14
Jul 25

Just a little pinch

This week I’ll get back into school work with a gusto! he told himself, until he told himself something else, different, a bit later. It’s really just a question of which day I tell myself that, and the gusto which takes place between now and then.

Let us begin with the site’s most popular weekly feature, checking in with the kitties.

We have a nice picture window in the library, which sits on the front of the house. And there’s a little bench or a shelf there. I thought about putting some cushions down and turning it into a pleasant little reading area. Phoebe beat me to it.

She sits in this box, on a little cat blanket, and enjoys her afternoon naps in the sun. It’s adorable, of course. And reliable. At certain times of day, that’s where she is. (Usually I don’t disturb her as I did for this photo.) And of all of the jealousies between the two cats, this is one place where her brother leaves her alone. And so there will never be a reading nook there, because that is going on.

And here she is looking all cuddly on top of the comforter.

The theme here, then, must be comfort. Here’s Poseidon, who usually tries to eat the plastic, using a resealable bag of trail mix as a pillow.

(Keep that life hack in mind, hikers.)

He came out from his usual afternoon napping spot, wherever that is, to watch a bit of the Tour with me. He likes bike races. Must be the colors and the motion.

So the kitties, you can see, are doing well. We all are just peachy keen. My lovely bride is nursing a calf twinge she got on a run. I am suffering through a bad streak on the bike. Let me tell you about it.

I went out Saturday evening, intending to do about two hours or so. Instead I did 4.3 miles. I got a flat on my back tire. This is the calculus you go through.

Item 1: I am close to home. Given the hour of the day, and the PSI limitations of my small handheld pump, I can’t change the tube and complete the ride I’d intended.

Item 2: Given the hour of the day, and how close I am to home, there’s no need to change this tube here, in this little neighborhood. I’ll just re-inflate the tube and nurse it home. And stop and reinflate as necessary. (Never let me talk myself into that again. — editor.)

So I pumped the tube to about 50 PSI, owing to the limitation of my pump, and set out for home. A quarter of a mile later, I’m doing it again. And in another quarter of a mile, again. Now we know the rate of air seepage. It’ll be every quarter of a mile. The direct route is 3.5 miles home. OK then.

Some kind soul stops their car asking if I’m OK. I’m OK. Another cyclist comes from behind and checks in. He patiently waits to see me on the road again and I take off, knowing he’ll be catching me again in a quarter of a mile. And what do you know!? There I am and there he is. This time he uses his pump, which is better. More air. Maybe I can go a bit longer. Another car stops. Still great! Anyway, my new cycling friend, a pleasant fellow named Mike who rides with a speaker lashed to his handlebars, helps me inflate the tire and off I go again. Now we both know the score. I am just trying to ride this flat to the top of the hill to stop in the shade once more. Because, after that, it’s a downhill and an uphill and, anyway, I stop and he catches me for the third time. He is very kind and if I’d known he’d been back there I would have just changed the stupid tube three miles ago because this has gotten awkward. One more inflation, one more round of sincere thanks and my encouraging him to not stop for me next time because I’m almost home and, anyway, he’s trying to go somewhere too. And so I mystify him with the parlance of my people …

“Ppreciate it.”

… and we each pedal on.

So my 30-some mile ride Saturday turned into a 4.3-mile ride and a 3.5-mile return farce.

This set up nicely for a Sunday afternoon ride. The Yankee has decided that she can try riding again with her calf and so off we go. She’s fine. I know this because she passed me at one point and I said What happened to taking it easy? She looked down at her computer and said “I’m only doing 130 watts.” I looked down at mine and said, I ask because I’m doing 21 miles per hour and getting dropped, so …

And about 10 miles later she did drop me, and I started feeling the heat.

Or, put another way, it was hot outside. I went through three water bottles in an hour, which is a really high rate for me. And I eased up a bit on the way back home because I didn’t like how it all felt and I know better. And I still had a (relatively, for me) good speed.

This evening we were supposed to go for a ride with a neighbor, but then the lightning and the rain showed up.

So, then, the highlight of the day was heading over to the medical laboratory this afternoon. They have the right sort of name to be a thinly veiled, not-very-well-thought-out evil henchman front in a movie. It’d be cooler if they had a few Tesla coils with surging electricity zipping through the place. Instead, it’s an old brick building, sharing space with a tanning salon and a kids dance studio. It’s a five-star dance studio, though, and that somehow offsets the two stars that the blood lab receives online.

Does anyone take online reviews seriously? I don’t. I would say something like “Is that really a four-star pizza place, or is that a Martinsville four-star pizza place?” Meaning, all of this is relative. That’s usually a good joke and a wry observation, but in this case, a woman is going to stick a needle into my arm …

Anyway, standard issue blood draw. Checking the numbers. Prove I’m healthy and blessed, well, not beyond measure because every one of these tests is measuring something or other, and all on different scales — including a Martinsville scale! — to throw you off as a patient and consumer.

I had the paperwork. The website for the testing place said I needed an appointment. My lovely bride, who has been there before for similar basic tests, said that’s not necessary. So I fasted the requested amount of testing time and then went in. The woman at the desk finally got around to me. I said, I have these orders, but otherwise no idea what I need to do. She pointed me to a little tablet kiosk. So, on the one hand, I don’t have to hand over my documents, and on still another hand, she did not give me a clipboard. On a third hand, the check-in process was done at my speed, which is reasonably fast. But, on a third, another place to scan your insurance card and type in more emails and phone numbers and … look, last year some place scanned my palm to establish my identity in the system and, off putting as that was, maybe it was better.

Anyway, a young man was called back for whatever was required of him there. When they built this office they did dry wall about 80 percent up to the ceiling, so you can hear everything, both over the lid and through the thinnest gypsum board on the market. He was having a tough time. The woman said, “Stay with me. Stay upright. I’m here by myself and don’t want to pick you up.” She kept his attention. He kept complaining. Which, I guess, gave him something to focus on. But it was pitiful when he said “Can we just pause?” and she the technician said “You can’t stop blood.”

And he was just doing a simple blood draw. I know this because the technician, who was also working the desk, was the woman who drew my blood. And don’t you know I wanted to cause a scene so as to cover for that young man. I did not, though. This poor woman, working solo while her trainee was actually out to lunch, was dealing with enough.

Instead, when I exited through the lobby I looked to the old man in a neck brace awaiting his turn and said, It’s brutal back there!

He just smiled and pointed to his walker.

After which I raced home to have lunch because my food fast was about 15 hours old.

He wrote, just before dinnertime.


11
Jul 25

It is Friday, you deserve a treat

My joke is that when the cats — who are biologically siblings, and fight like it sometimes — are doing the same thing, I say aloud, in a mock panicked voice: YOU’RE FREAKING ME OUT!

Because they are brothers and sisters, they do often do the same things, almost identically, despite how they sometimes don’t get along, and it looks very Come play with us … which is where the joke comes from.

But they don’t have to be doing the exact same thing. So, this evening, when Poe jumped on this counter, and Phoebe stared at him, my first thought was YOU’RE FREAKING ME OUT!

My second thought was, What are you staring at?

Turns out a beetle had gotten in, and they were fascinated.

But the treats are stored in that cabinet, and sometimes they remember that. And, to reinforce that idea, after I rescued the insect I gave them a snack. Because it is Friday, and you deserve a treat.


10
Jul 25

The middle of summer

It’s the middle of summer, the sort where you convince yourself that the actual middle is next week. This is the same argument I made with myself last week.

Guess what I’ll be doing next week.

On today’s bike ride I decided to take a photo in a particular place, and then forgot about that entirely. I remembered it three or four miles later and realized, I’ve probably never taken a photo of this spot before.

So here you go, venturing into the deep dark forest.

You’re in the shade of the tree canopy for about 35 seconds before you’re staring back into the sun again.

I think I’m going to try something different. I’m going to take tomorrow off, and ride this same route on Saturday. Maybe I’ll go faster with a day off.

Watch, that will work, and then I’ll have to reconfigure all of my ride plans. Of course, those intricately laid plans currently consist of, “How hot is it?”

I went outside this evening and it was 79 with 90 percent humidity. I’m not sure if plants even need watering under those conditions. (The weeds don’t!) Then I made the mistake of looking at tomorrow’s weather. Tomorrow’s forecast in no way played into the weekend bike experiment. Also, look how bright that moon is.

Anyway, back to doing productive stuff. I am approaching the stage of class planning where I wonder if I have bitten off more than I can chew.

Remember, designing new classes is fun! Remember that so you can remind me of that sometime in the next month-and-a-half.


09
Jul 25

There are a bunch of names for skin cells

We had a hot dermatology date today. It’s every bit as exciting as it sounds. We drove over there from here, around some detours and arriving right on time, despite whatever it was I did that slowed us down on getting out of the house.

There was no one there, so as soon as sat down they called us back. The best part: no paperwork, so I guess we’re both enough in the system now.

These were routine checks. It probably took longer to book the appointments than to fulfill them. The doctor, yet another one in a now-growing line of people who are younger than I am. Younger than me and, yet, she looked more tired than the rest of us. You wonder how many times a day she does this, starting with the scalp and glanced in between the toes. You wonder if she’s sick of it yet, dismissing this worry, weathering a bad joke here, staring at an awkward blotch of skin there.

Well, not on us. We both saw the same doctor. She told my lovely bride that she has wonderful skin. To me she said, “You don’t have many moles.”

I’ve worked very hard to avoid that, yes.

Anyway, clean bills of health. Don’t lose any sleep over anything. Come back in a year.

Later, we got behind this truck.

It wasn’t that we followed him. He just kept turning onto all of the same roads we wanted.


08
Jul 25

The heat is hot and oppressively so

Not every day produces a widget. Most of mine, in fact, do not. You find other things to measure against, I guess, or you just come to rationalize the very real truth that not every day need a product. It was also prohibitively hot. The heat index got up to 103 by the time I stopped checking. It doesn’t much matter anymore after that anyway. Somewhere as the mercury climbs it is just all painful.

Or put it this way, I stepped onto the front porch long enough to bring in the shipment of cat food, a chore which takes long enough to open the door, step outside, make sure no cats come with me, taking two steps, bending over, lifting a small box, pivoting and walking back inside. It takes no time. And you could feel the heat in that brief amount of time.

Later, I walked outside to check some other thing, a task which took about 90 seconds. In that time I’d already begun to sweat.

Right now, it is raining buckets.

Tomorrow it’ll only be in the 90s. Who knows what I’ll accomplish tomorrow.

The view from the front yard, somewhere between the gloaming and real darkness.

Oh, hey! The art on the front page has been updated. If you click over to kennysmith.org you’ll see a lot of images that fit into this theme.

I have also concluded the monthly computer cleaning, deleting files and updating the thises, and some of the thats. One of those tasks is monitoring the spreadsheet with website traffic data. Last month was the second most popular month in the site’s long history. In the next month or two we’ll hit another big milestone for the humble ol’ dubya dubya dubya. (And I thank you all for coming back more than once.)

Tomorrow, much like today, but even better.