Four months? in A small but passable life.

I guess it has been four months since I’ve scribbled an entry. My bad!

Books I’ve read since then:

“America Before” by Graham Hancock (I’ve read him before but he was on Joe Rogan)
“Upheaval” by Jared Diamond.
“The Tangled Tree” by David Quammen
“Red Moon” by Kim Stanley Robinson
“Fear” by Bob Woodward
“2312” by Kim Stanley Robinson
“Artemis” by Andy Weir (he wrote “The Martian”)
“Shaman” by Kim Stanley Robinson (I guess it’s obvious that I’ve found a new sci-fi writer)

In the middle of July Mom had another fall. She was alright after she was picked up off the floor, but the next morning she said her back hurt and wanted me to look at it. I raised her moomoo (?) up and looked. I’d never seen anything like what I saw. Above my pay grade. I loaded her in the car and drove to the emergency room.

Diagnosis: No injuries from the fall, but the other mess? Shingles!!!

So yeah, I’d never seen shingles before.

She spent three nights in the hospital. And it was nearly six weeks before it was under control.

Needless to say, the day after she was admitted to the hospital I went to Walgreen’s and got the shingles vaccine, Shingrex, two injections two months apart. And since I have no medical insurance it was a total of $336. The pharmacist said I’ll be 90% on the side of not getting shingles in the future. Anything is better than nothing! I don’t want it!

By my count September 5th was the final over 110 degree day of the year for a total of 25 days over 110 degrees. The hottest was 115 degrees. About average, the fifth hottest. The monsoon was a near total bust. The third driest monsoon on record.

And now, for nearly a week I’ve been able to open my windows at midnight for a waking cool 72 degrees in here by morning. But it’ll be in the upper nineties during the day for the rest of this week.

I’ve been listening to the new Tool album. And I’ve got the new Margaret Atwood book on my hold list at the library.

I found a real nice soft black leather fanny pack at the Goodwill for $3. It’ll go well with my black fedora!

Oh yeah! Mom bought me a new laptop for my birthday! It’s an Acer Aspire E 15. Windows 10. A 1T HDD hard drive. And an Intel i3 chip. All for $330. (#1 Bestseller on amazon) I did have to go online and buy the driver for the DVD player from Microsoft though. Fuckers.

First laptop (Windows XP, 40GB hard drive) ($995) lasted five years. It still works, the screen just went black. It works with an external screen hooked up but I don’t have one. Second one (Windows Vista, 60GB hard drive) ($495) lasted ten years. Something like that. The second one is still operational. It just won’t let me in with my password.

We’ll see how long this one lasts. It is nice having a laptop that has a functional battery. Kinda handy?

So yeah, nothing but day to day life going on around here. I bought a new desert hiking hat at walmart for $12. A wide brim, vent holes in the top, and a roll-up-able flap for the back of the neck. Oh, and my big toenails have grown back since they fell off last winter from those shitty $35 chinese hiking boots from walmart. Of course now I’ve got the killer Vasque boots from REI. So it may be about time to start the hiking season.

With this new laptop I may even get motivated to scribble here more often. We’ll see.

Last updated October 16, 2019