Terry's Double

It's 3:10PM on New Year's Eve. The New Year is 8 hours and 50 minutes away. I don't feel like writing a new blog post, so, as I've done once before, I'm going to steal a post from one of my other blogs. This post was originally published on The Applebee Chronicles. And oh yeah, Happy New Year everybody!

The Nissan

We picked up Nuria's rental car yesterday. It's a 2021 Nissan Sentra SV. Cars have come a long way since my Jeep was built. The Nissan owner's manual is 510 pages. There are also several other manuals about the vehicle.

It doesn't use an ordinary ignition key. No, it uses an electronic pendant. First, you use the pendant to unlock the car. Then, you use the pendant to start the car. Starting the car is complicated enough that there is an online video showing you how to do it. (See the video below.)

Doing anything, like turning on the A/C, or the headlights, or even the radio, is different enough that you have to learn how to do it. I suppose that eventually you would get the hang of it. I'm hoping we won't have the Nissan long enough for me to remember how everything works.

Late December

This morning, I got out of bed and I walked around the bed to the bedroom window (one of them) to adjust the Venetian blinds, and I discovered that the window was cracked open a half inch. It's probably been open since autumn, but I keep the blinds closed and no one could see that it was open. That may explain why my heating system has been running so much. When it's 8 degrees outside and your bedroom window is open, even a half inch, the room is going to be chilly and the heat is going to run. The opening was a half inch wide and 36 inches tall. That's equal to one inch by18 inches tall. And that's 18 square inches, which is equivalent to a round hole that has a 5.75 inch diameter. That's an almost six inch diameter hole in the wall. When the oil company fills up my heating oil tank, I'm going to pay for that oversight.

Nuria is going to get a haircut today, her first since she arrived here on September 20th, a little over three months ago. She's going to walk to the hairdresser's shop for a 3PM appointment, then walk home. Then we'll drive to Enterprise Rent-a-Car so she can pick up a rental car to use until the insurance matters are settled and she can buy another car. I hope that will happen in January.

We visited one of my very good friends yesterday. He is in poor condition. He is unable to stand up or walk due to several health problems. I hope he will survive this year, but with the condition that he is in, he's probably ready to go. There often comes a time when life is more of a burden than a joy, and the future holds no promise of change. 

I'm going to start a diet on New Year's Day. I'd like to lose about 30 pounds. I've tried before, and I've given up. I went on the Atkin's Diet three times. Each time, the same thing happened. I began losing weight for two weeks, then my weight stabilized for two weeks, then I gained weight for two weeks, at which point my weight was equal to my starting weight. At that point I quit the diet. So this time I'll have to do something different. Maybe combine Atkin's with a fast every other day?  I know I'd feel better if I weighed less, but I definitely don't want to be hungry every day.

Jonah Goldberg has an interesting column in the LA Times today. He compares Trump's annus horribilis (as he describes it) with Nixon's scandalous presidency. You can read it here.

Christmas 2022

Merry Christmas!

The song of the day is 2022's Kid On Christmas from the 2022 album Holidays Around the World by a cappella group Pentatonix (Kirstin Maldonado, Scott Hoying, Mitch Grassi, Kevin Olusola and Matt Sallee). The song also features Meghan Trainor. The album includes three originals: "Kid on Christmas," a collaboration with Meghan Trainor, "Star on Top" and "Prayers for this World."

Kid on Christmas (below)

Star On Top (below)

Prayers For This World (below)

Christmas Eve

Today is Christmas Eve. At 7AM the temperature outside my house was 8° and with wind chill it feels like -7°. (-13° and -22° Celcius). That will wake you up! We visited with my friend Butch at about 1PM. He lives a few houses down the street and usually we would walk there, but the air was bitterly cold, so I drove us to his house. His daughter was visiting, and we exchanged gifts with them.

We came home and I watched the Minnesota Vikings defeat the New York Giants (27-24). It was a very close game. Either team could have won, down to the last minute. That made it interesting.

There was more football on the TV, but I decided to switch over to YouTube and listen to Christmas music. Nuria made dinner and I put some relaxing piano jazz on the sound system. By sound system I, of course, mean my TV set. Sure, I could play sound through my computer speakers, but they sound like crap. The TV, at least, sounds halfway decent.

The outside temperature is 20°F, or as we say hereabouts: freeze-your-ass-off cold. It will be 14° by morning.

At seven we ate dinner, and afterward I went back to typing a blog post about nothing. We've already given each other Christmas gifts, so there is nothing exciting to do on Christmas morning. But that's fine with me. 

At 7:45PM I received an unexpected phone call from an old friend that I met in university and later worked for at his company for 14 years. We talked about old times for an hour. I really enjoyed hearing his voice again and reminiscing with him. How many friends do you have that you've known for fifty-six years and you still talk with them like you saw them yesterday?

I posted a video here that played some pretty piano jazz, but it only lasted a day before YouTube (or somebody) removed it. So if you're here after Christmas Day, then sorry, you missed the music video. But you can still go to YouTube and search for "Smooth Piano Jazz Music".

Friday Evening

Friday turned out to be a sunny, cold day. At 5PM the temperature had fallen to 23°F (-5°C). The low temperature forecast for Friday night is 8°F. I'm gonna be burning dinosaurs and kilowatt-hours, and a fire-log or two.

Nuria warned me that the fruit on the rum cake was soaked in rum. She doesn't want me to get hooked on rum cake alcohol. I used to drink a liter (about a quart) of vodka every day. I did that for years. I chose to quit drinking alcohol. I don't think eating a tiny piece of fruit soaked in rum is going to turn me into an alcoholic. There is probably no alcohol in rum cake anyway—just the flavor of the rum. What concerns me more than the alcohol content is the calorie content. There's a diet in my future, and it's getting closer every day.

I just lit a fire log. There's Christmas jazz music playing in the room. Nuria is sitting on the sofa behind me, phone in hand. She's sending a message to her sister in Costa Rica. 

Time passed. The fire burned. The temperature outside continued to fall. It's 16°F now. 

Nuria and I watched It Happened One Christmas starring Marlo Thomas, a 1977 remake of the 1946 film It's A Wonderful Life starring James Stewart. We ate more of Nuria's pumpkin pie, which is delicious. In two more hours, Christmas Eve will arrive with the midnight hour. I have nothing exciting to relay to my readers. We're homebodies now, Nuria and I, until Christmas is behind us. There's too much traffic and too many last minute shoppers for us to be driving around. We've already lost one car this Christmas season. Auto-wise, we're now down to my '95 Jeep. But it's a reliable workhorse. Nuria has begun looking at used car ads. Before, long, we'll be a two-car household again, I think, and hope.

"¡Feliz Navidad!" as José Feliciano would say. 

Friday

The expected cold front hit this morning, or at least the leading edge hit. A strong rain shower began falling. After a short while it stopped. Nuria had papers to mail to her lawyers in Chicago, and she wanted them to get there as soon as possible, so she just left the house on a trek to the Post Office. She likes to walk there and the rain isn't falling now. I hope she gets back before the weather gets bad. It's only about 8 minutes to the Post Office and, of course, 8 minutes back. She may spend 5 minutes inside the Post Office, doing business there. So, unless she decides to extend her walk, she should be back about 20 minutes after she left. 

Last night we had a fire log burning in the wood stove and relaxing music playing and it created a very nice mood. I captured a glimpse of it with my phone camera.

Nuria just returned from the Post Office. Her package of paperwork is in the mail to Chicago, 2 day delivery and signature requested. 

Tomorrow we'll walk up the street and visit my buddy Butch. I'd do it today but I fear we might be caught in a downpour.

Nuria is in the kitchen making rum cakes. She said she will make three cakes. She wants to give a couple of them to friends and, of course, there will be one for us. Her last home-baked cake was a red velvet cake with cream cheese icing, and needless to say, it was very good. When the new year gets here, I have to lay off these tasty treats. I've already gained five pounds just in the last few weeks. If I keep gaining weight, I won't be able to get out of bed. Then, I'll have to give up snacks, unless Nuria keeps bringing them to me. There is a YT video about a man who fasted for more than a year and lost 382 pounds. He fasted under medical supervision, but fasting that long is dangerous and doctors don't advise it. When he ended his fast, he resumed eating but he did not put the weight back on. There's a video about his experience here.

I've fasted, and I can tell you that after the first three days, your hunger goes away, because your body switches to burning ketones (which are derived from body fat) and so you're not hungry. Our bodies can burn two kinds of fuel: glucose (sugar) and ketones. As long as we have glucose in our blood, our bodies don't make ketones, and excess glucose is stored in fat cells. When our bodies run low on glucose, we switch to breaking down fat into ketones, which our bodies then burn for energy. That's the basis of the Atkins diet and the reason it works. I'll be joining the millions of other Americans who will swear, on New Year's Eve, that they're going to lose weight in the New Year. Good luck to all of them, and good luck to me.

Christmas Countdown

One of my readers concluded a comment with this sentence:  "Can't wait for your Christmas blog and New Years full of wisdom and hope through the sparkling words of the author !!"

Oh shoot, really? Now I'm blushing! I've always thought that my readers, through their comments, were the ones who were full of wisdom, and I still feel that way. But thank you for the kind review.

The high temperature today is supposed to be about 50F° and the low tonight is forecast to be 38°F. The storm gets here tomorrow, and tomorrow night is forecast to be 9°F (-12.8°C). I'm gonna be burning those dinosaurs (or whatever heating oil is made of). I've seen colder weather here and I've written about it. But I shouldn't complain. The temperature in Great Falls, Montana, is currently -25°F, and today's high temperature there is forecast to be -12°F.

For Christmas, I gave Nuria a Garmin GPS for her car. Now she is car-less, so I tested the GPS on my Jeep. It worked fine. I figure she'll need it until she knows the area. Even then, it's a handy device when you're driving around a part of the city that is unfamiliar to you. I used to have a TomTom GPS and it worked great. It worked on a trip to Inverness, Florida, and back home—a 24 hour round trip. After that, the TomTom prompted me to update the map. I tried to, and it began installing the new map. But then it said that it was out of memory and couldn't install the new map, and the old map was gone, so the TomTom was useless. I threw it into the trash after using it one time.

I got up at 6:30AM today, after being awake since 3:30AM. I always wake up during the night and usually can't get back to sleep. Now it's 8AM and a light rain is falling. I will drive Nuria to a doctor today to pick up paperwork for her permanent residency application. She has to sign it in front of the doctor, and the doctor has to sign it in front of Nuria. Then it goes into a special envelope, is sealed, and is sent to her lawyers in Chicago, then they check everything and send it to USCIS (Customs and Immigration Service). Nuria and the USCIS have been swapping paperwork since 2020. But the money flows only one way, from her to them. The lawyers charge $4500, and the government charges a few thousand dollars. When all is done, the paperwork will have taken about three years and the cost will total about $7000. Even after that, she can be denied residency. The government promises nothing.

I hope my next blog post will be more Christmas-y and less complaining. I recently bought some fire logs, and today would be a good time to use one or two. Stay cheerful, people!

Winter Solstice

It's Wednesday, December 21st, the middle of the work week and the first day of winter for this year in North America. Winter begins on the day of the winter solstice, which is today. In earth's southern hemisphere, winter began on June 21 this year. 

Coincidentally, on this first day of winter, a raging blizzard is crossing the country and headed my way. It is due to arrive in my city on Friday. The low Friday night is expected to be 12°F, and the high on Saturday is expected to be 27°F. Christmas will be a little warmer: a high that day of 32°F and a low of 15°F. And it's "just" December. January is the really cold month where I live.

I broke the handle off the sliding patio door that leads to my backyard. I just yanked it too hard. So I ordered a new door handle from Home Depot. It came today. I removed the old handle and tried to install the new handle, but it didn't quite fit. The mounting holes were very close to the same distance apart as on the old handle, but not close enough. Then I dropped one of the parts of the outside handle (a part I need to use with the new handle). I saw the part fall—a black, metal piece about 1/2 inch square. I watched it fall to the outside step and bounce off, then fall into the clover beside the step. I looked for it carefully, pulling clover up so I could see the ground. I couldn't find it and finally I called for Nuria's help. She looked for it and pulled more clover out of the way. Neither of us could find it, even though I saw exactly where it fell into the clover. It was freezing cold and after an hour I gave up trying to fix the door. I decided to replace the patio door. But not just the door: the whole installation including the track the door rolls on. It's old and needs replacing, anyway. 

It's also time for a new garage door. So that's on my list for the beginning of the year. I may wait until spring so that it won't be so cold when the installers are working. And oh yes, I just remembered, the garage has two old wind turbines on its roof. One has failed and won't turn. The other is equally old and will likely fail soon. So add two roof turbines to the "to do" list. I wonder if I can get all this done for under five thousand dollars. That's what it cost me to remodel my kitchen when I moved into this house. Oh well, what is money for, if not to spend?

Two milestones for Nuria today: One, she passed her medical exam (another $455) and is expected to see the doctor tomorrow to pick up the paperwork. (This is in regard to her application for permanent resident status). Second, the Toyota incident (in which her vehicle was totaled by another driver) is moving forward. The other driver's insurance has taken full financial responsibility for Nuria's auto accident, after they looked at photos of the Camry and determined the car is a total loss. I don't know what they'll do next, but the insurance claim is in their ballpark now. 

I hope everyone is well, and stay safe, y'all. It's a busy time of year for the roads. Drivers are distracted by thoughts of Christmas shopping, and the expected bad weather will only make the roads more dangerous. Take care.

Mary, Did You Know

A cappella group Pentatonix is known for their Christmas albums. This song of the day is 2014's Mary, Did You Know by Pentatonix. There are many recordings of this song, sung by various artists. The oldest version I know of was recorded by American Christian singer and record producer Michael English in 1991. Since then, hundreds of singers have covered the song.

Christmas 1915

I've posted this before, but inasmuch as we're approaching Christmas, I think it's appropriate to post it again.

The song of the day is Christmas 1915 by Irish singing group Celtic Thunder. The song is about a Christmas truce that occurred on the front lines during World War 1.

Auld Lang Syne

One of my readers left a comment to remind me of another Christmas song, traditionally sung at midnight as the year ends. I'm talking about Auld Lang Syne, and it is one of my favorite Christmas and New Year's songs. Thanks to LL for the reminder of this great song.

According to Wikipedia,

The text is a Scots-language poem written by Robert Burns in 1788 but based on an older Scottish folk song. In 1799, it was set to a traditional tune, which has since become standard.  ... The poem's Scots title may be translated into standard English as "old long since" or, less literally, "long long ago", "days gone by", "times long past" or "old times". Consequently, "For auld lang syne", as it appears in the first line of the chorus, might be loosely translated as "for the sake of old times".

And so, 

The song of the day is Auld Lang Syne sung by singer, songwriter, and actress Lea Michele (Lea Michele Sarfati).

Last Christmas

Christmas is a week away.

The song of the day is 2022's Last Christmas by a cappella group Pentatonix featuring Japanese YouTubers Heikin and Seikin.

Consequences

If you're of my generation, then you remember vacuum tube radios. You remember vacuum tube televisions. You remember turning on a radio or TV and having to let it "warm up" before it would work. The vacuum tubes literally had to heat up before they would work. 

Then along came transistor radios. They were amazing; they produced sound the instant they were turned on, no warm-up required. I bought my first transistor radio from a mail order company named Olsen. I paid for it with money I had earned by delivering the morning newspaper. The radio had six transistors, as it proudly proclaimed on the front of the case. I bought a rechargeable battery for it, too. It was shaped like a regular 9 volt battery, but when the battery ran down, you could plug it into a little charger that came with the battery, then plug the charger and battery into a wall outlet. It was cheap but it worked.

One day when I was 15 or 16, I left my radio in my dad's car while I helped him work on an old house he had purchased to be rental property. The house wasn't in a good part of town, and so when we came back to his car to go home, the radio was gone. It had been stolen.

I bought another radio. This one was slightly better (and larger) and it contained 8 transistors, a fact that it, too, proudly proclaimed on the front of the radio. Still, there was a place in my heart for that 6 transistor radio. You only buy your first transistor radio once. 

But frankly, I would never have stolen a cheap transistor radio, because at age 15 I had too much self-respect to make myself into a common thief. What's a common thief? When you steal billions of dollars from investors with a bitcoin scam, you're a financial genius. When you steal a cheap transistor radio, you're a common thief. Plus, I didn't know for sure if there was a heaven, but I knew that I didn't want to throw away my shot at getting there on an act of petty thievery. I should note that this was neither the first nor the last act of petty theft I would experience.

The world is full of thieves, and it's full of good people, too. There are people who will give their lives to save yours, even though they don't know you. Maybe the petty thieves I've encountered later woke up and learned to have a little self-respect, so that "petty thief" won't be the only item on their life's resume. I hope so, because, as the preachers and the philosophers have pointed out, our actions are balanced by consequences. Ignore that fact at your own peril. In the end, you only get what you give. It's called karma.

House Ghost

The time was about 1:30 AM. I was in bed. The house was dark except for a dim light in the living room. That light cast its incandescent glow down the hallway to my bedroom door. In the dim light, I saw Nuria get up and walk around the end of the bed and through the bedroom doorway. I watched as she opened the bathroom door and entered the bathroom. I could see her clearly.

I thought, "No one is going to believe this." The reason I thought that was simple: it was because Nuria was lying beside me in bed, and my hand was touching her arm. I could feel the warmth of her skin. I almost awakened her to tell her, "Look, Nuria. It's you!" I didn't because I knew it wasn't Nuria. It was just a kind of apparition of Nuria. 

I kept thinking that anyone I talk to about this is going to accuse me of just dreaming, yet I was awake and I  knew I was awake. A few minutes later, I got out of bed and went to the bathroom to use the facilities. I was wide awake, not sleepy at all, so I didn't return to bed. I sat at my PC and began perusing the news.

These kind of things have happened to me a number of times since I moved into this house. I've written about them previously on this blog. Here's one example: Go Figure. Here's another example: Odd Stuff. It's the kind of thing I've learned to shrug off. Maybe these kinds of things happen to everyone and other people simply don't talk about them. Maybe I shouldn't either, lest people think I'm daft in the head. I don't know—the world is a strange place sometimes.

Entering the Labyrinth

This morning I drove Nuria to the Battlefield Park Auto Salvage company to visit with her Camry. She told me she wanted to get some things out of the car before something happened to them. She named the items she wanted to retrieve, and when she said "my parents' rosary beads" it almost went by me, but then a part of my brain said, "uh, what? Rosary beads? In your Camry?"

I had thought her walking away unhurt from that collision was exceptionally good fortune, but maybe there was something else, too. Maybe there was something in the car that protected Nuria. Maybe. I can believe that.

Also in the car was a well-worn coin purse filled with quarters. I thought that was a good idea—for toll booths and parking meters, a coin purse filled with quarters in a handy place where she could easily reach it. Though more and more toll booths take credit cards.

She took the floor mats and the windshield sun shade that she had bought for the car. She took it all and bid farewell to the Camry. 

The gal behind the front desk of the salvage yard said that if they could station a tow truck at Walmart, it would be busy all day towing cars from accidents. A woman sitting near the shop's front door told me her car was hit by a truck entering the Walmart parking lot as she was trying to exit. She could see the collision coming and began backing up to avoid the truck, but a vehicle behind her prevented her from backing up enough, and the truck scraped her car. The truck driver should have stopped but didn't seem to care. He told the investigating officer that the accident was the woman's fault—that she had hit him. The cop knew the truck driver, and so the cop wrote the accident report as being the woman's fault. Fortunately for the lady, a witness stepped forward and ultimately the report was changed to put the fault on the truck driver where it belonged.

We ended up back at Walmart and bought groceries. We left Walmart and pushed the shopping cart back to my Jeep and put the groceries into the cargo space in the back of the Jeep. A bitterly cold wind swept across the parking lot. We came home and carried many bags of groceries into the house. For dinner we had baked fish, mashed potatoes, and red, white, and orange baby carrots. Then we took a break before eating homemade pumpkin pie with whipped cream.

The wheels are just beginning to turn on the auto insurance. There are many threads that must yet be woven together. I've had an auto accident myself, but it was long ago. It was my fault. But that's another story of another time and a very different VirtualWayne than the one who lives today. I hope none of my readers have to go through the auto insurance labyrinth due to an accident. It's not fun.

Nuria - Part 2

Yesterday's post was about my domestic partner, Nuria. Today's post is about Nuria, too. But mostly it's about her Toyota Camry.

Nuria bought her 2009 Camry in July. It was the first vehicle she had owned in years. She was so proud of that car, even though it was used—or, as they say on the TV adverts, "pre-owned." She would go out in the mornings and wipe the dew off the Camry's windows. She would clean the dust off the roof of the car.

This morning, Nuria told me she was going to the library to make some copies. Ironically, I recently bought her a copier/printer because she had been going to the library so often, in order to print and make copies of immigration documents. But she had to print 21 pages and she didn't want to use up all the ink in the printer, so she drove to the library. And that's where this story should have ended. But—

The library was closed. On Saturdays it opens at 10AM and she had arrived at about 9:30. So she decided to drive to Walmart and pick up a couple items. She made it to Walmart and had stopped on the road, waiting for traffic to clear so that she could make a left turn into Walmart's parking lot. She was in the left turn lane with her left turn flasher blinking. In the rear-view mirror, she saw a car approaching fast from behind her, but she assumed it was in the adjacent lane and would pass her Camry on the right. 

Suddenly, Nuria felt a terrible jolt and her car spun around in the middle of the road. The approaching car had rammed the back of her Camry. Her beloved Camry appears to be "totaled." Meaning: un-fixable, too badly damaged to repair. The rear of the vehicle was caved in, and the chassis was warped enough that Nuria couldn't get the driver's door to open.

People immediately stopped to help her. Nuria wasn't hurt, but an elderly man who had been driving the other car that hit her car had blood on his shirt and pants. Bystanders called 911. Within five minutes, police and an ambulance were on-scene. Nuria called me and told me she had been in an accident. I told her to be sure to get the other driver's insurance information.

After I got there, which took about ten minutes, an officer gave Nuria a card with the case number for the accident. The police will collect the necessary information about the drivers and what had happened. One man volunteered that he was a witness to the accident and he talked to the police. 

An officer gave Nuria his ID card with the case number written on it. When we left the scene, men were still sweeping glass off the street and the two cars had yet to be towed away. 

I took one photo of the Camry. The scene was busy with police, ambulance, maybe a fire truck. I was more concerned with making sure Nuria was alright and that we had all the information we would need.

Nuria is worried about her personal items that had to be left behind in her car. I think they'll be okay. The car should be locked, wherever it's taken. We've reported the accident to Nuria's insurance company and gave them the case number, and they'll handle the rest (I hope). I don't know if Nuria will have to go to court, but the courthouse is at the end of my street—easy to get to.

Now Nuria will have to start searching again for a good used car. That may take weeks. But there is no rush to get it done. 

So that was my and Nuria's Saturday morning. How was yours?

Nuria

My last blog post was six days ago. It seems longer to me. I guess I'm not doing much these days.

Sometimes Nuria (my domestic partner) gets quiet. She did that this morning. She was quiet a long time. I asked her if anything was wrong. She said, "No." Yet I knew something was wrong. Sometimes people don't know how to put something into words. Then I have to dig. I ask questions until I start to feel I'm getting somewhere, and then I drill down into that topic, whatever it may be.

I finally got Nuria to talk about what was bothering her. She misses her family in Costa Rica: her three daughters and her three grandchildren. There is Joanna, her oldest child, who has two children, a boy and a girl, "R" and Stephanie. ("R" is, of course, a nickname.) There is Maria, her middle child. And there is Mary, her youngest child, who has a son called Nick.

I can't replace her family, and as of now, she can't leave the country. She is applying for permanent resident status and she can't leave the country until August of 2023. It doesn't take much to entertain me. I can spend hours looking at YouTube. But Nuria is more of a "people person" than I am. She likes being around people. I'm not a people person. She had a family. I didn't; not a "real" family. She had a life with many friends. I had a life with a few cherished friends. She likes people. I tolerate people. 

(I just went to the door to accept a package—a large brown box from Walmart—addressed to Nuria. She's in buying mode. I never know what to get people. Humans of my milieu already have everything they need and really want. Trying to select a gift for them is like trying to decide what kind of icing you want to put on your red velvet cake, only infinitely more complex. My father couldn't do it, either—make my mother happy. As a child, I felt sad for my mother, who bought birthday and Christmas gifts for everyone in the family but received from my father whatever dregs remained on the drugstore shelves on Christmas Eve.)

I can't make people happy. They have to do it. I'm here if they need me. I can ask questions, but I can't always fix what is broken. Especially when someone is a long way from home and family. When people around me are sad, it makes me sad when I can't help them. But what will be, will be.

Soccer

Last night, Nuria and I were asleep in bed. I was dreaming. In my dream, I pinched someone, and I pinched hard. Then, both in reality and in my dream, I heard Nuria squeal, "Owwwww!!!"

I suddenly understood that I had pinched Nuria and I hoped she was okay. I wanted to wake up and ask her if she was okay, but I just couldn't wake up. I teetered on the brink of wakefulness, half awake and half asleep. Nuria didn't make any further sounds, so I assumed she was okay. I resumed my dream. The pinch and Nuria's squeal of pain are the only parts of the dream that I remember.

In fact, I had forgotten all about it until this morning, when Nuria said, "You pinched me really hard last night."

She said that my night was wild. I was rolling around in bed, and I was talking. That is not very unusual for me. I often roll from side to side in bed, lying on my left side, then my right side, then my left side, and so on. Talking while I'm asleep isn't too unusual, either. Nuria takes it all in stride. But I know I wouldn't want to sleep in the same bed with me.

Nuria is watching TV now. She's watching the USA play the Netherlands in the World Cup. That would be "soccer," which is called "football" in countries not named USA. Netherlands is ahead with 35 minutes remaining.  

I don't know much about soccer. I can watch it for a few minutes, but it seems like the most boring game humans have ever invented. Maybe that's because so many games end with the score 0 - 0 or 1 - 0. 

"Hey, VirtualWayne, let's go to the stadium and watch two teams not score any points for 90 minutes."

"Thanks, but I'd rather do something more exciting than watch soccer—like, take a nap."

But to each his own.

Nights Like This

I went to bed at 9pm.

I couldn't sleep.

I got up at 12am and looked for my bottle of Xanax. I take only about one pill per year and the bottle is 5 years old. Even expired, the pills probably still work. But I couldn't find it. I went back to bed at 2:22am.

I couldn't sleep. I tried not to toss and turn because I know it bothers Nuria. 

I heard the boiler start up at 3:57am.

I heard a train come through the city at 4:10am. It blew its air horn. Then there was only the sound of the boiler. Then the locomotive blew its air horn again. The second time was louder than the first, and instantly I knew what track it was traveling on.

I heard the boiler cut off at 4:32am. The boiler had run for 35 minutes. It used to run for 20 minutes. Is the problem with the boiler or with the thermostat?

I got up again at 4:45am. It's still dark. I sat down at my pc and I read a lot of news on YouTube. A small electric heater is running at my feet. I'm not even close to sleepy. The radiator just banged loudly—it's cooling down. I'd go for a walk if it wasn't 46°F outside with light rain. Sunrise is an hour away.

I hate nights like this.

Thanksgiving

Today is Thanksgiving. It's noon. Nuria and I are heating a frozen pizza for lunch. It's a beautiful sunny day and the temperature is 60°F. The normal auto traffic on my street is sparse, almost absent. People are in their homes or they've traveled somewhere else. 

I slept late and skipped breakfast. Soon, Nuria and I will be having lunch: pizza. The Walmart pizza is quite good, even though it starts out frozen. Afterward, my plans include chocolate chip cookies for dessert. 

Later, we'll have Thanksgiving dinner. As there are only two of us, Nuria is keeping it simple. We'll eat Smithfield hickory-smoked sliced ham with pineapple, walnut salad (apples with honey and walnuts and celery and mayo), sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, pumpkin pie, and velvet cake (with cream cheese icing). We'll drink a delicious bottle of alcohol-free champagne—also called  sparkling cider. I call it a simple dinner because I don't have to put it together. But if I were living alone, I'd just make a hamburger. Better yet, I might just drive to Burger King. Their What-a-Burgers are tastier than my homemade burgers.

The aforementioned red velvet cake really does look like red velvet before the icing is put on it. You can't buy red velvet cake at Burger King, so that would be a downside of eating there. I've got ground hamburger in the fridge, and two buns in the bread box, so we'll have home-cooked hamburgers for lunch tomorrow. And, probably, red velvet cake—for the remainder of the week. 

Everyone, I hope you enjoy your Thanksgiving holiday, and let's not forget why we celebrate the holiday. Thanksgiving  commemorates the colonial Pilgrims' harvest meal that they shared with Wampanoag Indians in 1621. The Wampanoag Indians had been key to the survival of the colonists during the first year they arrived in 1620. Over 400 years later, that harvest celebration is still going. Nuria informs me that in Costa Rica, the government has announced that the country will celebrate Thanksgiving beginning this year. Most Costa Ricans know nothing about the US holiday and don't know what a turkey is, so I suspect that in Costa Rica the holiday will be less about celebrating a successful harvest that happened 400 years ago, and more about eating yourself into a coma and getting falling-down drunk. Which is fine with me. To each his own.

Store Trip

It is Tuesday morning, two days before Thanksgiving. Nuria and I made a run to Wally World to buy a few items. I had been hearing on the news that prices were going up and things might get scare, but it didn't prepare me for this:

<< This is the egg department at Walmart. The shelves are mostly empty of eggs. Due to reflections in the glass doors, the shelves appear to be filled with something. But actually, only the topmost shelves had items for sale. Normally eggs cost $1 to $1.50, and I've seen them as low as 34 cents per dozen. But the few cartons of eggs that remained were priced—well, see for yourself in the photo below.

The price is $14.80/carton, and if you look closely you can see that that price is for the store brand, "Great Value." However, the eggs in stock are "Eggland's Best," which normally are higher priced. I guess the stocker figured that for $14.80, they might as well give customers the "top shelf" brand rather than the store brand.

Thanksgiving is in two days. I hope everyone has a wonderful day. I know everyone won't, and that's a shame. I've spent many—most—holidays alone, so the shine is long gone from that day. But Nuria and I will be together and I know she'll have something special for Thanksgiving dinner. For one thing, she bought a bottle of rum, which I suspect goes into some kind of cake. I bet it's called "Rum Cake" but that's just a guess. I know little about cooking. What I call cooking involves either a microwave oven or a wok. 

Try to have a nice holiday. If you feel overly lonely, go to an Applebee's and sit at the bar. Have a burger and a beer. You'll probably have company. 

Till next time. 

The Week Is Done

I haven't posted a blog lately. I've been a little busy. Nuria and I had a lot of limbs and leaves to clean out of the yard from the previously mentioned tree-cutting. The limbs had to be cut to fit trash containers. That job took five days plus two 45-gallon trash receptacles plus 15 44-gallon 7-ply construction waste bags. 

The bathroom ceiling was damaged by water from a roof leak. I repaired the damaged plaster with joint compound and then painted the ceiling. The dining room ceiling was also damaged by water from a roof leak. I repaired the damage with joint compound and then painted that portion of the ceiling. I think I've got the roof leaks fixed but I'll know for sure when the next hurricane comes through town.

So the ceiling repairs are done and I've just finished dinner. I'm listening to some mellow jazz music, which Nuria and I do every evening at dinner and sometimes afterward. The music tonight is called "Monday Jazz ❤️ Smooth Jazz Music for Starting Your Week On A High Note" and it's on YouTube here.*

Tomorrow is election day, but it's an off-year election—I think that's what they call it. It's one of those elections where you don't know anyone on the ballot. Somebody is running for dogcatcher. Somebody else is running for school board. I don't know any of them, and I don't have dogs or kids.

*Note: On Tuesday, the day after I posted this blog, the link to the music video now displays the message:  "This Live Stream Recording Is Not Available." Maybe the video is only available on Mondays? I don't know.

The Tree Situation, Part 2

Continued from The Tree Situation.

The weather on the first three days of this week was too miserable (cold and wet) for outdoor work. But on Thursday the sun came out, and Nuria and I got busy. We trimmed the remaining tree in my neighbor's yard (after cutting down the tree growing beside it earlier). I talked with the homeowner and he was okay with us cutting it. In fact, he said he wanted to help us, and suggested we meet on Saturday for a tree-cutting. But I wanted to get a head start so there would be less work on Saturday, so Nuria and I started tree-cutting Thursday. It was chilly but it was sunny, and we both worked up a sweat. We only spent two hours on the tree, cutting limbs off the tree and cutting those limbs into 4-foot pieces to fit in the trash receptacle.

Here's the tree before we started. It's probably about 15 to 20 feet tall. I've already trimmed it back once, about two years ago. I used a ladder to reach limbs hanging over my yard.

Below, the tree after day one. Remember, we cut for just two hours.

On Friday, Nuria and I spent 90 minutes on the tree.  Below, the tree after day two.

On Saturday, we worked about an hour. It was hard work for me, partly because I'm a geezer, and partly because I'm a couch potato. My biggest problem is that I injured my back when I was in my twenties and it never healed properly, so bending over to cut or pick up limbs has my back hurting like hell in no time. Nuria was a huge help. She used lopping shears and she used the chainsaw when I had to rest my back. 

The tree doesn't look as big as it really is when you're cutting it down. I'm not sure my chainsaw is big enough to cut the trunk close to the ground. So I left a stump about 4 feet tall. If someone is parking their car in the backyard, I don't want them to run over a short stump and damage their car, so I left it tall enough that they should be able to see it and avoid it. At the ground, the stump is about 12 to15 inches diameter. The second day (Friday) was cloudy and a bit colder, but we worked for 90 minutes.

Below: Tada! The stump is about four feet tall. The pile of branches we cut off is now five feet tall. We'll have to bundle them into 4-foot long bundles, tied up with string, and set them behind the garage. Or we'll stuff them into the trash receptacle. But the trash receptacle is emptied only once a week, and we have enough limbs and leaves to probably fill up at least a dozen receptacles. The job isn't over until all the leaves and limbs are gone. It's going to take time. But you know what they say about time. The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.

Below, the what remains after day three.

Just Another Day

On Sunday I sharpened the cutters on my chainsaw. Or rather, my friend Butch sharpened them. He has a couple of chainsaw files of the correct size, and it took him about ten minutes to do the job. Then yesterday, Wednesday, I cut down the stump (see previous blog post if you're confused) of the tree that I had already cut up, and it was ten times easier going through the wood now that the cutters are sharp. What would have taken me at least ten minutes now took only about a half minute. Amazing! I can't wait to tackle that other tree. But it's so large that it will take two or three days to cut it down, working two or three hours per day. I'd get a professional to take it down if I had permission, but because they have to bring their truck into the yard, I'm not going to do that until I have permission. But if the tree gets any larger, I'll probably have to get the professionals involved. That's why I want to cut it down now.

It's 30°F now, but it's going to be 62° later today. And it's going to be sunny. So, it seems that it will be a nice day for lopping branches. But I know Nuria will want to trim some of the bushes in front of my house. I thought I had them trimmed back for the winter, but we've had enough warm weather the last few weeks that they've spouted new leaves and stems. They need another trim. Really, if it was just me living here, I would say screw it and put it off until next spring. But I know Nuria wants the house to look pretty on the outside, and I understand that.

I got my first delivery of heating oil for the winter. It cost $1290 for about 300 gallons. I'll have to buy another delivery in January. When I moved into this house in 2003, I paid about $140 for the same amount of oil. Back then, the cost was about $1.50 per gallon. The price of oil has doubled since then. But everything goes up in price. I guess it's the nature of our economy.

My car is 27 years old. It was 3 years old when I bought it. I tend to stick with things I buy until they break. But it would be cool to have one of those new electric cars. I've looked at some YouTube videos of some electric cars. Last night I checked out the Chevy Bolt. It's not as pretty as the Tesla, and doesn't have all the features of a Tesla, but it's still impressive. And expensive, at almost $40K. My old Jeep still runs well. I don't feel any pressure to replace it soon. I drive it about 500 miles a year. Maybe less, now that Nuria has her car. I woke up one morning last week and there was a note from Nuria stuck on my computer screen. She had gotten up before me and had gone to Walmart to buy groceries. I almost did a little dance of joy. I hate going to Walmart for groceries. It's one of those necessary evils, though.

I don't really have anything to write about this morning. I'm at my computer. Nuria is sitting on the sofa doing something on her laptop. The house is very quiet. I can hear the refrigerator running. At 7AM, the morning news is coming on and the sky is lightening in the East. Sunrise will occur at 7:22AM today in my central Virginia city. I'm going to fix myself something to eat. Probably cereal. Yesterday morning, I heated a frozen sausage-egg-cheese biscuit. I don't eat cheese, so before I heated it, I opened the biscuit to remove the slice of cheese. I found some kind of debris on the cheese. It was about the size and shape of a fruit fly, but I couldn't tell for sure. It went into the garbage can and I heated the biscuit and it was tasty. 

On the TV weather, the weather-person just said that a warm-up is in store and it looks like it will last for the remainder of October. That sounds good to me. Less oil to burn and more good walking weather for Nuria. I hope you all have a good day. See you next time.

The Tree Situation

The weekend was nice—overcast, but with a comfortable temperature and no rain. So I did a chore I've been putting off.

My neighbor's yard (one of my neighbors) has two trees growing near the border with my yard. No one planted them. They may have grown from seeds planted by squirrels or perhaps they sprouted from seeds that drifted there on the wind. The trees are what I call "trash trees" because they have no fruit, no pretty blossoms, nothing at all to make them worthy of being in someone's yard. From examining its leaves, I can see that one of them is identical to a tree in a yard a few doors up the street, but that "parent" tree is now 50 feet tall and very big around. This "offspring" tree in my neighbor's yard is/was about 3 feet from my yard and maybe 10 feet from my garage. I've been watching it grow for a few years and I've been getting concerned about it.

So on Sunday, I went to my garage and grabbed my small electric chainsaw, plugged it into a long power cord, and I went outside and cut that tree into pieces. I left a four foot stump that I still need to take down, but my chainsaw needs sharpening and I don't have a chainsaw file. I'm not even sure what size file to buy, but I think 5/32 (inch) will work. Then I can attack the the remainder of the trunk still jutting from the ground.

After I cut down the tree, Nuria and I spent two hours cutting it into 4-foot long pieces. The trunk and all the limbs, which were relatively small, were cut up. I used the chainsaw and Nuria used lopping shears to remove branches from the trunk. We stuffed my trash receptacle full of tree-trunk and limbs and leaves and had enough small limbs left over for maybe two more receptacles. Which I don't have. So when the trash is picked up, the receptacle will immediately get filled again.

There's another tree in my neighbor's yard, also about three feet from my yard, that really bothers me. It's going to be a big tree, too, and like the tree I cut down, it's just a trash tree. Its winter-naked limbs sprout small pink blossoms for a few weeks in early spring, but that's the only time of year that it's worth looking at. It's too close to the border with my yard, and its limbs hang over my yard, and every autumn it drops several trash receptacles volume of large brown leaves into my yard, which the wind then blows into my outside basement stairwell, whereupon they settle at the bottom of the stairwell and prevent rainwater from going into the stairwell drain. So I'm kept busy shoveling leaves out of the stairwell several times every autumn. It's an extra task I really don't need. So the tree must go.

The previous owner of the house told me he didn't care about the trees. But he sold the house and I can't contact the current owner because he's never at home. But I want to do the courtesy of asking him if it's okay before I cut down that tree, something I didn't do with the first tree. Although, I also have in mind Admiral Grace Hopper's wisdom: "It's easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission."

The Truist Transfer Part 3

This story begins two posts ago at "My Current Aggravation."

Yesterday I sent my bank another email about my missing money and I mentioned that I have a personal blog and my readers want to know what Truist is doing about it.

Maybe it's just a coincidence, but a few hours later I received a call from my branch's VP, Ms. Skipper, and she assured me the money that "disappeared" would be restored this weekend. Her word was good, and on Saturday morning I checked my account and the vanished funds had been returned. Amazing! Truist did the right thing, although it did require a bit of nudging. 

One of my readers left a link to the video below, which I find hilarious because it so accurately depicts my feelings about this incident. Hopefully, this post will be my last word on the Truist Transfer.

The Truist Transfer Part 2

This story begins with my previous post, titled "My Current Aggravation: The Truist Transfer Part 1."

To recap, I deposited a bank check at a Truist bank branch, and they mishandled the check. They treated the check as a check drawn on a U.S. bank, when actually it was a check drawn on a foreign bank, which resulted in the check becoming misdirected. (Actually, Truist destroyed the paper check, but it still maintains a digital representation of the check that contains the check's information.) 

So, thinking it was a U.S. bank check, they put the check into the Federal banking system. That didn't work, because there is no National Bank of Costa Rica in the Federal banking system. So the bank reversed the transaction.

When the bank reversed the transaction, they took the check money out of my account ($14,367.36). But they didn't phone me, or send me an email, or do any communication to me to explain why they took the money from my account. The money just disappeared. So Nuria and I went to the bank on a Saturday morning, a few days after the money disappeared, and spoke with a banker named Mr. Graham. He listened and promised to get back to me.

Wednesday came.  At 10AM, Nuria and I went to Truist again. Mr. Graham wasn't in his office. I asked to speak to the lead manager, and they directed me to a woman I'll call Ms. Skipper. Her business card says she is the Vice President of the branch. She seemed nice and competent, but I knew my situation would not be high on the bank's list of priorities. Ms. Skipper said she would look into the matter and get back to me.

Thursday came. I sent Ms. Skipper an email asking if there had been any progress in my case. She responded right away, and said there had been no progress.

Friday came (today). I sent Ms. Skipper another email and suggested that in the interest of good customer service they should immediately deposit the amount of the check into my account. After all, it was the bank's mistake that caused me to lose the money. Then, when they go through the process and do whatever they have to do in order to recover the funds, they can keep the money they get from the check. We'll all be square, I'll be happier, and Truist won't even notice anything went awry.

Wait, did I just suggest that a big corporation would treat its customers fairly and reimburse money that they caused a customer to lose? I have to step outside. I obviously need fresh air.

My Current Aggravation: The Truist Transfer Part 1

Back in July, Nuria wanted to buy a car. She car-shopped and found a nice used Toyota Camry. It was a 2009 model in good condition. She decided to buy it. She had the money in her bank, but her bank was in Costa Rica (a central American country, not to be confused with the American territory of Puerto Rico).

The transfer of funds would require several days, which would probably throw a wrench into the auto buying transaction, so we decided that I would provide most of the cash and then she would reimburse me. So we went to the car dealer and I paid $14,367 on top of the deposit she had already paid. 

In September, Nuria flew back home for two weeks. While she was in Costa Rica, she went to her bank and got a cashier's check payable to me. She came back to the US on September 20, and on September 21 we went to my bank (Truist) and deposited the check. The amount was immediately credited to my account.

Two weeks later, I noticed that the same amount had been debited from my account. This was October 5th. So on October 8, a Saturday morning, we went to my bank and consulted a banker to find out what had happened. The banker said that the National Bank of Costa Rica had not transferred money to Truist.

Nuria called her bank and explained the check situation, and her bank said that the money had been allocated for transfer but that Truist had done nothing to transfer the money. My bank is pointing its finger at Nuria's bank and Nuria's bank is pointing its finger at my bank. Meanwhile, who has the money? It seems that the National Bank of Costa Rica still has it, though I wouldn't bet my life on it.

I trust that if I put enough diligence into this issue, it will be resolved. But I'm not sure. If the money isn't transferred soon, within another couple of weeks, I may have to involve lawyers. Maybe legal papers will get someone's attention at the bank. 

A final note: when I searched the Internet for Truist, I found a lot of problems with the bank. Truist is the result of a merger between Suntrust and BB&T. A lot of people have complained about Truist losing their money. This lost money has made me very wary of Truist and, in fact, wary of banks in general. I took a valid check—a cashier's check—to a bank, and now I don't have the money and I don't have the check. And Truist points the finger anywhere except itself, even though it admits to having problems as a result of the merger. For example, see this article, or Google "Truist bank complaints."

Frankly, Truist has lost my trust, and that's a bad thing for a bank to lose. If you have a problem with a business, here are some resources that might help:

Better Business Bureau

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

Your State Attorney General 

Vaccine Misery

Hurricane Ian came and went through central Virginia with not much more than some breezes and a day of very light rain showers. You wouldn't know that it had been a hurricane just a few days earlier. No power outages either.

I went to Walmart Pharmacy and got a Covid (omicron) booster (the new one) and a flu shot and a pneumonia shot. I've had pneumonia shots before, but this was a new one. The pharmacist said it would be the last pneumonia shot I would ever need. I think I had the "last pneumonia shot I would ever need" a few years ago, but I might be wrong. Maybe that shot was the "last shingles shot I would ever need."  I've had so many vaccine shots that they run together into a blur in my head. 

I got the flu shot in the right arm and the Covid and the pneumonia shots in the left arm. Or maybe I got the pneumonia shot in the right arm and the Covid and flu shots in the left arm. Details, details.

The next morning I tried to get out of bed in the dark. I stood up and immediately fell back onto the bed. I tried again, and fell to the bed again. I did this four or five times before I succeeded in standing up. My shoulders hurt and I felt out of whack and off-balance. I knew it was the vaccines, and probably the Covid vaccine. I've never had a reaction to a flu or pneumonia shot. 

I felt crappy all day, and kept going to bed for an hour or two. I was also taking acetaminophen every five to six hours. It helped with the pain. By the end of the day I felt better and I know I'll be back to normal by tomorrow. I guess it's worth feeling crappy for a day if it saves my life. 

I've turned on the central heat. Tomorrow I'll try to order some heating oil. I called the company today but no one answered the phone. Maybe they were out to lunch. The price of gasoline is going up. At the local Sheetz it was $3.03/gal on Saturday, which was four days ago. Today it was $3.19 at Sheetz. WaWa keeps the same price as Sheetz. The price of heating oil goes up and down with the price of gasoline. I think I'm going to pay a lot for my next delivery of oil, but I have to stay warm. If I can't afford heating oil I can always burn the neighbor's trees in my wood stove. 

And that's all the news from the Heights. There's not a lot going on. Nuria still takes her morning walks, but the mornings are getting colder.

Power Outage

It was Thursday, just before 11PM, when the electric power went off and the house went dark. Nuria and I had been watching a movie when the TV screen went dark and the lights went off. After a few minutes I phoned the electric company and reported the outage. Some of the houses on the other side of the street had their porch lights on, so it was my side of the street that was without electricity. Nuria and I went to bed. 

Friday—early morning. When we got up, we were still without power. The time was 7AM. Nuria walked to McDonalds and got coffee for herself. She has to have coffee in the morning or her head will explode. Or something similarly terrible. Later she drove to Walmart and bought a sub sandwich for each of us

The power came back on at noon. The refrigerator started running, but it had been warming for 13 hours so I didn't want to warm it further by opening the door, so I let it run for a while.

I have a new neighbor next door; he just moved in. So I decided to walk over and meet him. It was a sunny morning, and I climbed the steps to his front porch and knocked on his door. After a few seconds, the door opened. I introduced myself. He was a young man, mid-20s, who spoke with a slight accent. He said he was from Brazil. I told him that I had come over to see who my new neighbor was. He was holding a paint roller, and I didn't want to interrupt his work too long, so I cut the visit short. I told him not to let the electricity outage worry him, because they rarely happen. It's a "once in a blue moon" kind of event, I said. Then I came back home.

Nuria and I ate a late brunch, and went on with our day.

Saturday—early morning—arrived. The electricity went off again, around 4:30AM, thus making a liar out of me. Nuria walked to McDonald's around 7AM and bought sausage McMuffins for our breakfast and hot coffee for herself. Our electricity came back on about 10AM.

This isn't the first power outage that the neighborhood has had, but usually they occur after a hurricane or a bad storm, when a falling limb or a falling tree brings down power lines. This time there was no storm, no strong wind. Just sudden darkness. It reminded me of death—light, then sudden darkness. Perhaps my death will come for me that way. Then, reincarnation will be when the power comes back on. 

Oh, don't tell me you didn't see some kind of twist coming at the end of this post.

Now it's Sunday afternoon, 4:30PM. The tornado siren across the street sounds. Ten minutes later the sky grows dark, the wind blows hard, and the rain comes down hard. It's a gully washer. 

At 4:40PM, the electricity goes off.

Nuria Returns

Today, Monday 9/19/22, is the day my lady-friend Nuria begins her trip from Costa Rica to Richmond, Virginia. (She flew from the US to Costa Rica two weeks ago to visit family.) I use FlightAware to track her flight. Not constantly, of course, but I look now and then to see her progress. I think it is interesting.

I used to fly a lot, when I had my first job out of university. I flew on lots of different planes. Mostly jets, including the 747, which was fairly new at that time. I flew on the twin-engine 737 mostly. It entered airline service in 1968. The 747 entered airline service in 1970.

I flew on the Beech 99, which has different models carrying different numbers of passengers, but the Beech that I flew on had 12 passenger seats. There was no door between the passenger compartment and the pilots, so you could see the pilots and hear their conversations.

Beech 99

I also flew on the de Havilland Twin Otter (below) a number of times. It carried 18 passengers. There are still over 500 Twin Otters currently in operation worldwide.

de Havilland Twin Otter

I liked flying so much that I began taking flying lessons. But life interfered, as it often does, and my career as a student pilot was short. But sometimes on a weekend I would drive to the local airport and if I saw someone I knew preparing a plane for a solo joyride, I'd bum a ride along with him. The flight might last 30 or 40 minutes and we'd be flying at a thousand feet. It was fun. 

Nuria just sent me an audio message. She has passed through immigration in Orlando but the immigration officer didn't stamp her passport. She is wondering if it matters. I don't think it matters; everything is going digital. I'm sure that somewhere a government computer knows that she is in the country. Big Brother is real. (I refer to the Big Brother of George Orwell's classic novel, 1984—not the group of people who live in a house with 94 cameras and 113 microphones recording every minute of their lives 24 hours a day. Probably not even George Orwell could have imagined such a world.)

Nuria will wait in the Orlando airport all night for her flight to Richmond. I'll be at the airport at 10AM to pick her up. I figure it will take 15 minutes for the plane's passengers to disembark, then 15 minutes to pick up her luggage and get to my Jeep, then 45 minutes to drive to my home. On the way, we will probably stop and eat. I haven't been to the grocery store in two weeks, so food is scarce in my house. I don't mind eating tuna fish from a can, but Nuria will probably prefer a meal that civilized people eat. And after she has traveled all night and half the morning, who could blame her?

Tempora Mutantur

After my parents died, I was left with cleaning the house of decades of junk. My mother saved everything, so eventually I came across the hospital bill for my birth many decades ago. The bill was written on a small slip of paper similar to a restaurant check. My mother spent three days in the hospital, for which she was billed eight dollars per day: $24. The cost of my delivery was $26. So the bill totaled $50. Three days in the hospital and delivering a baby, just $50. Today it would be thousands. 

Earlier this year, I went to my dermatologist for my annual skin cancer inspection and she found a small cancer on my back. She removed it and the procedure took about three minutes. The bill was $245, which is $150 more than the regular, no-cancer visit. 

I remember going to see my pediatrician when I was a few years old. He lived in a big house (at least, it seemed big to me) and his office was in the basement. If I was really sick, he would come to my house with his black doctors' bag and examine me.

Today, doctors practice—mostly—in fancy offices that make you feel like you just stepped into the next century.

As a Roman poet supposedly said, "Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis."  Meaning: "Times are changed, we, too, are changed within them." Though, I feel like it's the world that is changing but I'm not changing with it. Time is a stream, and I'm a rock in that stream. Time flows around me like water flows around that rock. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but it's how I feel.

Is reincarnation real? If it is, then when I pass on, maybe I'll come back to this world. My birth date might be in the 23rd century, or the 24th, or the 25th. To the reincarnated version of me it will just be my world; I will remember no other. But when I get to the end of that future life, I know I will be amazed at how the times have changed during my life, and I'll probably think about having another lifetime to live, in another century or two.

Maybe in my next lifetime I'll get some things right that I didn't get right this time around. Maybe I'll be a little smarter, a little wiser. I hope that's how it works.

Wondering

I'm just wondering: Why is it that so many Americans want to make a woman's right to have an abortion illegal, while at the same time those same people want to have the right to own and carry weapons of war such as the AR-15 style rifle?

To be clear: opponents of abortion say abortion should be illegal because it kills a human fetus, but many Americans, including opponents of abortion, say that a weapon that can take the lives of two dozen school kids in less than a minute must be made accessible to 18 year olds. Thus America continues to be the world leader in homicides while politicians cry crocodile tears.

Mass shooting children (or any humans) is evil, so why do so many people want to make it easy? Why do so many people want to make tools of carnage accessible to anyone with cash in their pocket? Answer me that!

Pentatonix

The song of the day is My Heart With You sung by a cappella group Pentatonix.

The Way It Was

This is the way it used to be in America.

I was 14 years old. My family had been vacationing at a beach in North Carolina for a week, and we were on our way home. There was very little traffic on the road. As my dad drove the car along the road, we came upon a U.S. Army base that hosted a Nike-Ajax air defense system. My dad, being an Army veteran of World War 2 (he served in the Pacific) swung his car into the entrance to the base and told the guard at the gate that he wanted to see the missiles.

I don't know what would happen if you did that today, but in those days, everything was more open. So they let us onto the base and told us where to go. An officer met us and took us to see the missiles. They were underground, below huge steel doors. The missiles were in their launchers and pointed skyward at about a 45 degree angle. If enemy bombers flew over, the steel doors would open and the missiles would be fired.

What amazed me was how they opened up the gates just because a passing car's driver wanted to see the family jewels—so to speak. And they took us right down to them. There I was, standing just a few feet from actual anti-aircraft missiles. They didn't ask us any questions, like "Who are you?" or "Why do you want to see them?" We could have been Soviet spies, for all they knew. But I imagine there wasn't any classified information that we could discern from merely looking at the missiles.

I bet times have changed. Go to an air defense base now and ask to see the goodies and I bet you'll be asked more than a few questions. But in the end, it wouldn't surprise me if you got to see what you wanted to see, as long as your request was reasonable. Americans have a history of having a very open society. Only the threat of terrorism has made America a more cautious country than it once was.

Flying Home

It's September 4th, 2022. My partner Nuria left this morning for a two week stay with family in Costa Rica. We got up at 3AM. We prepared and I put her suitcases into the Jeep at 5AM. We drove in darkness up I-95 to Richmond, then I-64 to the Richmond airport exit. We drove to the parking garage and parked, grabbed her suitcases, and entered the terminal. We went up an escalator to the 2nd floor to the American Airlines counter. Nuria checked in, they weighed her luggage and gave her tickets. Her first flight was from Richmond to Dallas/Fort Worth, leaving at 7:10AM. Her second fight was from Dallas to San Jose, Costa Rica, arriving at 4PM. 

I drove back home, still in darkness. The traffic was thicker but still not bad. It's a Sunday so regular workday traffic is much less. 

I can track her plane's progress on FlightAware.com. It shows her plane is flying 500mph at 35,000 feet. It hasn't begun its descent yet. On the map, DFW is Dallas/Fort Worth and SJO is San Jose International Airport. Her journey began at RIC—Richmond International Airport at 7:10AM, but that leg of the journey isn't shown because it's in the past. You can see that her flight took her across the Gulf of Mexico and thirty five thousand feet above Cancun.

I just looked at the map again and her plane is descending. She's at 21,900 feet and 451 mph. The plane descends fast. Of course, it has thousands of feet to descend to get to the airport, so it has to come down fast. It's just fascinating to watch it online. Now it's at 18,500 feet going 450 mph. Now 17,200 feet going 420 mph. Now 16,000 feet going 400mph. 

Now the plane has turned 90 degrees and is headed to the runway. 

By the time I can wrap up this little blog post and publish it, her plane will be on the ground. It's at 6,500 feet going 200 mph. I spent a minute looking up something and when I looked at FlightAware again, it shows her plane at 3800 feet going 197 mph. She's almost at the end of her journey.

Her plane has landed. Either that, or it is stuck at 3800 feet going 197mph. There are no more updates coming through. It's 4PM my time, 13 hours after she got out of bed for her trip. I'm sure she's tired. It has been a long day for her. Right now, she's probably at the baggage carousel, watching for her suitcase. In two weeks she will make the reverse trip, back to Richmond, back to her second home.

Phones

I have two phones, which I refer to as "old phone" and "new phone." My lady friend Nuria has two phones, which she (and I) refer to as "old phone" and "new phone." I use my new phone for calls and for WhatsApp. Nuria can use either of her phones, but her old phone has a Costa Rican phone number and her new phone has a U.S. phone number. She has WhatsApp on both phones. WhatsApp apparently doesn't care about country codes. It works regardless of where the phone it's calling is located. So if I'm on WhatsApp I can call either of her phones.

But when she goes out, she takes her old phone. When I go out, I take my new phone. If I want to call Nuria and she has driven somewhere, which phone do I call? Without thinking much about it, most people would assume "call the new phone." Whenever someone buys a new cell phone, that's the phone you call to reach them? Right? But not with Nuria. I have to call her old phone. Of course, I can't make a phone call to her old phone, I have to use WhatsApp because her old phone has a Costa Rican country code which I can't make a phone call to, but I can make a WhatsApp call to it.

Now, both of her WhatsApp IDs are on my cell phone. The only way to distinguish between them is that one has a photo of her and the other ID does not. One ID is for her new phone and one is for her old phone. WhatsApp can send text or call either phone, but she only carries one phone with her, and that phone is the phone that only works in Costa Rica, except WhatsApp can work with it. The phone she doesn't carry only works in the U.S. and WhatsApp works with that phone, too.

Nuria was out shopping and I tried to contact her by WhatsApp, but I used the wrong Nuria Identity on WhatsApp, so the WhatsApp text went to her new phone, which she doesn't use. I thought that might have happened and went to her new phone and looked at it to see if there was a message from me, but I couldn't access the phone because I don't have her access number. 

When Nuria got home I explained what had happened and Nuria was a little disturbed that I had texted her new phone instead of her old phone. But I ask you, don't you think this is just a little bit complicated? Don't you think it's an easy mistake to make? Yes, it's way too complicated. Maybe I should just delete the Nuria Identity that I never call. But if I do that, then for sure the day will come when I need to call it, and I won't have it.

Fudge!

The Latest

VirtualWayne is having a birthday in 4 days. I may be an oddball, but birthdays have never meant much to me. I know they're significant to other people, and I know that some kind of gift is considered de rigueur, so I try to give something when my significant others have a birthday, but I feel awkward when I receive gifts. First, I feel unworthy. Second, a gift of clothing probably won't fit me. Third... well, why go on? It would only depress me.

Then, 4 days after my birthday, I'll be up early to drive my friend Nuria to the airport. She's flying back to Costa Rica for two weeks. I have to leave the house at 4AM in order to arrive on time at the airport. She has to be there two hours before her plane leaves. Actually, one hour would be plenty of time, because the airport is nearly empty that time of morning. 

The local weather has been sunny this afternoon. It has also been rainy. Yes, it has been sunny and rainy at the same time. It rarely happens, but the sun was out and rain was falling fairly hard. I didn't time it, but it lasted a good while—an hour or two. Rain can be weird. One day when I was at work in a building that was about 60 to 80 feet from front to back, I was in the back of the building and I noticed it was cloudy and raining. I walked to the front of the building and saw that it was sunny and there was no rain. Maybe I shouldn't say rain can be weird. It's Nature that can be weird. 

By the way, Nuria heard from USCIS (U.S. Customs and Immigration). She has been approved for a Green Card. She applied about 17 months ago and has been waiting for a Yes or No. We assume the card is on the way, though whether it goes to Costa Rica or to my address is something we aren't sure of yet. Updates will follow.

Choices

If someone you know well, such as a daughter or a sister, isn't thriving; meaning, they aren't happy and so they aren't treating themselves well, and they're not eating properly, they're losing weight, they cry a lot, etc., would that make you sad? And what should you do?

If there is a God/Creator, I don't think He/She/It would intend us to be happy or unhappy based on the choices of people around us. Treat yourself well and try to help those persons you know who are unhappy, but do no let their unhappiness bring you unhappiness. Unhappiness is often the result of choices. You've heard people say, "I choose to be happy," or "She chooses to be unhappy." The person they're talking about may not understand it, but those around him/her can see how their poor choices are making them unhappy.

Perhaps you are the person who is unhappy. Even though you've made poor choices in the past, you can choose to be happy today. You can choose to do something nice for yourself. You can choose a different path for your life. Living your life the same way you have lived it until now obviously won't bring you happiness.

Choose to be in a good mood. Choose to offer a reasonable amount of advice and help to a friend or family member. But then choose to be happy. Your unhappy friend or family member may be going through a learning process. Help them if they ask for it. Be careful about taking on part of their burden. That can be an act of love, or it can be a trap. Remember that helping someone can prevent that person from growing. And who's to say that your help is the right thing to do? Maybe it hurts or prolongs the suffering of that other person. 

Sometimes, I think the best help is a good therapist. Note that I said "good." There are plenty of bad therapists out there, and they charge the same amount and sometimes much more. But a good therapist can help a person see how they might be hurting themselves and how to get "unstuck" from the situation they're in. A good therapist can help a person see that the night is not as dark, their life is not as gloomy, as it seems at the moment.

A Trip Home

In twelve more days my partner Nuria will fly back to Costa Rica. She will visit family and do some business and then, after two weeks, she will fly back here.

Having Nuria in the house has really spoiled me. I already know that I won't eat for two weeks. I won't wash laundry for two weeks. I can't say for sure, but I probably won't get out of bed for two weeks, except to drink water and pee. The funny thing is that while I'm not eating, not dressing, and not getting out of bed, Nuria thinks I will be able to water her flower bed in the front yard. But use common sense. How can I water flowers in the front yard while I'm in bed and naked? There is just no way.

Nuria, being a widow of a U.S. citizen (his name was Ralph), is entitled by U.S. law to permanent residency in the U.S. And she has had permanent residency before; she lived in the U.S. for ten years before returning to Costa Rica because of her mother's ill health. She and Ralph decided to stay in Costa Rica after her mother's death, so he obtained permanent residency there and Nuria gave up her U.S. residency. Then I met Ralph on the Internet and we became good friends and we video chatted every day. Ralph passed away from throat cancer, and I watched it happen. Nuria took care of him: bathing him, feeding him when he could eat, giving him injections of morphine for pain. She took care of him at home until the moment of his death. 

After a short while, Nuria and I began video chatting on Skype. After a few months, Nuria flew up to visit me. That was November 24, 2020. We've been together since then, except every five months she must return to Costa Rica for two weeks. Without permanent residency, she can't stay in the U.S. for more than six months. 

As I said, she is entitled to permanent residency because she had been married to a U.S. citizen until his death. She filled out all the paperwork, and there was a big stack of it, and she sent it to USCIS (United States Customs and Immigration) on February 23, 2021. The process was supposed to take 6 to 8 months. She has inquired about her application several times and the answer from USCIS is always that it's being processed. They also claim that her case is within normal processing time which, as I already said, is supposed to be 6 to 8 months, and yet she applied over 17 months ago. But you can't speed up bureaucracy.

Every time she flies here it's a gamble, because immigration officers can turn her away and send her back home. They don't need a reason. They can do it because they think she's made too many trips here. They can do it because they're having a bad day and want to share their misery with someone else. Every time she flies back to Costa Rica, I feel like we're rolling the dice.

So as I said at the beginning, I have twelve more days with Nuria, then she'll be gone -😞- and then she'll be back, hopefully, after two weeks ... assuming the Immigration People aren't in a bad mood that day. Please keep your fingers crossed for us.

Political Views

Like everyone, I have political views. They've been formed by a life of experiences, meeting and knowing various people, and a lot of reading. So my views are not likely to change when someone sends me an email. But I have friends who are right-wing; in fact, I would say they are fascist-leaning. I'm always getting emails from these friends and they suggest that I read this or listen to that. They want to convert me from my liberal ways to the "true" American ways we saw on display in Washington, DC, on January 6, 2021. 

Now it happens that I think all the flag-wavers that attacked our Capitol on January 6 need to spend some time in jail, and I don't mean a few days or weeks. I mean real time in jail, like you would get if you accidentally killed someone by reckless driving. Remember, they killed people, too. A mob is a mob. You can't point to individuals and say this person is less guilty and this person is more guilty. They're all guilty, because it was their mob behavior that enabled laws to be broken and people to die.

But what do I do with these friends I've known for many years who now want to "educate" me? They ask me questions like, "Have you read 1984?" — (Well, yes, when I was a teenager, and also "Brave New World.") They send me recorded essays to listen to, essays I've heard decades ago. Funny, no one has yet asked me if I've read novels by Ayn Rand or listened to lectures by Napolean Hill (I've done both. Rand was entertaining, though she was selling her own philosophy).

I've heard it said that there are two topics one should always avoid in conversation. Those two topics are politics and religion. Some people haven't gotten the memo. I suppose if I ignore enough of their emails, they might take a hint. Or they might not.

Coldplay

The song of the day is Viva la Vida from the 2008 album Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends by British rock band Coldplay.

NDEs

I've studied Near Death Experiences for much of my life. I thought I should post a few minutes about them. This video is presented by Bruce Greyson, Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences at the UVA School of Medicine. To watch the video full-screen, click the full-screen icon in the bottom right corner of the video.

Trumpmania

I was watching a TV news interview with a Trump supporter. This guy was elderly, looked like he might have lived his life as a farmer. He let it be known that Trump was his man. He was a dyed-in-the-wool Trump supporter. Not only that, but he insisted that Trump won the 2020 election. Of course, there are many who insist Trump won the election, but this man was different in that he insisted Trump was actually running the country now, and that Joe Biden is not in charge of running anything. 

So the TV news interviewer said, "The price of gasoline is going up, the price of food, the price of everything is going up. Inflation is high. Who do you blame for that."

Without hesitation, the Trump supporter said, "Biden."

Yes, the same Biden who, in his mind, lost the election, is not in the White House, and is not running any functions of government. That's the guy he thinks is responsible for the country's problems.

There is no way to argue or reach agreement with a person who is illogical. It's like the Jonestown, Guyana, mass suicide. For the 918 Americans who died there, Jim Jones was their reality. From my perspective, a large part of the Republican Party have turned their thinking over to the whack-a-doodles running on the fringes of the Party. It's a shame. I don't know if I'll be around long enough to see how it all ends up. I suspect it will be interesting.

Vaccine Conundrum

So many things have happened this past week that I've already forgotten most of them. But I haven't forgotten what happened last night.

It started last year in March, when I got my first Covid shot. It was a Moderna vaccine. I got the shot and that's all that happened. In April I got the second Covid shot. It, too, was a Moderna. I got the second shot and that's all that happened.

In November I got a Moderna booster. My partner Nuria was with me and she got the Pfizer. What happened next: nothing. No after-effects of any kind for either of us.  

So the day before yesterday (Friday) Nuria and I got our second boosters. This time I had to get a Pfizer shot. The pharmacy didn't have the Moderna vaccine. I didn't like the idea of switching vaccines, but what the hey? A vaccine is a vaccine is a vaccine. Or so I thought. So I got the Pfizer shot.

I went home and slept peacefully. The next day was, of course, Saturday, and nothing unusual happened until I went to bed. That's not quite right. Something different did happen. Normally I eat dinner, but Saturday night I had no appetite. I ate a small salad and skipped dinner. I felt tired, so I went to bed. I woke up in the night sweating profusely. The bed sheet beneath me was wet. My pillow was wet. I tossed and turned but every time I touched something it was cold and wet. I couldn't sleep. At one point I flipped the pillow over so I could put my head on the dry side. I felt very tired. Nuria got up and put large towels on the bed and gave me her pillow. I lay down and promptly fell asleep. I think I slept until noon or possibly one o'clock. I got up, still tired, and ate a sausage-and-egg biscuit. I stayed up for an hour then went back to bed. Nuria said she felt a little not-so-good. But, Nuria didn't get as tired as I, nor did she sweat. But, her first booster shot was Pfizer, so maybe her immune system was adapted to it. 

I don't know if it was the vaccine, or the long time between shots, or the fact that I switched vaccines, or if my wretched night had some other cause. All I can say is, if I have to get another Covid shot, it's going to be Moderna. Sorry, Pfizer. Your vaccine may work just fine, but I'm not taking any chances.