My Studebaker got a flat

Actually it’s more like it needs a tune-up, and rings, and an air filter, and a radiator, and maybe a new transmission and a new suspension.

So I’m doing this realigning thing and trying to be active and not avoid things and still not realizing that I am just a bit delusional about this whole thing.

I did a little bit more, trying to get into new situations and do more things and along the way I didn’t pay enough attention to what I was doing with the rest of my time and energy.

As my wife pointed out I don’t sleep. I wake up anywhere from 6 to 12 times a night. I don’t get enough hours or enough rest. And my recovery time from exertion is not any better than it was.

Which is why it shouldn’t surprise me that when I did a few things more than maybe I should have I got sick. Yep, I’m sick again. Sick in June and now sick in August.

So time for more considering things and working out some more details on how to take things in moderation. And as my wife says give myself time to recover. I imagine that this is just a way to force me to lay low for a while. One cancelled doctor appointment – that I could have really used – so far. Mostly kept quiet today and I’ll try for the same tomorrow.

When my head clears, rather, when my mind clears, after this cold, I will examine how best to proceed. Until then, rest. And one of these days I’ll post some actual details about what I am doing.

Well, at least I got to experience an earthquake, and maybe now (another) hurricane.

Earthquake

As I said elsewhere, the thing about that earthquake was that there were workers pruning trees around the power lines across the street and I thought that they had either snagged the line to the house or had somehow dropped the bucket from the truck on our roof. Either was unlikely to make the house shake the way it did but those were the immediate possibilities.

There are a lot of people talking about how this was not a very big earthquake. It wasn’t. But the ground around here is one big rock and it transmits the energy very well. When a truck hits a bump two miles away the house shakes. Also, houses in my part of the country were not built with earthquakes in mind. My house is old, and though it is pretty solid, it wasn’t meant to endure this sort of thing.

The house shook, the walls undulated, the floor was bouncing up and down and the roof was shaking in rolling waves. Furniture shook, shelves were swaying back and forth and things on the walls were banging about.

Maybe 5.9 isn’t a really big earthquake, but it moved a lot of things around here. Not knowing it was an earthquake I thought something had hit the house and was rolling around on the roof – and somehow making the shelves I was standing next to shake back and forth by almost a foot while I literally bounced up and down as the floor moved. I was outside checking the condition of the house before I knew it was an earthquake and things were still swaying.

As far as I know we’re fine – no apparent damage – but there are reasons to be concerned about this and not make light of it just because those stupid easterners aren’t used to earthquakes. It’s because this is rare that it is something to think about. The last earthquake of this magnitude in the east was in the 19th century. Cities built in the 20th century aren’t made to stand up to that.

Now that it’s over we’ll hear all the jokes. Apparently no one was hurt, but there was damage to buildings and I was worried about the integrity of my own house. I am thinking about getting someone out to inspect the place. It may not seem like that big a deal to some people, but think about your own house being subjected to more stress than it was built to withstand. All things are relative and this was a relatively big deal.

There goes another green one right now

That buying a Studebaker Commander concept (see previous post) is a long term project. There is no instant gratification here, in fact, that’s pretty much the opposite of what this is all about.

It’s not that I’m denying what is wrong with me. I may do that to myself at times, or try to, but this isn’t one of them. And I don’t just mean working around my limitations, that’s a part of daily life. This is about trying things that might seem a bit crazy to try, things I might reasonably think I can’t do anymore and that may actually be beyond my abilities these days.

Big words, I know, and it remains to be seen how I manage.

I want to make sure that I don’t let whatever deficits I have get in the way where they shouldn’t. After all, I may not be able to do everything, but that doesn’t mean I can’t do anything. There must be things that I can do, even things that I can be good at. I need to find what they are.

I need to look for the things that I can do in spite of what is wrong with me, however small. Maybe I won’t be as accomplished as I may have once been able to be, but I can still be as accomplished as possible. I am always trying to get back to where I was or get to the point where I can lead a normal life, but I have pushed aside things that are beyond that.

I have neglected to dream about things that are more than necessary.

I need to dream.

A bear in his natural habitat

You know how when you buy a car, or anything really, you start to see all of the things just like it all around you? Once you buy a green Studebaker Commander everyone seems to be driving one.

Well, I decided not to let any limitations I have stop me from trying to do new things. So naturally I’ve been hearing a lot of things that relate to that. Suddenly I am hearing or reading things about people (superficially) like me or things about various aspects of recovery or doing better with what you have.

While some of it is little more than marketing, some of it actually resonates with me. I am trying to take it all in as it comes.

It’s only a burden if you make it one

All right, let’s just set aside the fact that we can eliminate the debt with some modest increases in taxes.

One of the favorite plaints is that we simply cannot leave this horrible debt for our grandchildren to pay.

Who said our grandchildren have to pay it?

No one today is willing to pay it, and we still have a functioning country. We’ve had debt since the founding of this nation. So who said it is ever going to be paid off? Sure, we pay our bills as they come due, and then we incur more debt. Countries work that way.

This is a bogus complaint. The debt is there, it would be nice if it wasn’t, but it need not be a crushing burden for any generation. If we wanted it to the government could borrow a lot of money really cheap right now and reduce interest payments. No one ever talks alternatives. It’s always just a flat – OHMYGODTHEDEBTISBAD – usually from people who didn’t care about the debt when their guy was in the White House. It’s just an excuse to do things that don’t really help the debt at all.

Yes, our nation has a debt. We can pay it off – or not.

That’s really the truth of the matter.

I wish I could do fake video

I want to take that AT&T commercial where the young guy talks to the old guy in the Italian village and his phone translates:
‘Excuse me. My Grandfather was born in this village.’

The old man listens to the translation and a look of recognition and kindness comes over his face.

I want to add a line for the old man where he looks at the kid and says, ‘I remember your Grandfather, you look just like him.’ Then his expression changes and he says, ‘He owes me twenty bucks.’

Does that make me a bad person?

Aargh

I spent the whole day finishing up some paperwork for the LTD insurance company. They do this periodically, asking for a doctor’s assessment of my condition, updates on my status, a list of docs I see and meds I take, and a few other things.

I don’t think they have any idea how difficult that is. It doesn’t sound like much, but it involves two extra trips to my doctor, pulling together all the information they want (that I have no other reason to keep track of in one place), getting the other info that I don’t normally have anyway because I have no use for it, filling out the forms and then checking everything.

This is just the kind of stuff that I have trouble with.

So, as productive as I may have been it certainly is tiring and I don’t get anything else done. It even managed to drive everything else I needed to do out of my head.

Oh well, at least it’s done and gets mailed tomorrow. Did I mention I had to fight the thing to fold it small enough to fit in the envelope? No, well, there was that too.

All I have to do the rest of the week is two doctor appointments, one trip for the dog, a run to the post office, some quick shopping for things we’ve run out of (that’s what I was supposed to do today) and make four more doctor appointments.

Fun, fun, fun.

Yes, it could be worse, but it still isn’t anything you would volunteer for.

Well, sometimes I just have to vent – in public even, but I should stop complaining. If my head has cleared enough maybe I can go read.