Coffee heat rising

Wow! Pharmaceutical Overkill and the Average Sheeple

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This morning — much, much earlier this morning — I sat down to write a post on over-prescription of blood-pressure drugs for people who have low to mild blood pressure. Started what I thought would be a quick, straightforward search, and…holy sh!t.

It’s huge. Anti-hypertensives form only a tiny part of this issue. Overmedication of Americans — no, make that of people in almost all developed countries — is so rampant and so widespread you could build an entire medical or research career on the subject.

It’s after 11; I’ve been digging and reading and digging and reading since dawn and am only just getting sort of a handle on it. One thing for sure: this is a topic that cannot be addressed in a single blog post, not even in a seat-of-the-pants site like Funny. If I tried to summarize all I’ve found out just in a single morning, I’d be posting toilet paper.

So: I’m going to take some more time to study and think about this stuff — who knows? I may do some actual journalism and conduct a few interviews — and then I will report what I find to you in a series of at least three articles — possibly four.

Just now, though, I have got to stop and think about something else…this stuff makes your brain hurt from your hair standing on end.

Meanwhile, two words: Mediterranean diet. If you’re not already eating well, start now. That is the only strategy to prevent cardiovascular incidents that has been shown to be effective and that causes no harm to some percentage of users.

Watch this space.
Tell your friends.

Stressed & De-Stressed

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Yesterday, then, I got back from the junket to the Mayo for the vaunted stress test along about two in the afternoon, having dawdled at Costco and Target on the way home.

What a joke. I think.

Passed with flying colors: forthwith my PA posted the results and explained them: nothing wrong with this, nothing wrong with that, nothing wrong with that other thing, everything is working. Read: “You have nothing wrong with you that we can tell from this test.”

And probably nothin’ wrong with me, period.

When I showed up in their precincts, the staff — who cannot be beat for kindness and lucidity — repeatedly told me how hard this test was gonna be, and ohhh we’re going to work you so hard and you’re going to be gasping for air, so don’t be surprised when you feel like you’re going to expire…and on and on.

Well, ohh-kayyy….

Not so much.

{chortle!}

So they put you on this treadmill, which they can tilt at various grades. You start out strolling along on the flat, which cannot be said to exercise you much. Then for phase 2 they incline the thing a bit and up the speed. This makes you feel like you’ve been walking around the neighborhood at a decent clip — think “dragged behind your assertive German shepherd.” Then, for the real terror they set the incline at about what I’d estimate to be a 4% or 5% grade and jack up the speed a little more. Not fast enough that you’d have to run to keep up, though: just a fairly brisk walk.

All of this procedure lasts, I’d guess, about six or eight minutes. It’s not very difficult. At the most “extreme” stage, I felt exactly the same as I feel when walking up the north side of Shaw Butte. Working, but hardly about to expire. And no, I was not especially out of breath.

So it was an interesting experience. What was especially interesting about it was that they seemed to expect that I would find it very difficult, even verging on painfully exhausting.

Y’know…. If most Americans find that exercise difficult, then most Americans are radically out of shape.

Seriously! With the exception of the abbreviated crash fitness course last week, the extent of my exercise for the past few months has been walking the dogs around the neighborhood, about every second or third day. I’m too lazy even to walk the poor little beasts every day.

It is true that I habitually park about as far from a store’s entrance as I can get — partly so I can pull straight through two nose-to-nose parking spaces (so as not to have to back out around some behemoth SUV) but partly to sneak in a few extra steps of walking.

And it is true that I do not like elevators (having fallen 11 stories in one before we could get it stopped), and so given a choice will always take the stairs. Within reason. More than four or five flights and yeah, I’ll give up and take the damn elevator. But…since most commercial buildings in these parts are in single-story malls, it’s a rare day that I’m even presented with the choice.

And it is true that I walk faster than most people. (Yeah: I actually walk faster than I can run. I hate running.) But see the first item, above: No regular walking in months.

Consider, then: If a 73-year-old bat whose main exercise entails walking to the kitchen counter to pour another glassful of wine thinks the great flap about “ooohhh how HARD this test is gonna be” amounts to the most laughable thing she’s seen or heard since the daily Trump report, most people who show up in their precincts must be in very bad shape, indeed.

Walking bowls of Jell-O, presumably.

Anyway, I was SO happy and relieved to get done with this adventure that the minute I got in the door I speed-walked straight to the kitchen and pulled out the half-bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon residing in the fridge. And yes…

Yes. Drank it all.

Shortly a friend called to invite me to dinner. Since a) I could barely stumble down the hall without risking a ticket and b) I’d also had a magnificent meal of curried scallops over rice with wonderful fresh chard out of the garden, I had to decline.

So clearly the two docs whose business model favors dispensing as much medical care as they can dream up, whether you need it or not, were overprescribing. In a big way. More on that, later.

For the nonce: time for another health-enhancing feast (steak, little purple potatoes, asparagus, watercress salad, tomato, avocado, etc.) and another swiggle (or two, or three) of health-enhancing wine.

Prosit!

 

Amazon vs Costco: The Impulse Buy Olympics

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So here’s a question for you: which retailer represents True Impulse Buy Hell — Amazon or Costco?

One could argue that Costco has to be the winner, because it’s impossible to get out of there without making at least one unplanned purchase, usually of something you don’t need. Costco, beloved Costco: it’s like a Medieval bazaar. No matter where you look — left, right, down, up, in front of you, behind you, above you, below you, in someone else’s shopping cart — there’s some amazing new product to covet.

However, I would reply that Amazon has a single characteristic that allows it to beat out Costco in the Impulse Buy Sweepstakes: you don’t have to go there to instantaneously diddle away cash. Although Costco does offer online shopping and delivery, generally to shop there, you make a drive, get out of your car, hike across a parking lot, and walk around in the place. You have a shopping list (if you possess any sense at all…), and that at least gives you a shot at restraining your impulses.

Consider Amazon:

Here you are sitting around the manse, and an idle thought enters your sweaty little brain:

I haven’t seen [__fill in the blank__]  for quite some time. Gee, I’d like to have a [__fill in the blank__]. Do they even still make [__fill in the blank__]?

Thus:

• I haven’t seen Windsong cologne for quite some time. Gee, I’d like to have some Windsong again. Do they even still make Windsong?
• I haven’t seen the original Swiffer dust mop kits for quite some time. Gee, I’d like to have another one of those. Do they even still make those things?
• I haven’t seen real nail buffers with real chamois cloth for quite some time. Gee, I’d like to have another real nail buffer. Do they even still make those things?

Now, you know and I know that neither of us needs any of those things. Indeed, if you apply a squirt of Windsong behind your ears, you will smell just like your grandmother. Not that it’s a bad thing…just sayin’.

Out of curiosity, though, you cruise over to Amazon, just to see if any of these fine items is still produced somewhere, by someone. And yea verily!

Who’d’ve thunk it?

Naturally, you would never want to miss your chance to purchase this fine item. Who knows? This could be the last time you’ll ever have such a superb opportunity! Click once, click twice…and it’s winging its way toward your front door!

Canceling the order after you come to your senses is not like simply rolling your cart around the store and placing the useless junk back on the shelf. Canceling an online order requires a hoop-jump. Even if it’s not a very difficult hoop-jump, it still may be aversive enough to make you think…oh WTF. It doesn’t cost that much.

This has happened here at the Funny Farm, of late.

My beloved Le Creuset teakettle quit whistling. Because of my ingrained tendency to carelessness, I must have a whistling kettle, lest I burn the house down. Tolerating no delay (the insurance company that covers the house would be proud of me!), I instantly hopped online and ordered up a new, radically expensive teakettle. Forthwith, Amazon kicked into gear.

Well.

Within a day, my beloved Le Creuset changed its mind and decided to start whistling again. What choked it, I do not know. But I do love my little green teakettle and have no great desire to replace it. But, speaking of hassle factor: do I want to return the cute new blue Le Creuset? Hmmm…

  • This entails figuring out how…
  • It may entail a trip to the FedEx office…
  • At the minimum, it will require rewrapping and repackaging the thing…
  • The present kettle is at least 10 or 12 years old (more like 14, if memory serves), and so the minute I ship this new one off, Beloved Green is going to croak over once and for all.

See what I mean? If it had been Costco, the next time I happened to visit a Costco store, any Costco store, I would take the redundant pot back and hand it over the counter, no questions asked. But given the hassle factor of returning an online purchase, I decided to put it in a cupboard to break out whenever the present teakettle dies. Or give it to my son for Christmas… 😉

 

So much for best-laid plans…

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LOL! Really, don’t you know this to be true? IT NEVER FAILS.

And yes, damn straight: Whatever can go wrong will go wrong.

😀

So you’ll recall I had this Grand Plan to get marginally in shape before tomorrow’s stress test at the Mayo. The 10-day lead time gave me eight or nine days in which to get out into the Phoenix Mountain parks and build up at least a marginal degree of stamina.

Sounds great, doesn’t it? Lovely spring weather. Old lady who loves to hike. Good way to run off ginger and orneriness. And maybe even fake out a cardiodoc. Dontcha love it?

As an idea, it is lovable.

As reality? Well…

So I got several two-hour-long walks in, three times up Shaw Butte (about four miles in a fairly steep round trip) and a couple times around the back of North Mountain, on the flat (a little under four miles RT).

Then it rained. Used that as an excuse not to go out: very convenient.

One day down.

Then I realized I had to get off the dime and write the next chapter of Ella’s Story if I’m gonna keep posting stuff in the current long-term give-away scheme. This is a time-consuming proposition. Unlike journalism, unlike blogging, copy for works of fiction does NOT just pour out of the ends of your fingers.

Two days down.

Saturday, I eat something that I should have known better than to eat. Not surprisingly, it inflicts a roaring case of Montezuma’s revenge. Not only am I enjoying the collywobbles, but before long I’m in a LOT of pain. Like…should I go to the ER??? type pain.

After the fun surgery for the intestinal obstruction (kindly occasioned by scarring from an old appendectomy), the surgeon’s PA informed me that sooner or later the obstruction would recur. And the next time, fixing it will be a lot more involved and will not lend itself to laparoscopy.

Welp: several considerations:

  1. First, I would rather die than go through that again.
  2. Second, when you have the collywobbles, your innards are moving, indicating they’re not blocked.
  3. Third, I would rather die than go through that again.
  4. Fourth, the pain is not the same kind of pain evinced by the adhesive blockage. It’s all over the place instead of localized in one spot.
  5. Fifth, I would rather die than go through that again.

With this calculus in mind, I drop an Imodium. Then (it’s always then with me, dammit!) I reflect that might not have been the best of all possible ideas. Ohhh well.

The diarrhea ceases, not surprisingly. The pain continues. I crawl into the sack with the two annoyed dogs.

Three days down.

Next thing I know, it’s Sunday morning.

Our pastor has cooked up a tradition that he calls “Switch Sunday,” in which once a month the 9 a.m. service is a full Bells & Smells performance. The early service, which caters to families with kids, is the usual much more boring modern version…and it engages the services of the volunteer choir, which on other weekends  sings at the later service.

I feel slightly better (though the gut still hurts) and decide to chance showing up at choir. If worst comes to worst, I can always leave.

This means it’s out of the sack at the crack of dawn, feed the dawgs, bolt down breakfast, get washed up, paint face, throw on clothes, and fly out the door. I’m not happy, but neither am I terminal: manage to get there and stick out the whole shindig.

Back at the Funny Farm, I fix lunch/dinner, a halfway decent (read “time-consuming” meal), diddle around, waste time…and eventually realize…holy mackerel! I am really, REALLY sick.

But: the gut (now bound up tight as a drum, thanks to the Imodium) is marginally functioning. That being the case (sort of), I decide against yet another goddamn run on the Mayo’s ER room.

I’ve been up there so often they have a special cubbyhole reserved for me.

Note that during these escapades, no work is getting done. No exercise is getting done. But by about 9 p.m., I do feel enough better to take the hounds on their mile-long circuit. This was not what you’d call one helluva lot of fun, but I figured that if my theory is correct (i.e., I’m not really dying), a walk should help kick-start the innards.

Oh well. At least it doesn’t seem to make things worse.

I crawl back into the sack with the dogs.

Four days down.

Not altogether down. Sunday afternoon whilst I was huddling in the sack, I did manage to draft the last part of the current Ella’s Story chapter, providing a sequel to the chapter that I slapped online this morning. Was kinda pleased with the images that surfaced in a few searches. This great old guy looks a lot like I imagine Dorin the Overseer to look. I’m sure he’s actually an aging Romanian. But what the heck.

This image is yet to be used: the passages I wrote yesterday will describe the exotic landscape of Zaitaf, which sports a methane lake. And what might that look like? Probably somewhat like this:

😀 Can you believe I found that thing?

Now, just think how magical it would be if I could figure out how to make WordPress lose the goddamn fucking extra nonbreaking line spaces!

Oh. Well, that’s the sort of thing that keeps me from doing any creative work: killing time trying to force the code to do what I want it to do.

So, four days of eight were lost to the planned get-fit scheme. Tomorrow morning I will show up that the Mayo fat, flabby, and probably still sporting a bellyache.

Never. Effing. Fails.

How to Be a Writer: Progress!

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Did you know:
At least half the process of writing a publishable story, article, or book is REVISING AND EDITING!

Just posted Chapter 6 of The Complete Writer over at Plain & Simple Press. This follows the intro to a whole section on how to revise and edit your own golden words.

{chortle!} I’ve actually made a strong case, in front of classrooms full of writing students, that two thirds of the writing process is revision and polishing. And IMHO that’s true: the main part of writing is rewriting.

Come on over and check out the first salvo in Part II. The book has six chapters on “Making It Perfect.” I plan to put up a chapter a week — one every Friday. So if you wish to proceed at a stately pace, check in to the Plain & Simple Press blog along about afternoon on any given Friday. Comin’ up, then: Section II, “Making It Perfect:”

Chapter 6. The Importance of Revising and Editing
Chapter 7. Six Steps to Revising and Polishing
Chapter 8. Two Kinds of Revising
Chapter 9. Revising with Reader Feedback
Chapter 10. Working with a Professional Editor
Chapter 11. Getting to Know a Style Manual

And I’m also gathering all the chapters in one place at P&S Press, so if you’ve missed the first five chapters (Section I, “Write Right”), check out The Complete Writer in its growing entirety.

Rain! Hooo-rah!

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An excuse not to go on the mountain!

😀

Okay, that’s way up there in the “it’s all about me” department, eh? In reality, it’s wonderful to see some rain, even though it’s the tiniest little bit. California is being soaked, people near the burn areas are having evacuate their neighborhoods for fear of mudslides, and us? We’re getting something more like thick humidity.

More like the smell of rain than actual rain…

But it’s kinda nice.

In fact, I didn’t go for the required morning hike because I was loafing with the computer, reading news and social media blather. But when the dogs finally rounded me up and herded me into the kitchen to fix their breakfast, I saw the light rain and felt glad not to have left the house. Even though it’s not much rain, I would not have been happy at having water fall out of the sky a mile from my car.

We need the rain fairly desperately. The drought continues with little let-up — there was some rain and snow awhile back, but that was it. If this continues, as it likely will, the area eventually will not support the hordes and hordes of humanity our greed-blinded honored business leaders and their political hacks have spawned here. It would not be the first time: centuries ago a large tribe of entrenched, technologically sophisticated Native Americans (we still use the traces of their canal works) up and disappeared from the area. The most likely explanation for their exodus was drought & depletion of resources.

Oh well. That’s tomorrow’s problem, eh?

My son dreams of 60 acres in the middle of nowhere, there to construct a hermitage. In fact, he found a piece of land down near the Chiricahuas with grandfathered water rights and a surface stream flowing through it. DAYum! To die for. He actually located two of them but one was a little too far east. Hit New Mexico this far south, and you might as well be in West  Texas. Heaven help you. The east end of the Chiricahuas is absolutely as far east and as far north as you’d want to go in that area…and even there… One would have one’s doubts.

A-n-n-n-d… Our voice instructor just canceled this noon’s coaching session, she feeling a shade overwhelmed by the bouncing Holy Week doings on the way in the door. Sorry for her…but for me that frees up the whole day!

So…I promise to spend part of it (for a change) practicing the keyboard/sight-reading lesson. Honest.

And once the sky clears, the way will be open for a hike, after all. 😀

And it’s time to pay the auto and homeowner’s insurance again…God, I hope there’s enough in the bank to cover that annual headache.

…whoa!!!!!

Damned if there’s not!!!! The Honored Internal Revenue Service returned TWENTY-EIGHT-HUNDRED DOLLAH to my checking account!

However, I see that the amount I set aside for 2018 tax & insurance (both) will just cover the insurance bill. Safeco has decided, unilaterally, to revalue my house, thereby creating an opportunity to jack up the homeowner’s insurance through the now very expensive roof.

So there’s another hassle to deal with: will have to call Insurance Dude to see if he can get a better deal for this year. Jeez.

It just flat never stops.

Sixty Acres.
Middle of Nowhere.
Please.

“Deal of the Century:…so we’re told…