The Mandelbear's Musings

Today I am thankful for...

• Being in what the medical people I've spoken to lately say is reasonably good health for my age. My blood pressure has responded well to my latest prescription (10mg/day of lisinopril). But walking more than .75km hurts, and I am NOT thankful for that.
• Ginger, garlic, chocolate, and coffee. And other tasty things too numerous to mention.
• Free faxing with Dropbox.
• My mail finally catching up with me. (Too late to prevent problems, but hopefully not too late to prevent disaster.)
• My support groups.

So... the day before yesterday was Mom's birthday -- she would have been 103 years old. (In fact, she died in 2020, a couple of months shy of her hundredth. If I'd been thinking, I would have mentioned something in Thursday's gratitude post. I've always felt grateful to my parents, and more abstractly grateful for them -- for having had the good fortune to have been born into a particularly good family.

Better parents than Colleen and I turned out to have been, anyway. I miss them.

Note: this was originally written yesterday; posting failed due to carelessness on my part. Anyway, here it is.

... another trip around the sun without Colleen to share it with. But that's what happens when you get old, I guess. It still beats the alternative.

I was pleased, if rather bemused, to see a long string of birthday wishes in my FB feed; if you posted one of them, thank you. I mostly avoid the Face Place except for a small number of groups, and following up the occasional email notification.

I don't think I have a whole lot more to say, and as Tom Lehrer didn't exactly say, if you don't have anything to say, "the very least you can do is to shut up!" So I'll do that.

Today is my 75th birthday. I'm expecting a video call with my kids this evening. Somehow I appear to have gotten old without noticing. My youngest turns 30 in a couple of weeks, which is even more mind-boggling. (They say that if you haven't grown up by the time you get to 60 you don't have to.)

Among the links, from Friday, here's a video of Ukrainian farmers hauling away Russian tanks to the tune of a Russian children's song called "The Blue Tractor". (With a tip of the hat to siderea.) Lots of good links this week. The second one on Tuesday is heavy going.

( Notes & links, as usual )

I'm 73 years old today. In the middle of a pandemic that disproportionally kills older people, in a country with a totally broken public health system.

We'd been planning a family birthday party for this weekend; if it happens at all it'll be via Zoom or Hangouts.

Doom destruction and despair People dying everywhere Happy birthday! Happy birthday! -- sing two verses while washing your hands

Going to stop here before I make myself more depressed.

So today I am 0x44 years old, and thankful for

• Surviving this long.
• My family. Especially Mom, this time.
• A chance to visit New Orleans (for the first time) and see lots of people I hadn't seen for 15 years or more.
• Beignets and cafe au lait at midnight.
• Coming home.

Hmm. OK, I guess. My time at work was mostly spent on a combination of triage and archiving for my files. Including figuring out which parts are open source, and so can be put up as part of my portfolio.

I also brought home the Mac Mini and an enormous (160x1200 20" Dell) monitor that I may decide to take back on Monday because it's just too huge and power-hungry. It has a 20" usable area, but at least a 2-inch-wide bezel around it, making it about 25" overall. I also have a 1920x1200 monitor that's about half the weight, and not much bigger overall. That one's a keeper.

We went out to Red Lobster for Colleen's birthday dinner. Yum. The RL is in the same shopping center as a Ross; I picked up three assorted shirts, two with colors that should go well with my new silk sport coats.

I had a couple of painful twinges in my left side. Possibly a gallstone or kidney stone. Seems to be gone for the moment, but I don't trust my body any farther than I can throw it. Or something like that.