Best Of

Saw pain management and options are limited since it is thoracic in origin. She recommended a trial of steroids to see if this will knock it back, but wants approval by PCP due to impact on blood sugars. I forgot to ask her but asked desk person to ask her about prescription for Lidocaine patches. They do help and while Medicare won't pay for them (what a bunch of BS), I can get them with a prescription using GoodRx. The price is less than the OTC ones and the patches are 5% vs. the 4% of the OTC which are pricey. She did order them so I have to remind CVS not to submit to Medicare, I'll use GoodRx because they will be less than $2 each with the coupon I have. She did order these.

Not able to do much of anything when back is this painful and that is frustrating. I don't like having limited activity constraints. So I am dusting in spurts, but vacuuming is out as is any activity that requires repetition using my arms.

Overcast day, temp only 70 and I feel the need for a lightweight jacket outdoors. Leaves on dogwoods are starting to turn colors.

DD had to take her older dog for teeth extractions today. Maggie is a dachshund -beagle mix with the coloring of a beagle and the body of a dachshund. She is about 9 years old and is good with her puppy, Banjo. She is having 5 teeth extracted. Funny, but she had no difficulty eating and loves to eat.

One of the fawns (now spotless) is eating leaves in the backyard. They can no longer eat the Japanese maple since DH fenced it in. They seem to like the leaves from the tulip poplars which is good. The more they eat them, the less for us to rake.

Sandy, glad you are almost box free. I now have to use a step stool to reach the top shelves in my kitchen cabinets due to skeletal shrinkage. Do you have a pantry you can use for storage of kitchen items? I have a pantry closet plus another closet that I have installed Ikea shelving in half and use the other half for the vacuum, ironing board and other items including my step stool. Ikea has some nice options for bookcase storage if you have one near you. They have various heights and widths in the Billy series.

I agree with what you said about Colbert and Kimmel. This is blatant censorship and a violation of the First Amendment.

reader425, nice to hear from you.

Taco, the change in the relationship with this other couple left you without a clear bond. I am sure you miss your friend and realize that this new wife, while a replacement, is not the same bond. I love that Ken cooks and is willing to assist as needed with cleanup, too. It's okay to be bored and to be a snob. Ships do have elevators so I don't understand the focus on how to avoid stairs on a ship to get to the dining room. I would have been bored as well.

DH had to go to the hardware store for toilet parts. All in this area have closed so he had to go to another town which has a Burger King. I love their burgers and only have one maybe once a year. So I asked him to get me a bacon cheeseburger. He got a Whopper and fries. Yum.

Hope everyone had a great day and waving "hi" to everyone.

Been lurking but not posting lately—life getting in the way, as well as having to iron out problems online that always crop up via late-night texts & emails.

Betrayal, fantastic pix! The ones at Pike Place Mkt really did take me back 47 years! The Alaska fjord & glacier photos were magnificent. Hope your Panama Canal cruise is even better. Surprised about the timing of your Victoria port of call—maybe canarycat can answer this, but doesn't the Empress Hotel still do high & afternoon tea? IIRC, it was big enough to handle cruise ship crowds. Plenty to see in Butchart Gardens in only 45 minutes. Sorry about your back—mine's getting stiffer & sorer by the day but I can still function with judicious applications of lidocaine roll-on & diclofenac gel. Hope it's not a harbinger of bone mets—have an ab MRI & chest X-ray coming up in Nov., and previous ones have always picked up the arthritic changes in my discs (and mention "no lytic or blastic lesions noted").

Cindy, wonderful DC pix, especially the night monuments and the pandas!

I'm bummed about the cancellations of both Colbert (who at least gets to stay through May) and Kimmel. I can understand (but not condone) CBS getting angry over Colbert's having bit the hand that feeds him, but the punishment went too far (unless the network feels it wants out of late-night programming due to streamers not watching commercials, upsetting advertisers). But Kimmel's suspension has me fuming, He did NOT make light of Kirk's assassination nor even criticize him. He may not have known at the time that the shooter was breaking with his parents' MAGA beliefs due to his having a trans girlfriend; nor considered that a narcissist like you-know-who is incapable of expressing grief. But that's not the point—comedians are entertainers, not journalists, and have absolutely no duty to be accurate & factual, which is the job of the networks' news divisions. Comedians' only obligations are to be funny, true to their own art and play to their fanbase. Using insanely huge and baseless lawsuits and the FCC as sticks to dangle the carrot of merger approval is despicable, and threatening license revocation ("we can do this the easy way or the hard way") unless networks & stations "play ball" is even worse.

Making much progress with the boxes (bedrooms now usable, and living room coming into the homestretch), though there's inadequate cabinet storage space in the kitchen: without a wide sturdy stepladder those highest shelves are uselessly inaccessible for a shrimp like me. Must make some hard choices about which dishware & utensils are expendable. Didn't get anything done today—took a laxative yesterday to "get things moving" before I titrate up my Zepbound to 7.5 mg tomorrow (too much food noise creeping back and I've gained 2 lbs), and woke up to severe abdominal cramping that went from constipated little rocks to sudden full-on "Hershey squirts." Trying to stay hydrated. Bob & our landscaper got about 50 boxes sorted and my BFF broke down the empty boxes (her superpower). But now Bob tells me the den TV is unwatchable because the coffee table is piled high with CDs (many of which are Gordy's, which means they're in the wrong cases and many of the cases are empty). He had to go to the corner dive bar to watch the Bears game. He says we need another bookcase in the living room where the piano had been—cheaper than even a used piano but necessary to display objects & framed photos which had been on the piano. (We let the piano go—its pin block had no more tunings left in it and half the ivories were missing from the keys. It cost us nothing to acquire—I swapped a bass I outgrew for it, and it cost a lot to move it from our old apt. to the house)..

Hope I'm okay tomorrow—not only to do some more decluttering but also to walk to temple for Rosh Hashana services in the evening. Shana Tovah to all who celebrate.

Ken has been the cook since we retired. When we both worked high pressure jobs, we planned a week's meals, shopped and then whoever got home first started diner and the other cleaned up.

I would love to have the dinners less often but I seem to be in a minority. The original friendship was between the deceased wife and me and the guys liked each other enough to enjoy being together enough that the weekly dinners happened. We also traveled together. Anne was a fascinating woman, well read with diverse interests. We'd start on discussion on Saturday night and often carry it on all week through email.

We share similar values so that isn't the problem. From my perspective, both Ken and the couple are living very restricted lives and have little to talk about. Debbie and Larry don't keep up on the news or read anything but Patterson type books. So what does one talk about week after week? They went on a sailing ship through the Panama Canal and the thing they talked about the most was discovering a way to get from their room to the dining room without having to go upstairs. So yes, I am bored and being a snob.

Chris, I'm impressed that you were able to type anything. Keep ahead of the pain.

Have a good week everyone. I see my primary tomorrow.

Taco, aka Marge

Hi all, it's been a particularly busy time here but letting up a bit finally. Our weather has been amazing. I love fall in the Carolinas.

A nice, simple day of church, lunch at a French bistro I love, a nap, and DH grilled chicken and made a tomato cucumber onion salad to go with. Also, my brother who had surgery is improving which has been lightening some stress.

Good to hear about your happenings. Even when I don't post I often lurk. 🙃

Our dilemma is that we hate change and love it at the same time; what we really want is for things to remain the same but get better.

Sydney J. Harris