Get Lost

Daily writing prompt
What activities do you lose yourself in?
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There are probably a lot of answers to this question. Most of the big ones are things that I write about here all the time.

  • Music. Playing it, listening to it, writing it, recording it, playing on my own, playing with other people. All of those things are guaranteed to cause me to lose myself.
  • Taking pictures. Photo walks, photography projects. Stuff like that. I start messing around and next thing I know two hours have passed.
  • Watching movies or TV. Hanging out in the living room with my family, binge watching a show or a movie.
  • Reading a good book. I have a hard time reading with my current glasses, but when things are going well I can really get lost in a good book.
  • Driving. Put on some music, head for someplace far away, get lost. Not literally, like… I know where I am going, but lose the time.

There are other things, but those are my favorites. Those are the ones that work best for me.

Soup

Tonight my dinner was the universally accepted dinner for people with a bad cold. Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup. It was lovely, though it did bring up a question for me.

I am less than two months away from the two year anniversary of my gastric bypass surgery. Things are going well. I haven’t had dumping syndrome once and I have lost over 200 pounds. Huzzah, babie. Life is good.

There are rules that those of us who have gone through the full gastric bypass have to follow. Two in particular. First, if you have something to drink you need to wait 15 minutes before you can have something to eat. Second, similarly, if you have something to eat you have to wait a whole hour before you have something to drink.

Easy peezy, lemon squeezy.

What about soup though? I had a great big bowl of soup tonight and it was delicious and it cleared my stuffy head a little. As I was lapping up the broth I had a moment where I questioned everything. I just ate the chicken and the noodles, should I wait an hour before I drink the broth? I had a spoonful of broth as my first taste of dinner, should I have waited 15 minutes before I ate the chicken and the noodles? Putting it simply, does soup count as a food or a drink? I was lead to believe that one meal could not count as both, so which is it? Should soup be off limits? I chose to count it as food but is that an incorrect choice?

One other, unrelated, rule that I have to follow in this post surgery world is no alcohol. Does that mean I cannot have a dose of NyQuil to help combat my cold symptoms and to help me sleep at night? I am pretty sure NyQuil lives on the no fly list for that reason. I was going to have some tonight but I have decided to error on the side of caution and skip it.

Oh, what a fascinating new world is this post surgery life. Fascinating indeed.

Four Years

Today is March 13, 2024. It’s the fourth anniversary of the world turning upside down.

Four years ago today was a Friday. At 5:30pm, when the work day ended, my staff and I packed up our desks and brought everything home. We were told that for the next couple of weeks we, meaning everyone in the entire company, would be working from home. The goal being to ride out this Covid-19 thing. Social distance, shelter in place, keep everyone healthy so that we don’t overrun the hospitals.

Today is the fourth anniversary of the start of the Covid-19 lockdown. Well, it’s the start of things for me. My wife had already been working from home for two days by that point.

Four years later and Covid-19 is still a thing. So much so that I am going to take a rapid test today to see if my sore throat is a Covid symptom or not. We’re still working from home more than not. Three days home, two days in the office. Nothing is quite back to normal, though it’s reasonably close now. At least we can go out and do stuff now, even if there’s still a chance of getting sick.

We are adjusting, I guess. It’s never going to not be a thing, but at least we’re managing.

Happy fourth Covid-aversary, folks. Celebrate by wearing a mask or something. HoHoCoughCoughCoughHo.

So Many to Chose From

Daily writing prompt
What movies or TV series have you watched more than 5 times?
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Well, ol’ Robbie was fully enveloped by a nasty head cold by the time he went to sleep last night. Last week his wife dealt with it and was pretty much better by yesterday. For poor ol’ Robbie though, he got to the airport to pick up his step daughter and felt a little twinge in his throat. Uh oh. Two hours later he was planning on calling in sick to work the next day (today). Now he’s sitting on the couch with a nose too stuffy to breathe through and a throat sore enough that breathing hurts. Yippee.

What was I talking about (and why was he doing it in third person)?

Oh yeah, the daily writing prompt. TV series or movies that I’ve watched more than five times. There are a lot of them. I’m old. They pile up.

Star Wars. All of them. I’ve watched them all at least five times. Probably closer to 50 times. I can watch ’em over and over and over again. All of them. The same can be said of most of the Star Trek movies. The good ones at least. Not the one Shatner directed, but the ones that are worth watching. The top of the line Marvel movies are probably over five views by now. Winter Soldier, Infinity War, Endgame. Antman too, which is odd. Harry watched that puppy over and over again when it first hit iTunes.

As for TV shows, I don’t know if I’ve ever hit five views of anything. Dead Like Me is probably close. So is The League. The Mandalorian isn’t there yet, but it will be some day. Same with Andor. Maybe I might give Andor another watch while I’m sitting here sick today. Yellowjackets might be another show that hits five views. It’s at two right now and it’s only been out for a bout two years. The Walking Dead might get there too. I’m in a rewatch now. Season one has probably hit five views. I can’t think of anything else right now. I’m too sick.

Wish me luck today.

Prep for Spring

The three birdhouses are cleaned out and hung on a tree that isn’t too close to the house so hopefully they will all attract a family this year.

In other news, my wife was sick with a nasty cold all last week. Today, while sitting in the Logan Airport Terminal B baggage claim number 10, waiting for my step daughter’s plane to land, I thought to myself… huh… is that a sore throat? Now here we are seven hours later and I feel like garbage. It’s my turn with the nasty cold.

Shit.