Plffffle

Plffffle. That's how I feel right now. Just plffffle. And if you're wondering how to pronounce that, just work it out for yourself. It's an attempt at spelling a sound I just made -- you may feel like making a completely different sound, and that is fine too.

Last week I wrote something about how David Sedaris and I agree that Biden can just be left alone to do his job. I still feel that is true, with the help of good advisors. But as I was writing that, or maybe right after? can't remember -- Afghanistan was crashing to pieces, reminding me that I do still have to pay attention to the news, and not just so I can do well on the weekly NY Times quiz. (I did quite well this week, got 9 out of 11 right.) Like everyone else I'm watching the news and thinking, what the heck? Were there any better choices? Any way to get out but not have everything fall to pieces?

My one thought is that maybe if we had left the Taliban to run Afghanistan 20 years ago things would have been even worse. This way, Afghan women, or some of them, experienced a little bit of what it's like to be treated like human beings. Even if their lives are crap from now on, wasn't that a good thing? But was the war worth doing for that?

And then there's Haiti. And the hurricanes making havoc of the East Coast and the Gulf area and such (and it's only August 22nd -- lots of hurricane season left). Plffffle.

Of course, I've also got a personal angle to all this. I'm still not feeling OK! Maybe this is just what it's like to get older. I'm 61, might as well give up on good health. No, no, no, that's silly, and I am being silly. I am not that sick. I just have hypocalcemia, hypoparathyroidism -- the exact opposite of what I had before the surgery. It may be of the "transient" variety. I hope so. If I still have it on January 23rd, it will be considered "permanent." I hope it isn't. But if it is, all that means is that I will have to take massive doses of calcium every day for the rest of my life. Not a big deal, compared to practically anything else, such as Afghanistan. Or Haiti. Just not what I'd planned. But ha ha ha on me -- who makes plans for their health? You can do all the right things (not that I do) and still have problems. I should chill out.

And I will chill out, I know I will. It just takes a little time. Tomorrow I see my primary care physician, and she's going to want to talk about my A1c test -- the results of which I don't know yet, but I hope they'll be decent, since I've been walking regularly and I've lost weight and I guess my eating is OK (not so sure about that one). She'll also try again to get me to take a statin, and I'll say no, and then I don't know what we'll do after that. She'll probably have an opinion about the hypoparathyroidism test results, and maybe she'll refer me back to the endocrinologist (if she doesn't, I'll suggest it). And I'll probably hear from the surgeon's office tomorrow too, when they see the results. There may be more tests. It's a good thing I don't have a job!

Well, let's see, what else is happening? The twins started school this past week, that was exciting. They had to wear masks, but it really wasn't a big deal. Here they are, working on their homework, ha ha. No, seriously, they do have homework this weekend (though they aren't working on it in this picture). In a little bit I'll need to round them up and get them to think about it.

We walked partway to the bus stop together on Thursday morning, but at the corner of 32nd & Ash they made me stop and go no further. I waited until they were quite a bit ahead of me and then continued walking, to the corner of Ash & Berkley, where I watched until the bus came. Many other middle schoolers walked past me, some with parents. It wasn't quite like the first day of Kindergarten, but there were similarities -- mainly because it reminded me of the first day of Kindergarten, and I enjoyed a little trip down memory lane.

Boos are so big. Teen A is 5'4"! When we go to Target he points out adults he's taller than. There are more and more. He's still a kid, though -- his body is still a kid's body. I wonder how much more he will grow? And Teen B is just a hair over 5', lots of growing left to do. So different from girls. When I was in 8th grade, I was basically full grown.

We've been going to Target a lot, twice in the last two days and also a couple of times earlier in the week. Going to Target is senseless at this point, because they are completely sold out of all school supplies. Staples still has some, and I keep thinking I should check the grocery store, because they sometimes have stuff left when the other stores don't. But instead we keep going back to Target -- because, hey, Target is fun. These are some of the school supplies we've gotten so far, some from Target and some from Staples and some were left over from last year, when school supplies didn't really get used -- online school doesn't require so much in the way of supplies. Teen B also has a new binder, and Teen A wants a new backpack, but I'm dragging my feet on that one. There aren't any backpacks left in the stores, except girly ones and weirdly colored ones, and I think he can make his old backpack work. There's nothing wrong with it except that it stinks (he probably left some old food in it over the summer or something). I currently have it full of baking soda and am hoping that helps the smell.

It wasn't a very productive week, really. We went to Picture Day on Tuesday and they got their pictures taken and I filled out some forms. I was pleased to show their covid vaccine cards to the school nurse. I also remembered to take their old baby vaccine records to their doctor's office, so we could finally get the problems with their vaccine history cleared up. I am happy to say that their doctor's assistant called me back and said we're all good now and she had submitted the corrections to the state, so nobody should bother me about vaccines again in the twins' lifetimes! Well, except covid boosters and flu shots and whatever new vaccines they come up with to combat whatever new diseases pop up, OK, I don't even want to go there...

We reinterpreted the traditional first day of school ice cream trip to mean that we should go out for ice cream every day. On Monday we went to Dairy Queen, Tuesday we had Starbucks (a caramel ribbon crunch frappuccino minus the coffee is remarkably like ice cream), Wednesday we tried Sweet Cow but it was horribly busy so we went to Coldstone Creamery, and Thursday I got Teen A a smoothie from Jamba Juice (Teen B said he had a headache and didn't want one). Friday we decided we were too tired for any of that nonsense.

And I did cook dinner -- once. I was going to start on Thursday, but Thursday was a very tiring day, and nobody wanted dinner anyway. On Friday I "made" pesto-alfredo tortellini (mix pre-made pesto with pre-made alfredo sauce and serve over pre-made cheese tortellini that you actually have to COOK in boiling water) and hey, broccoli! Yes, I cooked broccoli in the microwave and everybody had some. We had leftovers on Saturday, so tonight is supposed to be eat-out night, but I'm not really in the mood. We'll see what happens in an hour or so.

I've spent the week working my way through the first third of Grant by Jean Edward Smith, an excellent biography of Ulysses S. Grant. I considered Ron Chernow's Grant, which I guess is the current favorite, but I had read such a good review of Smith's Grant that I decided to go with that one. Rocket Boy bought it for me at the Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site in St. Louis a long time ago, and I'm finally reading it. It's really good, so even though it's been almost entirely about Civil War battles so far, I'm enjoying it. Well-done biographies always contain surprises, and the surprise in this one is that Grant attended West Point with almost all of the generals he later worked with or against, including most of the Confederate generals. Some of them were his teachers; many were his classmates. He also fought in the Mexican War with many of them. And boom, in the 1860s there they were, almost equally divided between the Union and Confederate armies. It gives me more of a feel for what that must have been like, to suddenly have the country cut in half. I think it would feel different now, because we're already so cut in half, with red and blue states. But back then the country was cut up into slave and free states, so I guess it wasn't so different.

This country, I don't know. So much going for it, so screwed up. We are never going to stop fighting that damn war.

Well, I guess that's all I have to say, pretty much. As I said, I see my doc tomorrow and on we go with this parathyroid crapola. I just wish I felt better! The calcium problem means I keep getting shaky -- it's hard to type, hard to sign my name, hard to do anything that requires fine motor control. If I go without calcium for too long I have trouble talking -- hard for my lips to shape words. But I don't really know how much to take. I'm taking Citracal Petites, so three pills is 600 mg, and that's what I take three times a day, four if I'm really shaky. I read an article that said "the body can only handle 600 milligrams of calcium at once." But what does that mean? How far apart do the 600 mg doses have to be? I guess that's a question for my doc, or the endocrinologist, or the surgeon. My calcium level was normal this week -- I think 9.6? -- so that means I'm getting enough calcium through all my supplementation, or I was at the moment the blood was drawn. I remember I felt pretty good that day, Friday morning. I had taken four doses of calcium the day before and my first dose already that day. What would the level be if I hadn't taken anything?

OK, stop fussing! It will be all right. This is just a tiny bump in the road, not a disaster. Someday I will feel good again. It's not the magical happy ever after ending I'd hoped for with my parathyroid surgery, but it'll be OK. I'm a lucky person to live here and not Afghanistan or Haiti or even one of the red states where Covid is spreading like mad.

But still. Plffffle!