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Yesterday afternoon, I had an appointment with my primary care physician.  This was to obtain a clearance for the foot surgery I have scheduled for February 6.

As I checked in, Rachel was at the desk.  She looked at me and said, “Charles?”  I’m not usually greeted by my given name.  It’s been 56 years since Sylvia changed my name to Chuck.  That’s what most people call me.

Nevertheless, I answered, “Yes.”

Rachel then said, “Boy, am I glad to see you.”

Incredulously, “You are?”

With a flashing eye, a grin and a chuckle, “Yes, you are the last patient for today.”

“Monday?”

“Yes, they are the worst.”  We both laugh.

I suppose she’s right.  It’s hard to tell.  Since retirement, my Mondays seem to be no problem at all–most of the time. 😉

I’m cleared for surgery next week.  I see the podiatrist on Friday.

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Wind damage on barn.

Bitter cold, strong wind, snow.  That has been our weather this week.  On Monday I went out and scraped the light snow cover from the driveway.  It was bitter cold.

Afterward, I returned the tractor to the barn.  I shut the engine off and heard a loud rattling sound in the north end of the barn.  In the words of the song, “Just one look.  That’s all it took.”  There was a hole in the barn wall.

Outside I could see it more clearly.  The wind had whupped blown off a piece of the plastic that covers the upper wall.  I found it about 275 feet out in the neighbors cornfield behind the barn.

Today

Sylvia is resting today after scraping the ceilings in two rooms. My job is to enforce that rest.  Otherwise the Energizer Bunny that I’m married to will be overdoing it again. 🙄

In prep for my February 6 foot surgery, I had an EKG and had blood drawn for testing this morning.  Sylvia kept me company.  Afterward, we stopped by the Lake Odessa Library where Sylvia traded one stack of books for another.

We returned home for lunch, which I was ready for after 17 hours of fasting.  That chili and corn chips hit the spot on a bitter cold day like this.

To enforce further rest after lunch, we got in the car and made a run to the Ionia County Animal Shelter.  They let us visit the kitties.  There was one fellow that wanted to start adoption proceeding immediately.  He’s a nice guy, but won’t be coming home with us later.  He has long hair, and that won’t do for us.  Lots of other guys and gals that need homes and that would be more welcome.  Stay tuned . . .

From our first born . . .

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At my recent annual physical with my primary care physician, I had a few agenda items to bring up.  One of these items was my painful bunions.  They have annoyed me for years, but I kept quiet.  Okay, I’ll admit it . . . I feared the possible surgery.  But suffering overcame trepidation and I talked frankly about it with my doctor.

He said his office would refer me to a podiatrist.  Sure enough, just a couple of hours later the phone rang.  It was the podiatrist’s office assistant.  We set up a time for the next week, which was last week.  I wrote the time on the calendar and thanked her.

Appointment day came and Sylvia went with me.  I walked in and at the desk was greeted with, “I expected you an hour and a half ago.”  “Why did you tell me this time then” was my response.  She made a call and assured me that everything would work out.  I thanked her and handed her the forms I had finished at home.  I had another to do there, which was quickly done.

Another assistant took me to a room and did an interview with me while typing answers into her computer.  Then we went to another room, where she took X-rays of my feet.  Then she left me in the first room to wait with Sylvia for the podiatrist.

Not my foot. Mine are worse–much worse.

A short while later, an energetic man with slightly less hair than me (though it was considerably darker than mine) walked briskly into the examining room.  He flashed a big grin, stuck out his hand and said, “Hi, I’m Dave.”

“Ahh, I’m Chuck.”  What else could I say?

The informality was a first.  I might have been tempted to take him less seriously if I hadn’t checked out his credentials online before the visit.  He is for real.  I’ve got to love that.  Right?

More talk and careful examination of the feet and a review of the X-rays.  He answered all of my questions.  Before I left, he gave me an steroid injection in each bunion.  For hours they seemed not to help, but the next few days were marked by blessed relief from the chronic pain.

No decisions last week, we’ll talk about what’s next when I see him Wednesday morning.  I’m looking forward to that visit.

But I do have a problem. 🙁   When Sylvia and I returned home, I checked the calendar.  The office assist was right.  I was an hour and a half late.  What should I do?  Should I tell the assistant that she was right and I was wrong?  Or do I pretend that something else happened?  What would you do?

After Christmas activities had passed, the time had arrived to replace Mr Coffee.  I had been growing increasingly less satisfied with him.  I wrote earlier how I detested the taste of paper filter that he deposited in my cup.  :down:

I had signed up for coffee tasting and brewing classes last fall. The tasting (cupping) class taught me how to evaluate coffee and identify flavors and subtleties in various coffees.

In brewing class, I discovered that rinsing the paper filter helped remove that terrible taste from the cup.  In the class we watched our teacher brew coffee using various methods and then evaluated the final product.

The vacuum pot looked like a high-school science project.  The results were just about that good.  We were told that this could produce the finest or the worst results and you could never be 100% sure which you’d end up with.

Then we tried a couple of pour-over methods.  They weren’t bad, but failed to impress.

Some were enamored of the French Press.  I wasn’t.

Then we tried the AeroPress.  Aha!  That produced excellent results.  Cleanup would be relatively easy.  The only catch?  How can you consistently heat water to 197 F?  All of these methods rely on that.

The answer is a cordless electric kettle with a temperature control.  I bought this:

I use it for my coffee and Sylvia uses it for her tea.  How handy that Sylvia has a birthday this week.  Happy birthday honey! :luv:   Thanks for letting me use it too. 😉

The rest of the equipment (AeroPress) looks like this:

I don’t use the paper filters.  A stainless steel filter (purchased separately) keeps the grounds out of the brew.  I only have used grounds to dispose of.  These I keep to use on the garden.  The grounds help protect root crops from bugs.  Neat, huh?

I’ll not bother you with the details, but this takes no longer (may be shorter) than brewing with Mr Coffee.  There is less waste and the coffee is incredibly better! :awe:

WARNING: Use of this method can you into a coffee snob.  Therefore, exercise discretion before purchasing anything like this. 😉

An Invitation

Won’t you consider joining me in participating in I Did It each Monday?  Please do and then register your participation with the Linky on the blog.  Have a great week.

Briana and Jake

When we had our family Christmas celebration, Briana (granddaughter) brought her friend Jake to meet us.  He’s a great guy and we were glad to meet him and talk with him.

How would you welcome a fine fellow like that into your family?  Wouldn’t you want to do something the memorable?

My thoughts went back about 55 years or so ago when another couple was in a similar process of getting to know one another better.  I was invited to Sunday dinner at Sylvia’s house.  It was the first time to sit at their family table and I was trying hard to make the best impression possible on everyone there.  Weren’t they trying to put me under the microscope to see what kind of a guy Sylvia had brought home?  I was nervous and uptight.  Then Sylvia’s dad passed me the butter dish.  In the process he greased my thumb from nail to wrist.  Once the shock had worn off, I realized what it was all about.  I had been accepted and it was okay to relax, laugh and enjoy being there with that family.  Wasn’t that a wonderful thing?

The question then became how to do something like that for Jake.  Then the opportunity came.  Briana was answering Sylvia’s questions about nursing school when she observed that it was not at all easy.  That’s when I said, “At least it’s a good field that will open opportunities for you.  It’s useful not like being a psych major.”

Jake said, “You know I’m a psych major.”

I replied, “Yes, I know.”

My question now is how long do you think it will take to realize he’d just been had?  Does he already know?  Will he ever figure it out?

Aye that’s the question.  The last 24 hours have been busy with no time for preparing a blog post.  Sylvia has returned home after her stay with her dad.  Color me happy. :dance:

I slid through my annual physical, but will do a couple of follow-up visits with specialists.  Nothing to get excited about, but maybe some help with pain issues.

I’m having some computer issues just now, so I’m going away.  I’ll try to come back tomorrow.  I hope to see you then.

Another year has come around and Secondary Rds is celebrating 4 years of blogging.  So much has happened during that time.  Change seems to be the theme that describes the experience for me.

Do you remember Entrecard?  How about Adgitize?  They only exist in memory today.

Unfortunately, new friends came and then went away.  Fortunately, some have stayed.  These are very special.  Perhaps we are the survivors? 😀

I wish you were here so I could offer you a piece of cake and a cup of coffee to help celebrate this bogaversary.  Okay we have an assortment of teas for those of you that think that coffee tastes like dirt.  You know that it is only right that coffee tastes like dirt.  After all it was ground this morning. :ha:

Thanks for visiting today.  Do come back now, okay?