But I Feel Fine, Thank You

I try… god knows… I try to write about something… anything… other than the chaos and horribleness that’s emanating from D.C these days. Shit, I can’t go a day without hearing something even worse than just the day before. But, with supreme effort I’m determined to write on a different subject today.  

How about Disease, Health, and general Well-Being?  Warning… this post is all about me.

I’ve recently been diagnosed with heart disease. It hit me hard for a few days. Mortality looms. It’s one thing to think about mortality, to say you intellectually understand that we’re all going to die, and claim you’re a big enough person to deal with it with grace and aplomb… as long as it’s others we’re discussing.  But when it’s YOU!  When YOU’re thrust into the reality of the situation and the medical diagnosis, made by professionals who supposedly know what they’re doing, say “You have heart disease”, and we need to do something about this right now. When things move from the theoretical to the factual… Whoa! It’s quite another thing. And it took me some time to get my head wrapped around the idea. I suddenly felt older. Am I now one of those oldsters who seem to talk about little except their medical problems? I’ve got a lot to think about. I’ve got a lot to process. How ‘bout them Cubs?

I’ve been diagnosed with Hypertension all of my adult life. Various doctors, various medications, Nothing seemed to keep me in the “zone” of acceptable blood pressure readings. I’d find little workarounds. I noticed that after a half hour of moderate aerobic exercise, a brisk walk at 3.5 - 4.0 mph, I’d get BP readings that were acceptable or even on the low side of normal. But it wouldn’t stay there for long. At least a couple times I’d workout like that just before a doctor appointment in an effort to keep the doc from over-reacting. The games people play…

The update is that I have an appointment with a cardiologist in Eugene in a week or so. We’ll see what he/she has to say. The funny thing is that I don’t have any symptoms.  I’m not short of breath when I walk for extended periods of time. No pain anywhere… except my dang hands! But that’s another story. Blood oxygen levels are good. Blood labs are good… OK, maybe borderline cholesterol of one kind or another. At any rate, I feel normal. I feel really good like I always have. 

I promise not to make ME the subject of these Farts without good cause. And I have pretty much come to grips with the situation.  Yeah, how ‘bout them Cubs?

Future Fuzziness

I’ve been a little distracted the last few days. Here, in our little community in the Umpqua Valley of South Central Oregon, some members (remember, this is a co-op) made a grave mistake and elected me to the Board.  Not only that, I’m the Board Secretary too, which just happens to be the position with the highest workload. For about a week or so in the middle of the month, our required monthly Board meetings take precedence over other interests and duties. But I’m not complaining, mind you. I find it interesting and a nice break from what could be the much more boring routine I’d have otherwise.

Having now explained my lack of Inadvertent Farts during the last week, let’s look forward. Let’s look into the future and see what we can see.

What’s this? All I see is fuzziness and chaos. Of course I’m talking about the mess in Washington D.C., which can… oh let’s see…  just affect every aspect of our lives if it gets bad enough. Regardless of which political extreme you’re on, there’s little consensus on what the near future will look like or what it means for ordinary moderate folk like us. I think we all can agree that there’s a distinct lack of certainty about the future. Cutting out waste and fraud is good, but doing it with vindictiveness is not. There are people, real people, with real lives, real kids, who have been dedicated to their jobs and really trying to do a good job for the citizens of the USA. And they are full fledged human beings, not the sub-human life forms some have decided to consider them. In war, one of the first priorities is to define your enemy as something other than human, such as “nips”, or “gooks”... (or “libs”?). With that accomplished, it’s far easier for nut-job dictators to find people who will enthusiastically eradicate them. 

I don’t know, but I still hang onto the old fashioned notion that we’re all brothers and sisters in this marvelous country. We can argue, we can disagree, we can even give each other the silent treatment. But ultimately, we should be trying to work this out together. As human beings.

Secret Message De-coder

My grumble of the week:  tiny text on mobile devices. Despite my age, I don’t think this is just a senior-citizen-with-failing-sight issue, even though it is a bigger problem for us.  What would motivate a website designer or creator to actually choose to use tiny and, to make matters worse, light gray text? I was under the impression that minimum font sizes were about 10 or maybe as small as 8. (I think is 8.) But no way, grasshopper. Oh no.  They've found a font that's even smaller.  And I haven't even started to grumble about the light gray font color.

I don’t want to start a conspiracy theory here, but maybe, just maybe, it’s intentional and designed to keep old-timers from knowing what’s going on with generations X, Y, or Z - or whatever they’re called these days. Just like dogs are the only ones that can hear a dog whistle, Kid-adults are the only ones that can read the latest news out of the rapper world or the gamer world.  And that’s not to mention their secretive plotting to get rid of us just as soon as they able to get our money. Oh Woe!… I fear it’s just a matter of time.

But you can’t keep a crafty senior in the dark forever. I’ve found something called “reader mode” on my Android phone.  (Yes, Android as many of us don’t want to shell out a thousand bucks for just a phone…)  Google has this feature built into the Android System.  Once enabled, there’s a little man icon on the bottom right of the screen. Then, whenever I get to a web page or article designed to keep us from reading it, I punch the little man and (Ta-Da!) the page or article appears magically in glorious large black text. It’s a secret message decoder for seniors. I'm now spying on their secret messages.  I'll let you know when I discover something of importance.

But please!  Don’t tell anyone from Gens X or Y or Z.  This is our secret.

Purpose

I’ve been thinking more about what I want to read these days. I’m the holder of a notion that I “should” be reading non-fiction… especially about current events, political stuff, and treatises on culture. Isn’t that the serious type of reading that all thinking people should be reading?  The problem is that I don’t really care about those things anymore. And I don’t care as much as I used to for other people’s ideas about what I should be doing. As a young man, I had more skin in the game about the future. With kids and what seemed like many, many years ahead, I had the future in my hands.  I had the deceptive idea that by being informed on these topics, I could have some impact on them… could make a difference.

I no longer have that belief. I don’t think I can make a difference anymore. I’ve become more of an observer… no longer a player. I’m just an average senior, and average seniors have no impact on politics or the culture, apart from voting.  I do vote.

Thus, after the results of my thought process became more clear, lets move on to what I want to read. Experience has shown that I really do enjoy well crafted fiction. And, I’d add to that, historical fiction. And throw in a sprinkling of science fiction, especially stories that explore science based discoveries that have big effects on the culture of the time.  I do also enjoy re-reading a few pieces that I’ve particularly enjoyed in the past, like some of the classics… Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Douglas Adams among them.

Besides increasing my enjoyment of the abundant reading time I have at my disposal, it reduces the tension and anxiety that can come from those non-fiction, cultural current events subjects. And I’m all over tension and anxiety reduction.

On the reverse side of my reading passion, I’ve always dabbled in writing. Thus this piece, and my other projects. For example the blog I maintained during our heavy travel years, “The RV Sabbatical Journal” contains over 1,000 posts. For a span of 7 or 8 years, that’s about a consistent 3 posts per week. The blog gave me purpose during those years.

And as I think about, and plan for, a future away from our heavy involvement with the community here at Timber Valley, it’s clear to me that I’ll need a purpose. Thus, my renewed interest in maintaining a writing project of some kind to fill the flip-side of my reading life.

Don’t we all need a purpose?