A little birdie whispered in my ear

Well, it was actually a reader, but I was told I needed to get a post up before the Interwebz forgets my IP address. 🙂

Life here at the Freehold has been, weird, glorious, odd, boring, upsetting, busy…well, you get the idea. The calendar has been full. Part of this is that the GrandThings are taking more rather than less time. Thing 1 has been released from her occupational therapy for the time being. Testing for autism is being delayed by her mother’s choice. She has her reasons and I’m not going to disagree with her at this point. But that time gain is dwarfed by the need for more time to watch, direct, teach, chase and simply be with the pair. They’re at the age where they want to help, so that 5-minute trip to the kitchen for their drinks now takes 20 minutes. Naps are shorter, sometimes nonexistent (not a good thing as we tend to nap when they do). Potty training is behind schedule. So on and so forth. If you’ve ever been around small children, you know the drill.

We’ve also been dragging the RV out as often as we can get away with it. We planned on keeping most trips short this year, expecting time to be an issue. But we have made a couple of longer hauls, the most recent of them being to the KOA in Boone, NC, the home of Appalachian State University, where I once spent a year. We’ve been to Boone several times over the length of our marriage, and every time we return the place is bigger. Very few of the stores on King Street are the same ones from when I was there–two in total, with one having totally changed its product line. Footsloggers has moved from the large store that could outfit an Artic expedition to a hole-in-the-wall storefront off King Street. Their inventory is rather disappointing to peruse. It looks to be aimed at middle-class kids spending time at ASU. I did not get to make a stop at Boone Bike and Touring, where I bought my last bike. We were able to get a table at a local eatery known as The Local. Food and service were good, but the wait for a table was crazy–about an hour. Still, I’d recommend it.

We still have two trips on the schedule, and I’m hoping for one or two more. I even bought a heated water hose, a necessary item for serious cold-weather RVing. We used to make our own, but I got a 25′ one, a damaged packaging deal for $32. I can’t buy the hose and heat tape for that. Mrs. Freeholder is a bit hesitant, but I’ve used our RV in cold weather and it’s quite doable.

I’ve also been playing lawn care worker, mechanic, plumber, and electrician in addition to bit parts as a carpenter and arborist. A lot of this stuff would have been “point and write a check”, but the continuing effects of Biden’s inflationary outbreak is causing us to make adjustments. I’m not as efficient and any of these tasks as a professional and given my aging body I’m not as fast as I used to be, but I’m getting the jobs done. Plus, I’m learning things, the most recent of which is rebuilding small engine carburetors. Of course, there’s something not quite right with the carb yet, but I’ll keep at it.

I do have a couple of posts that I want to do, one of a sort of “get home” kit and one on what I’m calling an “advanced boo-boo bag.” Both of those are going to require some learning of AI, since I plan to use one to help me with some image processing. Those will be fun, but I’m expecting them to take considerable time.

I also have another bunch of tabs, but I need to get time to read them before I turn them into a post. As the late Dr. Jerry Pournelle used to say, Real Soon Now.

I’ve recently had a fun evening at the ER, presenting with chest pains. Fourth rodeo with this since my late 30s, but with my family’s ugly history of cardiac issues, I take this stuff seriously. This time it appears to have been a gastric reflux outbreak, but just for showing up I got an urgent referral to the cardiologist, who saw me less than 48 hours after discharge. I’ve already had an echocardiogram, with minor spotty thickening of two specific areas of the heart muscle and some minor leakage at two valves, both normal for men my age, and a shiny new heart monitor that I’m wearing for a month. The one thing that I am a bit concerned about it that my ejection fraction is at the low end of normal. I want to see if that is something that can be improved, maybe with the proper exercise regimen. I also get a stress test in a couple of weeks. I think this is going to be another nuclear one, so I’ll be setting my NukAlert off for a while if I don’t move it (happened the last time).

Mrs. Freeholder, who spent her day cleaning house while I finally got the hay mown yard mowed, desired professional pizza as opposed to my amateur efforts, and I just got a text that it’s on the base leg of its approach, so I’m going to send this post on its way. Y’all be good.