September 11, 2018 Diary of One Grumpy Old Man

September 22, 2018

After today the weather is going to start cooling off a bit.  Daytime temperatures in the seventies instead of eighties and nineties.  I'm glad.  Summer has become the least productive, least fun time for any sort of outdoor activities.  It's ok for eating ice-cream though.

September 11, 2018

A hurricane, Florence, is on it's way and by the looks of things it's going to get very, very wet around here, and probably awfully windy too.  There's a very good chance the power will go out.  I have a generator, which helps out a whole lot; but it's not like there isn't any work to it.  Then, behind this hurricane are two more.  We don't often get very harsh effects from hurricanes this far inland and in the mountains, but once in a while we do.  

Old men don't like hurricanes.

It's also 17 years since the 9-11 terrorist attack.  

September 6, 2018

I was going to write something I was thinking about today, but I can't.  I forgot what it was.  I got distracted by all the commotion about Bob Woodward's new book, Fear and the anonymous op ed piece printed by the New York Times.  It would seem like Donald Trump is in a lot of trouble; but since nothing ever happens as a result of his floundering, meanness, criminal activity and abhorrent behavior, I doubt this will result in any more action than anything else he's done has for the past nineteen months he's been in office.  So I'm thinking maybe just to avoid most of the news and wait for something to actually happen before paying much attention.  Besides, my attentiveness is slipping.  I just kind of wish I could remember what it was I wanted to write about.  Maybe I'll think of it again.  Or not.

August 28, 2018

Lately I've been enjoying my dreams.  I don't know why, but they're fun, colorful and like so many dreams they're immediately forgotten.  I try to hang onto them when I awaken, but it's like trying to hold a little ball of smoke from an old man's pipe.  I see it clearly, reach for it, try to hold on but watch helplessly as it becomes invisible.  So I can't record what any of these most pleasant dreams were about.  I've tried retracing my daily activities, but they're just made up of trips to the doctor's office, the grocery store, back to the doctor's office, aqua therapy, the doctor's office, the pharmacy, once in a while to Riner's famous Buffalo and More restaurant and of course, back to the doctor's office.  A couple times a year I go to the dentist, but that's only for the pleasure of spending a lot of money so that nothing changes.  For the worse.

I can't go outside to do anything because it's so hot and humid I can't breath and get all sweated up between the front door and the car door.  I've got some hard cider which I've started to enjoy.  My neighborhood pub started carrying it and I find it quite refreshing if you're satisfied drinking only one.  Nobody wants to get tipsy on cider.  Well, maybe some do, but I think it would make for a sour and gaseous night.  Maybe I'll go have one tonight.

August 7, 2018

My primary care physician is from Kenya.  His English is perfect, but I like to talk to him about Kenya, his adventures and ask him for a new Kenyan word each time I visit, which is fairly often but not too bad for 71 years old.  So today I learned that in his tribal language "ashe" is the word for "thank you."  Lesere is the word for good bye. 

He's referring me to a specialist because my legs continue to get increasingly numb.  I had surgery five years ago for spinal stenosis.  Nothing improved but for a while nothing changed.  Lately the numbness grows and my balance further deteriorates.  So now I walk with two canes.  Well, I'm supposed to walk with two canes but with each hand busy with a cane it's hard to carry anything.  Especially a hot beverage.  So I cheat except when I have to be at the hospital where I might get caught behaving non-compliantly.  So, no surprises today, no new observations or revelations beyond the obvious down hill slide every old coot rides upon.

August 3, 2018

I know now for certain that my life is now in full reverse because today I found such great pleasure in the soothing sensations experienced while chewing pretzels into the gaps where teeth have come out.  I had that same pacification when I was teething on zwieback.  I strongly suspect that in due time a similar reversal will take place with toilet training.  These kinds of things are what’s actually wonderful about being old;  the simple pleasure of chewing and freedom from all those years of practicing the etiquette of bodily eliminations.  I don’t know what I might actually notice about experiencing the process of being old and getting even older, but if I can remember it long enough I’ll write it all down, I'll try to do that here.  I’ll even try to do it on a daily basis although that may be asking a lot of myself.  So, this will be one man’s open journal on aging.  Hope I live long enough to make it interesting.

.