• Closing the book

    I keep records. They’re not the vinyl kind. Those I might be able to sell on eBay. Oh, if only I had that Michael Jackson album I got as a gift when I was a kid. It would probably be in mint condition – possibly never touched by a needle.

    No, these are the boring kind of records – not that Michael Jackson was a…

    No, I just can’t do it. It’s just too easy. It’s a corn dog dipped in corn syrup with popcorn. (Maybe that’s a little too corny.)

    … Thriller for me.

    Ack! Someone stop me before I hurt someone.

    Think filing cabinets and a slightly anal personality when it comes to documents. Nowadays I scan most incoming documents, but for some things I keep the paper. One example is our cars. We (I) keep sales contracts, transfers of title… all of the good stuff you get when you buy a car. Then we (I) add to it as we go. We (I) keep documents and records for maintenance and repairs, neatly organized by date.

    No, that was not an excuse for Cheryl to laugh at me.

    You better stop reading before I ratchet up the real excitement. If you’re pregnant or suffer from a heart condition, we strongly recommend you get off this post at your earliest convenience..

    When we sell a car or trade it in, we close the book on it. We pull the paper on file, pack it up, and archive it (a box in the garage).

    None of this is important to the post though. Consider it a test of your patience. Only those who prove themselves worthy will get the meat and potatoes of the post (which none of us eat regularly).

    We’re cutting expenses. Long or short time readers know we’ve hit a bump in the budget the size of a small redwood. (You medium folks are out of luck. You really should consider committing one way or the other.)

    To that end, we dumped one of our cars – the one we had to finance after our (paid off) Honda CR-V was totaled by an uninsured driver. We piddled away most of our own insurance money on trivial stuff like medical care. We didn’t (re: couldn’t) put anything down so we were making the highest possible payments.

    Normally I’m a buyer. I like to get a car, drive it till it won’t drive no more, and only then get another. This way I figure I get the most bang for my long term buck. However, saving money in another three years does us little good if we go broke in less than one.

    Plan A isn’t going so well. In fact, it isn’t going anywhere at all. Our modest home has been for sale almost a year. In that time we’ve had less than a dozen visits from potential buyers.

    So it’s on to Plan B. If we were smart, we would have implemented Plan B concurrent with Plan A. Alas, I’m a poor planner. Plan B is to slash monthly expenses everywhere possible. So now we have a lease instead of a car loan. Now our house is off the market and we’re extending the mortgage payments out until we’re around 70. Now we’re cutting most of the fun out of our budget.

    We’ve been closing the book on a number of things lately, besides our barely used car.

    Fortunately, not all of the fun stuff in life has to fit in a budget.

    – – –

    On a related note, is there anyone out there in the market for a perfectly good kidney? It might have a few stray cancerous blood cells floating around, but otherwise it’s solid. Maintenance records are available upon request… lots of records, in fact.

  • Oh Canada!

    I’m ashamed to admit I’m not sure if there’s customarily a comma in there, but I specifically left it comma free in this case.

    Our neighbors north of the border have a birthday today. As my wife’s family might say, it’s Fête du Canada – Canada Day.

    And I must say Canada, you hardly look a day over 140!

    In the back rooms of Creationist Theory offices, it’s the 6231st day of the creation story, when God said the northernmost lands of the new lands should be considered one land, and it should be called “Canada,” and it was good.

    Ah, but I kid the Creationists. We kid because we love.

    History books outside of Texas tell us it’s the anniversary of Canada’s Constitution Act in 1867. This was when some British folks said the northernmost lands of the new lands should be considered one land, and it should be called “Canada.” I understand it was, at a minimum, ok on the creation scale.

    Despite their conservative government’s best efforts in recent times, I hear it’s pretty good these days.

    As I understand it, independence actually came later (early 1980s later), but who are we to tell our friends when they were born.

    So to my friends to the north, and everyone of Canadian descent (re: my in-laws), Happy Canada Day!

  • All this time

    A few months ago I reached a relatively low point in my life. I wasn’t dying, starving, lonely, unemployed, or bankrupt so I use the word low lightly.

    I visited my psychiatrist six weeks ago. (I’m not ashamed to admit it, I have one of those.) After the last few years chatting with me, even she was a little concerned by my appearance.

    My sleep situation was worse than ever. I was sleeping between 10 – 13 hours a night with naps in between, possibly 15 hours a day all told, yet I felt like I’d got none (or very little). Efforts to slowly start exercising again left me in much worse shape. My blood pressure was inexplicably low. I was suffering from pretty bad reflux/heartburn, confirmed by a tube they stuck down my throat – despite a relatively good diet and avoiding the common triggers. This came after a brief ECG scare, suggesting irregular heart behavior, which turned out to be a false alarm. Leukemia hung in the background, never affecting my health, but seemingly biding it’s time for the best time to strike. I set a personal record for body mass. Since I didn’t get any more dense (Cheryl might argue the point), I set a similar record for volume. My natural tendency to slip towards depression made it all seem worse.

    I couldn’t stay awake – anywhere. One of my doctors said I shouldn’t be driving. Cheryl became the designated driver in the family. I couldn’t focus at work for more than a few moments at a time, despite lists I made for myself to put me back on track. Trips to the printer left me week in the knees, my legs trembling, like I was going to collapse in exhaustion. Any sound reaching my cube was a distraction, pulling me from my work. Fighting these distractions made the headache gods VERY angry. Folks whispered about the time I spent working from home. For the first time in my life I was told my work was slipping. My daily routine shrunk to working, getting ready for work, and sleeping.

    Many doctors, bad guessing, and failed treatments leached away my one remaining defense – hope. Even though poor sleep was clouding my judgment and slowing every step, I felt like there was no “big thing” to point at and say, “that’s what is wrong with me.” However, it felt like I was nearing my 990th paper cut.

    Three months ago, I went to see my primary doctor. She ordered blood tests and a follow-up.

    Two months ago, shortly after seeing the psychiatrist, she said my thyroid numbers had more than doubled in less than a year, suggesting hypothyroidism. She ordered more blood tests and another follow-up.

    Three weeks ago the new, more extensive tests came back the same. I started taking thyroid hormones.

    Things haven’t changed a lot, but they have changed. I’m sleeping a bit better. Work has been easier. Exercise doesn’t seem impossible. Cheryl signed me up at the Y so I could work out with everyone else (the whole family goes). My energy level remains low over all, but I have bursts where I feel more like my old self – like right now. Maybe best of all, I have something to point at.

    I have hope.

    – – –

    Even though I’ve gone silent for quite some time, I know a few folks I consider friends have had tough times: tumors, hospital stays, and worse. On the off chance one of you stop by (you know who you are), you’ve been in my thoughts.