Well, that’s disappointing… even if it was expected…
Here are some cat pictures to cheer us all up.
Disappointing, Though Not Surprising
Author: robertjames1971
I'm wicked tall.
Energy
Another vague and kinda pointless daily prompt. Oh well. They can’t all be bangers.
The literal answer is food and water, right? Biochemistry and all that? When you feed your cells they produce energy and you get to keep running without issue for a few hours or so. I took a biology class in high school. I took a chemistry class in high school too. I never took a biochem class. What I’ve learned in that regard comes from either learning about my step son’s type one diabetes, or just listening to my step daughter talk about her job.
The figurative energy sources are more interesting, but also pretty obvious and straight forward. What gives me energy? Being with my wife. Being with my step kids. Being with my niece and nephews, though that doesn’t happen often because I am a terrible uncle and likely just a terrible person all around.
Being creative gives me energy. For me that means music, both making music and just listening to music, or playing with the cameras and photos as if I knew what I was doing. Sometimes a good movie or TV show can be a source of energy on some weird level. A good book can do the same.
Traveling can do it. Driving on a road trip, visiting a new place, exploring something or somewhere. What does not give me energy, quite the opposite, is spending time with crowds of new people. That just sucks the life right out of me. I think that is the textbook definition of an introvert. Maybe?
Okay, there are a few vague thoughts on this vague question. I guess it got the job done in that it did prompt me to write more than a few words worth of a post. Success.
6:55am on Day Seven
I wanted to sleep a lot more this morning than I did, but my stomach had other ideas. I went to bed at a little after 10:00pm last night. My alarm was set for 8:00 but my stomach woke me up at 5:00. It’s a thing I’ve dealt with since the surgery started to heal. If I go too long without eating my stomach, or what’s left of it, gets empty enough that it starts to hurt in complaint. When I told my doctor about it her response was basically, “duh, you’re hungry.” If I have something to eat I start to feel better within a few minutes.
That was the case today. It had been eight hours or so since I ate anything and my stomach was just empty. I like to start my day with some water and my morning vitamins so I delayed food for a bit and had eight ounces of lemonade mix and my three pills. Oddly, one of those pills made me a little nauseous but it passed quickly. I waited the required 15 minutes and then had breakfast and now my tiny little redesigned stomach is full and happy again.
As far as Covid, I’m not feeling 100% well, but I would say I’m about 75-80% well. My nose is still a little stuffy but I can breath through it, and I haven’t coughed a single time in the last two hours. Fatigue is still an issue, but not nearly as bad as it was 3-4 days ago. As soon as I tested positive on Tuesday I started planning on my next Covid test happening on Sunday (today), regardless of how I was feeling. I will stick to that and test about an hour from now. All of my testing through this process has happened at around 8:00am. Don’t ask why, that just seems like a nice time to me.
I fully expect a positive test today, I just hope that it’s not as emphatic a positive as it was on Tuesday. Last time the test line turned bright red before the solution had even reached the control line. I’m hoping it at least has the decency to be a faint line this time. Fingers crossed, eh?
Wish me and my immune system luck. Happy day seven, everyone!
Fed Ex Fail
Before I go into this bitchy rant, know that I used to work for UPS and my shipping company loyalty lies squarely with them. In fact, once while I was working a temp job running a medical instrument company’s shipping office a competitor’s driver actually complained at how much business I was sending UPS’ way compared to everyone else. What he didn’t know was that I had no control over which shipping method each individual shipment used, but I didn’t tell him that.
Okay, that paragraph is going to be longer than the actual point of the post. Sorry. Anyway….
Fed Ex just delivered three packages to our front door. All three packages had different ship to addresses. One was for me, the other two were for two other houses.
The fuck, Fed Ex?
Covid Tunes
You thought I forgot about the music project, didn’t ya? Well, I have been a little preoccupied the last week or so.
This would have been the first song for the album in a day challenge thing I was going to work on during our first full day home after the Disney World fail. That project, along with the larger 50 songs in 90 days challenge that enveloped it came to a pretty clear fail that same day when the covid symptoms started. I felt up to trying to mix something after lunch today, thinking that maybe I could get one song in before I was completely worn out. I was right. I got one mix in and now I am completely worn out.
I like this song. I don’t like the performance or the mix or the recording and the vocals are utterly atrocious even by my non-existent standards. Like I said though, the song itself is okay.
Accept the Attention
Twice today, Miss Robin Sparkles the cat has allowed my beloved wife Jen to pick her up and hold her. That’s huge. Even better, the second time she hung around for a while after Jen put her down. That’s huger!
(Mostly) Daily (goofy) Haiku for You #36
I saw someone talking about a new guitar repair shop* on Facebook today that just happens to be in the same town my in-laws live in. I have both reached out for a cost estimate and written a haiku. I think I have earned a nap after all of that.
Old guitars need love.
Frets and wiring harness.
Haven’t forgotten.
*I don’t know if it’s actually a new shop, but it’s new to me.
Favorite Album? No… Favorite Albums
I cannot answer this question. Normal people can, but I cannot. I don’t have a favorite album. I have a nearly infinite number of favorite albums. They are all different. I react to them all uniquely. I can’t pick just one. I’ll give you a very short list of a subset of personal favorites that will likely appear very long but is honestly just a small portion of the overall total. You have been warned. In no particular order, here goes nuttin’……
- Rush
- Moving Pictures
- Permanent Waves
- Clockwork Angels
- 2112
- Hemispheres
- Hold Your Fire
- Counterparts
- Vapor Trails
- Throwing Muses
- House Tornado
- Untitled first album
- University
- The Beatles
- Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
- Revolver
- Abbey Road
- Rubber Soul
- Yes
- Close to the Edge
- Fragile
- Going for the One
- The Yes Album
- Pink Floyd
- Dark Side of the Moon
- Meddle
- The Piper at the Gates of Dawn
- Wish You Were Here
- The Wall
- Genesis
- Selling England by the Pound
- Foxtrot
- A Trick of the Tail
- BB King
- Live at the Regal
- Live at the Cook County Jail
- Cream
- Disraeli Gears
- Wheels of Fire
- Crosby Stills Nash and Young
- Deja Vu
- Deep Purple
- Machine Head
- Made in Japan
- Deep Purple in Rock
- Fireball
- Burn
- Led Zeppelin
- Houses of the Holy
- Presence
- Led Zeppelin II
- Led Zeppelin IV
- Jeff Beck/Jeff Beck Group
- Blow By Blow
- Wired
- Truth
- Rough and Ready
- John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers
- Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton
- Derek and the Dominoes
- Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs
- Emerson Lake and Palmer
- Brain Salad Surgery
- Trilogy
- Fairport Convention
- Unhalfbricking
- Liege and Lief
- Jefferson Airplane
- After Bathing at Baxters
- Volunteers
- Crown of Creation
- King Crimson
- Red
- Discipline
- Starless and Bible Black
- King’s X
- Gretchen Goes to Nebraska
- Dogman
- Tape Head
- Kristin Hersh
- Hips and Makers
- Mahavishnu Orchestra
- Inner Mounting Flame
- Between Nothingness and Eternity
- Mission of Burma
- Vs
- The Obliterati
- Nirvana
- Bleach
- Nevermind
- Pearl Jam
- Vitology
- Vs
- Peter Gabriel
- III (Melt)
- So
- Procol Harum
- Home
- A Salty Dog
- REM
- Life’s Rich Pageant
- Document
- Reckoning
- Fables of the Reconstruction
- Green
- Automatic for the People
- Robin Trower
- Bridge of Sighs
- Twice Removed from Yesterday
- Smashing Pumpkins
- Gish
- Siamese Dream
- The Who
- Who’s Next
- Quadraphenia
- Live at Leeds (Deluxe Edition)
- Traffic
- Traffic
- John Barleycorn Must Die
I promise that is a microscopically small list. I basically ignored all of the Boston based bands that I obsessed over through the 90’s and early 2000’s and for bigger national/international artists I tried to only list the very top favorites, but I could easily have written a list 10 times this length.
So in summary… music is a pretty big deal for ol’ Robbie the Red Head.
Morning Photos
I went a little nutty with the Hipstamatic random shake to shuffle thing today. Just a little. It might be one of those days.
23/365
Command decision: Next Spring I am replacing the bird feeders. These two are pretty gross.
8:04am on Day Six
Did I screw up counting the days? Is today day Six or should it be day five? I am confused, but I have a pretty good excuse for it, I guess. If I started counting days when the symptoms started then today is day Six. That must be what I did. If I started at the positive test then today would be day five. That must not be what I did. Okay. Whatever.
I had a decent nights sleep last night. I was out before midnight and only got up once before waking up at about 7:30am. I didn’t get a full eight hours, but I was close. That’s unusual for me under the best of circumstances so I am taking the win where I can get it.
I need to take care of the trash and the recycling today. The cats are fed and watered. Other than that, I don’t think there are any pressing chores to do. Oh, I need to finish the laundry today too. That should be all right. Outside of that I plan on vegging in front of the TV while hopefully doing a better job keeping on top of my daily food and water goals. It should not be a problem, unless I decide to nap all day, which is a distinct possibility.
I’m having some water and my morning vitamins right now. Once I top my hydration off a little I’ll do the chores and get them out of the way. We’re supposed to have rain all weekend so let’s get it done before that starts, shall we?
Hope you all have a good, healthy, covid-19-free morning.
