Thanksgiving Plans

  

Man, what a crazy two weeks it’s been.

I had a regular physical at the end of September with my new doctor. He’s a young Americanized Indian dude, very upbeat and positive, a runner, and very friendly and outgoing. My concerns all turned out to be of the “nothing to worry about but let’s keep an eye on it” variety. One thing he did want, since I haven’t been to a cardiologist in several years, was a complete “snapshot” of my heart.

My blood pressure was a little high, so, yep, he put me on the meds and the BP came down immediately. I also was a very good patient in that I actually followed doctor advice. For the month of October I avoided soda, pasta, sweets, and walked/lifted weights three times a week. Result? I lost ten pounds. On my follow-up visit just before Halloween he seemed very pleased with my results.

He also scheduled me for bloodwork, which came back “normal” for me: slightly elevated cholesterol and obnoxiously elevated triglycerides. Both should come down if I stick to my diet / exercise regimen over time. There’s a follow-up for that in March. Then I went to a cardiologist and she, after taking in my very detailed cardiac rap sheet, ordered me to get a very specific type of bloodwork done and referred me to another facility to get an image of my heart. I’m currently waiting on the results of both of that, though I haven’t had a heart issue in a very long time.

Well, enough of that, except to note that all this driving around to keep appointments kept me busy.

Work has been insane, too.

Basically I’ve had to do two weeks work over the past five days in order to make-up for, uh, my announcement to follow down below. To do this I worked a couple hours last Saturday, a couple hours Sunday, and clocked in an hour early every day. As a result, I’m exhausted, and had very little free time in the daylight. I’m starting to dream about spreadsheets.

Enough of that.

All this is to explain, meekly and humbly, the three week dearth of postings here.

So the big announcement … the family is loading the SUV and driving out to Hilton Head for the next nine days! We’ll be visiting my mother-in-law, celebrating her birthday and Thanksgiving, but we’ll also be staying in a room overlooking the bay with a balcony and various amenities, similar to the ones we’ve stayed in annually until this overhyped thing known as the Wu Flu shut everything down for two years. We’ll be back and the island will be at a peak capacity of 25% that of summer (due to being off-season with few tourists), so it’ll be very cozy and pleasant. Looking to do some extensive reading, relaxing, and thinking.

And no, I will not be bringing the laptop. So again there will be a dearth of posting, this time for nine days.

I have some thinking to do about my Great American Novel, about my belief systems, about my health and habits, and about what I want to accomplish in the third third of my life remaining. Hopefully I’ll have some paradigm shifts and zeitgeist shattering insights.

In years past I’ve been reading Dickens around Thanksgiving, but not so last year or now this year. I think Dickens and Thanksgiving forms a perfect trifecta with my parents’ house in Pennsylvania. Next year we’ll try for that, and I’ll bring one of the old English master’s works with me that I have not tackled. This year I’m going to try my hand with a bucket list item, Lincoln: The War Years, by Carl Sandburg.

Happy Thanksgiving all!