Wired in Everyday Ramblings

This is the view from the clinic where I go for speech therapy. The Willamette river and the old shipyards, which are now being taken over by the medical complex I used to work for. The building on the far left is where the dental school is, where if things work out, I am finally having that next surgery this next Friday.

This whole area is just under a mile from where I live, so I walk.

I was fretting about it being icy during our recent cold snap and one of my students offered to take me down on the day. Thankfully, although we are getting the leftover rain from California, it is above freezing and dark, wet, and gloomy but not slick. (Although last week I got caught in sleet going by bus to a budget meeting out on the Eastside, yuck.)

Yesterday she told us all she has Covid. She is doing okay. It is fairly mild. She had decided to take the chance and go back east to visit her sister in Maryland on Christmas Day and stayed a week. She said the airport, the plane, both ways were jam packed. She did wear a mask. But you know, one has to drink water and eat if it is hours. I was touched she felt bad about not being able to drive me. I will be fine walking.

The one of us, who is less than fine is Diego. After doing so well, we had an epic three-day bout of diarrhea that came into crisis mode yesterday morning right before class. The vet says it is possible his condition is deteriorating slowly, and I will need to make decisions in the near future about expensive tests and maybe chemo (in pill form, blessedly).

He is comfortable now and everything has settled down. His brother is curled up with him after cleaning his ears. I have spent a fair amount of time the last three days with him sprawled half on my chest and lap. Savoring the moments.

Most Honorable and I highjacked a Zoom chat with Kes on Sunday and spent two and a half hours getting the wireless microphone and lavalier mic to work with Zoom and my laptop. Figuring out how to charge the component parts was a big part of it. Which charger and how.

Yesterday morning after getting the whole thing set up for my morning class, I realized…oh, you have to get the kit working after you go to the bathroom.

And then it didn’t work. It wasn’t being recognized by my laptop.

In my worry and distraction with Diego crawling into the paper bag I keep all the address labels I tear off junk mail so that I can shred them and recycle the rest, (yes, criminals do go through our paper recycling on occasion) and then letting loose, I had plugged the wrong end of the adapter into the laptop.

I was able to default to the regular mic and teach and figure this all afterwards. For my evening class, things were much better with Diego and the microphone worked perfectly. All my students noticed the improvements in clarity in sound and picture quality. Even though I have been using the iPhone 13 camera for over a month. I think a Zoom update helped with that.

It is a slow and imperfect process, but my teaching voice is getting better with the breathing and vocal exercises I am doing. My yoga teacher group had a lively discussion on this matter last week. We also talked about sober karaoke and not dyeing one’s gray hair. One of our teachers in Southern California keeps being told how brave she is by her students to stop dying her hair. The theme of the conversation was being our authentic selves. Looking (and sounding) like we look and sound.

I am leading a group meeting on Fiscal Policy for the League in a few weeks, and I have a bunch of reading to do for that and a Zoom meeting tonight. Hey, at least I don’t have to go out in the sleet for that. I did get a ride home last week, so that was nice. Mask firmly on.

The food tracking is going okay. The eating five fruits and vegetables a day…not so much. I am getting raspberries in every day though. Fresh or frozen, depending on what is available. Great source of fiber, raspberries. The fact that I pour a little chocolate almond milk over them helps. My treat.

On Sunday evening, the cats and I watched Encanto. Now I know why we don’t talk about Bruno. It was great to see a female character as the protagonist and not have her be a princess. It brings me hope for these younger generations of women and their ability to be seen as strong, clever, and appealing.

Okay, time to get wired up for my next class…

Last updated January 10, 2023