the constant doctor visits so if I manage any more photos they will probably be either weeds or balloons!  Take care and have a good time!

Thrill a minute!

 Well things are going just as exciting around here as usual.  My wife and I are both bothering doctors or should I say they are bothering us?  Her primary care doctor keeps writing up orders for weird tests.  My wife's foot surgeon just seems so 'sometime' in the future.  He seems like a really nice guy but he keeps going somewhere else.  The April surgery is now more like a June surgery but that isn't even set up so it could be August if things keep sliding away.

Back in April my doctor asked for a blood test and found my platelets were low:  they should be around 150K and were measured as 11K.  But no one around here wanted to do anything about it.  Then a week or so ago they thought about it again and sent me back to the ER.  The ER decided they didn't have any specialist who could look at me so they sent me to Las Vegas.  They kept me for about 24 hours, took at least 15 or 20 blood samples and told me I could go home.  Grrr!  At least I got a couple prescriptions this time.  We'll see how all this works out.  The screwy thing is that I feel just fine.  But the doctors keep saying I could die at any moment.  

Other than all the medical crap it's being a typical spring.  One day 4 mph (6 kph) breeze and the next a 24 mph (38 kph) breeze.  Fun in the desert doesn't always mean wearing shorts!  Our house is turning 20 years old this year and when we get those 45 mph (72 kph) gusts it really shakes the windows!  But, no, we aren't buying new windows!

The new cable internet system is supposed to be installed tomorrow.  I have to admit to looking forward to that if only for the less 'twitchy' system.  Well, let's hope it's an improvement!  When some idiot takes out a telephone pole we might be out for a couple of days. 

That's all the news fit to print.  My latest photos are just dull so I won't inflict them on you.  Take care and stay away from all those sick people!

Wow, 27 April!

 This growing old is hard!  I mean there are so many things that keep going wrong.  Yesterday I went to one of the two grocery stores in town and the old guy in front of me at the self checkout left the stuff he just bought and but at least he noticed he didn't have anything and had to come back for it!  Then I went to the other store and another old guy comes out with a cart full of stuff, stops by our car and says 'Oh, that isn't my car'!  And off he went wandering around the parking lot.  I'm also not talking about the stupid, lying crap that we get from our President and his ancient supporters in the House and the Senate.  Invading Greenland; what shit!

Since we got home from our cruise we've mostly been going to doctors and we all know that isn't fun.  To start with there is my wife's ankle.  She broke it almost 2 years ago by slipping in the shower.  She was airlifted to a Las Vegas hospital and had her ankle operated on to put it back together.  Well, that was screwed up and she still cannot walk more than a couple hundred yards.  So, of course, we've been talking to another surgeon about the ankle and he wants to freeze it.  That should cut down on her ankle pain however she also has pain in her toes and no one is coming up with anything about that.  But she is getting tested every way they can think of to make the surgery safe.  Of course the surgeon is busy and can't do it this month and is going somewhere in May so we are looking at surgery in June and then a couple months of wheelchair before she can walk again!

Then there is me.  I've noticed my eyesight is changing.  When we are out driving in the day it is very bright; when I drive into the garage and close the door I can't see much of anything for at least a minute.  That transition never used to be a problem; now days it's dangerous to get out of the car.  You could step on all kinds of dangerous stuff!  Clean up the garage?  Oh, hell no!  We donate to the VFW Food Pantry; when you have to go into the building it has no windows so you can't see a darned thing.  And lots of those folks are as old as me!

We changed insurance companies at the first of the year and my old doctor doesn't take the new insurance so I've had to change doctors.  Of course they want tests so I've gotten a bunch of tests as well.  One of the tests said my blood platelet count was so low that the nurse called and said I should go to the emergency room and have a blood transfusion!  So, off to the emergency room.  They wanted to do their own tests so after FIVE HOURS of testing they proclaimed that the original test was wrong and I didn't need a transfusion.  Well, that's good news but five hours???  And how many tests?  I've had so many x-rays that I might be in danger of radiation poisoning (just kidding, I think).

So that's life in the fast lane around here.  One day is overcast and 50 F (10 C) and the next is sunny and 90 F (32 C).  Get up; feed the dog and the birds; pick a few weeds; have breakfast; then the fun stuff!  Visit the doctor or whatever; sometimes we get visitors.  Lately our electric co-op is trying to bring 5G internet to the town.  A few months ago they ran lines along with the power lines that already hang behind the house.  Now they are trying to connect the houses to those lines and that takes quite a few visits!  One person to identify the electric entry to the house, a guy to spray paint showing where the power line runs and a couple of guys to dig a trench and bury a cable from their line to our house.  We are told that there will be someone else to connect the line to the house then another to attach the line to our modem but they are in the future somewhere.  It should be installed in a month or six at the rate they are going!  

It is also true that there isn't much going on around here.  There are some houses being built; that is VERY different from a few years ago but, still, it's not really affecting us.  We do drive around and check out the new stuff but it's just concrete and plywood and shingles.  The sunsets are still pretty good though.

Out in the world we've got Mr. Trump, AKA the Idiot in Chief, who just keeps doing stupid things.  I have to admit that he isn't as stupid as the people he's appointed to be in his cabinet but, well, that would be a stretch.  One of the really minor things Mr. Trump did just recently was to pardon a local politician who was appointed a judge and then found guilty of fraud.  She was in Las Vegas and started a support group to build a statue of a local policeman who was killed in the line of duty.  Then she used the money people donated to pay her rent, pay for her daughter's wedding and some plastic surgery.  She was found guilty of a felony of conspiracy and wire fraud.  So our felon of a president chose to remove the felony from this sorry ass judge.  Actually, on a scale of 1 to 10, it's way down there but it's still just so wrong!  The reporting is on the pvtimes.com website and her name is Michele Fiore.  

Anyway, that's it for today.  Have a good one and stay away from those sick people!

Ok, another month....

 But at least I have an excuse this time:  we've been traveling!  Back on 20 February we took Gus to the dog kennel and headed for Las Vegas.  The next morning we flew off to Miami (crappy seats & a fat 3rd person!) then on to Barcelona, Spain!  Yep, another Viking cruise in the Med.  I know, it's a tough life!

Of course one of my excuses for not posting is that my new HP computer is FAR from friendly with the camera.  Damn, it took 3 or 4 tries and reading stuff online to figure out how to upload any photos.  I mean that's just stupid.  And the photos from my phone are just crap.  Grrr!

The cruise was really quite nice but it was definitely a one-day-at-a-port cruise.  We got to visit a few places we've been before and a few new ones.  First on the list was Corsica.  We've been there before but this time we found a weird back road tour.  It was pretty enough but the driver often had to make a partial turn then back up and turn more; the road was that jack-knifed and narrow.   If we averaged 10 mph I'd be surprised.

 Because of my wife's broken ankle that still isn't fixed correctly we kept to the bus tours.  We took her wheelchair along but mostly it got used in the airports.  She got around on the ship ok as long as we took regular pauses for rest.  It's funny but many of those rest areas served wine.  Thank goodness!  

Our next port was Civitavecchia, Italy.  There is no way we were going to take a bus tour of Rome (it's at least an hour and a half each way) so we just stayed on the ship.  I'm sure the town is nice but there wasn't any tour that called to us:  too much walking for one thing.  It is a pretty port though.

 Our next port was the town of Valleta on the island of Malta.  We did manage to find a bus tour that took us around with the guide pointing out various buildings, etc.  It wasn't our favorite tour for sure and part of the problem was the roads:  tiny isn't a small enough word to describe them!

 

Because of my wife's difficulty walking we usually got the front bus seats so we were right behind either the driver or the guide.  It sure gives you a better view of oncoming traffic!  Shit-oh-dear!  Happily the driver of that truck had room to back up and off the road.  What a great guy!

Next stop was La Goulette, Tunisia.  We took another bus tour but they forgot to mention that we'd be walking for about an hour.  Nope!  We just stayed on the bus.  One of the things that surprised me was how the local drivers were totally unafraid of accidents.  I mean red lights are a suggestion; lanes don't mean a thing.  It's just amazing and as we got farther into Africa, it got worse!  I got a few photos from the parking lot but, well, that's not to exciting.  There was this guy snoozing next to a window.

 

Our next port was Algiers, Algeria.  It was kind of an interesting collection of old places and very new modern places.

 

We took a bus tour again.  In one area we actually got out and I got to push my wife around in her chair!  Happily it was only a couple of blocks but those paving stones can be pretty tough on both the rider and the pusher.

Our next point of interest was the Strait of Gibraltar - we've been through it a couple of times but it's usually at night!  So this time it was supposed to be earlier; around sunset.  Unfortunately it was foggy so all we could see were a few lights!  Maybe in out next lifetime we'll see it.

The next port was Casablanca, Morocco!  We got to visit a church we weren't able to enter and one that we could.  Who knows how that crap is worked out!  The one we got to visit had some pretty fantastic windows!

 

 

We also got to wander through a small shopping area.  Our guide on this tour was blind.  He had an assistant who told him where we were and helped him move around.  Amazing but it was actually ok.

One of the reasons we aren't taking lots of tours is shown in the following photo.

 

It is well over half a mile off the ship and down the pier to get to the road and the bus!  That is definitely a wheelchair trip.  Of course all those containers are beautiful as well.  LOL.

So it was time to leave Africa and head back to Europe.  Our first stop would be Cadiz, Spain.  We've been there so we just stayed on the ship.  They do have some fine architecture.

 

Next came Malaga, Spain.  Again, we've been in the area before so just stayed on the ship.  The crew did have some fun trying out a couple of the lifeboats.  

And while I was walking around on deck I got to see this guy splashing around.

 Yeah, I know, life in the slow lane.  Anyway, that's what took up the end of February and the first part of March.  We got off the ship in Barcelona  at about 08:00 a.m. and headed for the airport.  It was a couple hours until we got on our flight to London; then more waiting in London.  Do I have to say there was lots of wheelchair time in both airports?  Then, finally, a non-stop to Las Vegas!  I got some sleep on that trip;  no dinner but a nice sleep.  And we got home about 8 p.m. local time.  Well, it took us each about three days to get back to regular hours; that 8 hour difference between Europe and the West Coast of the USA is quite a lot.  

So we are back to our usual stuff:  lunch at our favorite places; doctor appointments and fooling with our new computers.  I'll post again when anything exciting happens.  Don't hold your breath!

 

Geez, it's been almost a month!

 Well, as usual, things are pretty quiet around here.  Some guys came and placed a 40 foot container on the lot across the road from our house but nothing else has happened over there.  And a digging machine came to a lot a couple of lots down but the didn't do much except scrape the ground.  Weird, weird stuff.  It's obvious I don't know anything about the construction business!

It's been typically winter around here except the mountains haven't had much snow.  We have some now but it's been dry most of the winter.  That bothers us because our water comes from an aquifer that is filled with melted snow water.  We really like it here but are worried that the water will run out.  What do you do then except leave?  We have 20 F (6.6 C)  nights and 45 F (7.2C) days mostly and then we'll get a 60 F (15.5C) day.  Who knows!  

Lately I've been beating my head against the wall thinking about old age problems.  I'm cruising on for 77 and my wife will be 75 here pretty soon.  I still want to do younger guy stuff like driving around with an RV or going off-roading or traveling overseas but it's obviously getting more difficult.  My wife breaking her ankle a couple years ago certainly slowed us down but now days simple stuff like climbing the ladder to replace an air filter is even getting difficult.  Our kids are both well over 1,000 miles away so it's not like they are going to be helping us out.  We will have to find a local 'handman' to do all that crap.  Fun and games in old age!

However, it is still a pretty place!  Especially in the morning or the evening; daytime is just pretty bright.  Here is a recent sunset.

 

 And here is a photo someone posted that I really liked:  sitting on the dock by the bay!

Have a good time.  Enjoy life and keep away from those sick people!