Netfoot

I have an arrhythmia that is brought on by stress. We've known about it since 1991. The more stress the more the arrhythmia kicks in. If it gets too bad, I actually start to feel poorly. A few years ago I was highly stressed and was feeling badly. Dr. Kristi sent me to see a cardiologist who stuck me on a whole bunch of heart medication which I never did think I needed. I'm still taking that stuff years later, even though I haven't seen the cardiologist for years. Went to see Dr. K. this morning. Blood pressure on the low side. She diagnosed "Postural Hypotension" which is low blood pressure due to changes in posture. This can cause the wobblies. So, we are halving the dosages of those meds that could cause this. Hopefully the wobblies will improve and if not, we will further reduce those meds to see if we can get that to happen. Dr. K. came out to the van and chatted with Mo for 5 minutes. He was thrilled to see her. (She is his godmother.) She wanted to know why I didn't just bring him into the clinic. I explained that the place would be a shambles in under two minutes, with people fleeing to safety by helicopter! Anyway, I see her in 10 days for her to check on the BP. This morning the glucose was 6.0 mmol/L again. I am on a diabetic medicine because the steroids elevate blood sugar. But then we reduced the dose to half. Now I'm back to normal and hopefully the glucose levels will stabilize in the mid- to low end of the acceptable range, instead of dithering around at and above the high end. Anyway, to cut a long story short, hopefully with a few changes to dosages, things can be steered back in the direction of normalcy. Time will tell. TAR tonight! Hopefully with more interesting goings on than last week's "who follows who" drama.

Cooked dinner as planned. Pasta spirals (there is prolly a formal name I don't know) topped with chopped sausage, onion and kernel corn. Taste pretty good to someone whose taste buds are only semi- functional. Mo had no trouble either. So it's four minutes to midnight and I'm bathed and in bed. Left Mo sleeping on the floor outside but he will move around as suits him. The door is still open so I will pop out soon and lock up. Modestly cool breeze in the window tonight again. I noticed something this last few days when showering. I have a hot and cold tap and I twiddle them to adjust flow and temperature to taste. I normally finish my shower by shutting down the hot tap. The spray cools and I end up finishing my shower with a brief cold-only sluice. But recently I will shut off the hot tap and find myself double checking I fully closed it because the cold tap is sorta lukewarm. Don't particularly like this development... What Is And What Should Never Be from Led Zeppelin II. I guess I'm a child of my time, but these classic tracks from classic rock bands are hard to beat. Oh, BTW, the new can opener worked beautifully. As I expected it to, seeing as it is brand new. But it's one of the butterfly type with a Teflon bushing that surrounds the working mechanism. That bushing will wear out quick enough, so it only remains to be seen how long it lasts on the cheapest opener available on the island... The breeze in the window is fading... Dr. Kristi tomorrow morning. Got to have that follow-up PT/INR to see if the warfarin needs tweaking again. And maybe she can suggest a cause for the wobblies. Not that I can actually do anything about it, mind you. Mentioned something about Teflon earlier. Watched a movie called Dark Waters, about a suit brought against Dupont for dumping industrial waste byproducts from Teflon production in a rural community for 45 years or something like that, despite being fully aware that the stuff was deadly. Something like 70,000 people were affected. Dupont was required to pay damages. An amount that worked out as three days profit on their Teflon sales... Well, time to lock up and get some shut-eye. I'm feeling a bit tired and unfortunately a little refluxy as well. I have built up a pyramid of pillows & cushions and will sleep on it tonight without (I hope) needing to take a Nexium. Since I've Been Loving You. My favourite LZ track of all. Perfect timing.

Took Mo to see the Book Tent ladies and they were very pleased to see him after so many months. Left the van parked near them so they were taking times to come and play with him through the window of the van. Also bought a tin opener. Went to five stores and found them priced from $65 down to $16+. Guess which one I bought? Yes, the $16+ one which is twice what I think a tin opener should cost. Oh, one store assumed that I wanted some sort of kitchen counter appliance with a motor in it. You know, the type that leaves you unable to feed yourself if there is a hurricane and your electricity is off for a few weeks. The type of opener that appeals to people who insist on spice jars with lazy-man flip up lids. Who sing the praises of electric stoves and then come around cap in hand when the same hurricane forces to accept that gas is better!! We came home and I had a pack of Eclipse biscuits for lunch, with cheese and pepper sauce on them. I bought a six-pack of Eclipse and it came with a seventh "Free Pack" of biscuits, but Tri-Grain. These have an unfortunate tendency to crack and crumble more than regular, and also, regrettably taste like shit. But I feel bad throwing them out so I dutifully eat them and then bitch about it afterwards. Mo is curled up under my chair and I love having him nearby but I am terrified that I will push the chair back one day and unknowingly roll over his beautiful, wriggly tail. (He had chow for lunch.) To tell the truth I am always super cautious when rolling this chair back from the desk because Mo has ninja-skills and can creep up on you with ease, so just because he wasn't under your chair when you checked 30 seconds ago doesn't mean he isn't under there now! Thinking some sort of short pasta tonight, topped with chopped sausage, onion and whole-kernel corn. Maybe even some diced tomato. I mean, having bought a tin opener for over sixteen bucks, I have to open a tin or two with it, or I wont be able to sleep tonight. See? Just checked and Mo has vanished from under the chair! Now I can roll back, go brew up a cup of coffee and take it into the bedroom when I go for a nap!

You Canadians always want to make life difficult for us West Indians.

One minute past midnight! Still dripping from the shower which makes the gentle breeze in the window cool and sweet. In hope it remains so as I dry out. Mo is curled up against my butt (no photos) and is cleaning his feet. I had tuna sandwiches for lunch and Mo had chow with corned beef stirred in to sweeten it. For dinner I cooked some pumpkin rice and while that was boiling I got a large pan with hot oil and put a large onion through the mandolin, to soften. To this I added a good portion of chunked chicken breast meat which I cut into even sized pieces. There was room in the pan so I peeled a plantain (not a B.G. plantain, alas). When everything was ready I split the rice evenly between Mo's bowl and mine, gave him about 40% of the chicken & onion and took the remainder for myself. Again, I bogarted the plantains. It tasted pretty good and Mo quickly ate his as well. A friend popped around to deliver something this afternoon. I have not concealed that I have medical issues from any of them but I've not stressed how bad it can get. (I've saved that pleasure for you!) Anyway, he was standing at the gate for several minutes before I realized he was there so I ran out to greet him and not keep him waiting. I nearly fell down several times between door and gate, grabbing onto what ever was handy to stay upright. My friend observed it all. "Wow! Does that happen often?" It happens every day, 20 times a day, says I. He departed with a sobered expression on his face. But fear not! I made an appointment to see Dr. Kristi on Wednesday morning. We will do the follow-up PT/INR, I will ask if she can write QEH prescriptions (which I'm fairly certain she can't), ask if she can get Dr. Jacinto to produce a prescription to cover the period from now until our next scheduled visit and try to get copies of the 10 blood test results done at Enmore last month, and hopefully see if Dr. Kristi can suggest possible causes for the wobblies I've been feeling these several months. Because they are getting worse. Normally they kick in if I move from lying or sitting to standing. But twice in the last two nights I got a case of the wobbles just by rolling over in bed. I lie on my left to use the phone but roll onto my right to read. And just rolling over now causes me to go all loopy-headed. Going to take Mo to see the ladies in the Book Tent tomorrow. Actually going to buy a tin opener but this will be a good opportunity to touch base with them. Attack Of The Fifty Foot Woman by The Tubes. It all happened when they parked the car down at Three Mile Point. I've just noticed that a track on this phone has the wrong cover artwork thumbnail embedded. If there is one such error in my collection, there are probably more than one. Given the thousands of tracks in my collection there is no way I'm going to check them by hand. It looks like a job for (roll drums) software! My collection consists of artist folders containing album folders. Each album folder contains the music files and the cover artwork image. The image artwork is also (inefficiently) embedded in each track because some music players are broken. I should be able to write a script to iterate through each track, extract the image embedded therein and compare it with the image file in the album folder. If the two don't match, I can replace the embedded thumbnail with the reference image in the album folder, and my problem will go away. Unless the error is with the reference image itself, in which case... I will have to get clever. Anyway, I am yawning and Mo is tucked up beside me, bogarting the pillows as usual. Will read a little bit more of Ringworld and then take the slumber-shortcut to tomorrow.

But one B.G. plantain does full up de pot It's so satisfying, 'specially when hot Lord knows ah suffering Since you ban B.G. plantain It is to much to bear Doctor, you too unfair I will do anything To taste a B.G. plantain B.G Plantain -- Slinger Francisco (The Mighty Sparrow)

Thank you, @kassandra8286, for saying so. I could have gone on all day, producing a gigantic list of photos from all-around the island, but I limited myself to a dozen. And I'm sure the same could be done for any country! I just wish they'd hit one or two of the highlights available from that "gigantic list", instead of spending so much time on internal TAR procedures and screw-ups. Also, I was highly surprised to observe how much of the footage was stitched together from tiny snippets of tape, recorded probably hours apart in locations miles away from each other. It's like a ransom note made by sticking together words cut from multiple newspapers from different days. I will doubt the reality of every scene they show me, from now on, for ever!

I think it's dumb, but it's done all the time! You can hire a guy to come cut your grass and he will arrive on his bicycle with his weed whacker balanced over his shoulder.

After 22+ years of waiting, TAR finally visits my home country, and I was so disappointed. First, in a country that experiences over 3,000 hours of sunshine a year, they give us a show in the pissing rain! Well, it does rain here. And I doubt TPTB can be held responsible for that. But it was a disappointment. I'd hoped that some of the more interesting and beautiful aspects of Barbadian life might be showcased. We got Road Tennis and Long Beach at it's absolute worst, covered with sargassum! And we got a brief glimpse of Rihanna's childhood home. Do we get to see a challenge at Morgan Lewis Mill? No. Do they collect seashells on Bathsheba beach? No. Do they swim with Sea Turtles? No. Visit the Animal Flower Cave? No. Carlisle Bay? No. Harrison's Cave? No. Do they dive on SS Stavronikita? No. Go to St. Nicholas Abbey? No. Andromeda Botanic Gardens? No. Do they go anywhere near Cattlewash? No. Do they go drink rum at Mount Gay Distillery? Or any other distillery? No. Eat at the Oistins Fish Fry? No. But what we do get is interminable driving around and getting nowhere in a vehicle with steamed up windows, and bitching about lost crews and lengthy penalties and delays. And now we are crossed off the list, I doubt that they will ever be back. Not that the viewers have seen anything to make them want that to happen anyway...

Weed whackers are cool!

Several weeks ago - months, even - the landlord stopped cutting the grass. Apparently his weed whacker broke down. Bajans would rather cut the grass with nail scissors rather than use a lawn mower, so he went out and bought a new weed whacker. He cut a little bit of the grass today and then gave up, complaining that the machine would have to go back to the store. Reason? The cut-head spins "in the wrong direction!" I never knew that the direction of rotation made any difference. Any gardeners out there who can confirm that the direction of rotation is a make/break issue when it comes to weed whackers? Back In The USSR by the Fab Four. When this track first came out there were people who wanted them thrown in prison for being disloyal. Froze my chicken breasts two to a ziplock bag, but left one bag of two in the fridge. Today I fetched out a breast, lay it flat on the board and sliced it horizontally into two thinner breasts. (Still plenty thick.) Breaded and fried, they went into two cutters along with tomato and lettuce. The very fact that I spent money on the smallest lettuce I could find, says a lot. The chicken cutters were delish! Well, pretty good, anyway. So I fetched out the second breast and did the same thing for dinner. Poor Mo had to settle for chow. Took a bag of chicken chunks out to defrost for tomorrow. With potatoes, rice or short pasta. Mo will eat either of them. I could do a rice with channa, pumpkin, carrot or any combo, then a separate sauce of chicken chunks with onion and red beans... We'll see how I feel tomorrow. Also I could boil (or fry) a plantain for myself. Poor Mo rarely gets offered the plantain because I'm lickrish and tend to to keep it for myself. Speaking of Mo, he's with me now, bogarting half the pillows. The house is locked, I am showered and it's gone midnight. Finished my book last night. Went looking for Tactics Of Mistake by Gordon R. Dickson but can't find it so I'm settling for Niven's Ringworld. As I said, it's late and I won't dig too deep into it but a page or two will get me started on my way. Tactics is the first of the Dorsai trilogy which is part of the Childe Cycle. Once again, I know it's here somewhere because I have them all! I have all the Ringworld novels too, and in fact read them not that long ago. But I will go with it again, nonetheless. Probably not the whole series, but the original at least. I noticed yesterday that when I was taking my shower the cold tap was quite warm. Tonight, the same. Good breeze in the window, but I hope we aren't looking at a scorching summer like last year. Funny, it wasn't that long ago that I had to wear long pants, long sleeves, socks, gloves and a "buff" around my face to sleep because it was so cold at night. Then, I was suffering from heatstroke 3-4 days a week. Don't understand it but prolly something to do with Reproductive Justice. Baby wants his tummy rubbed... Better go and satisfy his demands..... Tummy needs a rubbin'...

I cut up.a couple medium to large spuds and made chips. In a separate pan, I also peeled and fried two small plantains, along with a very nice pork chop and some cubes of stew beef. Deglazed that pan to make a little gravy when the meat was ready. Mo got the beef and I got the pork. We split the chips but I bogarted the plantains. The gravy was shared between us. I really enjoyed my dinner and I think Mo did as well, because he didn't delay in polishing off his meal. I saw gravy crystals for sale this week. I used to buy them for just over $4 a jar but then they went up to $9.99 and are now $13.99, if you can believe it! Finished watching Serpico. Good show. Still don't think much of Pacino, but... Also watched a new movie called something like Chief Of Station. Espionage and back-stabbing spy stuff. Given the cast I expected a good show, but it was disappointingly confusing and the plot development was slow, lacking and unconvincing. Too bad. I will test glucose levels tomorrow. I expect the numbers to be on the high side because I have not skimped in the sugary tea or the lime squash all day, and that lime squash has quite a bit of sugar to offset the sour! We will see. I've not seen much of Mo today. He came along at meal times, of course, and several times during the day to check on me and get head-snuffles and back rubs. He took a nap curled up on the foot of the bed after lunch, and I used the opportunity to give him a good cuddly-wuddly. Naturally, he joined me on Garden Patrol and took his sweet time examining some of the tallest grass. I guess it's been warm, and he has been staying outside where it's cooler. (There is a nice little breeze freshening in the window, right now!) But I think the problem is that he stole that plastic lunchbox he previously chewed up, and chewed the crap out of it again. He got a serious bollicking for it last time, but since it was already destroyed, I'm not thinking of giving him another bollicking over it now. But I suspect he is worried he might be in for one. Listening to Comfortably Numb by Pink Floyd. The Wall is not my favourite Floyd album but this is an undeniably great track. (Not that I think The Wall is a bad album, by any means. But there are several contenders for "Best Floyd Album" to choose from and if I flip-flop between DSOTM, Shine On UCD, Wish You Were Here, etc, The Wall just never gets my pick.) Been thinking about a book I read a while back (several times, over the years) and wondering if I can find it somewhere in the house. Still haven't found Cryptonomicon but now I'm thinking The Source by James Michener. I generally like Mitchener's books (but was strangely disappointed by his Caribbean). The Source is a cleverly written take of an archeological dig/site in the middle east. There are two threads to the narrative, told in alternating chapters. In one thread we follow the investigation of the site, and see what artifacts are discovered as the dig proceeds top-down. And what scientific deductions and conclusions are drawn from those discoveries. In the alternating chapters of the other thread we follow the history of the site as it is occupied and gradually developed by human kind, and get to observe artifacts being laid down as the centuries pass. This leads to artifacts laid down early in one thread of the book being discovered late in the other thread, while artifacts discovered early in that thread not being laid down until near the end of the book in the other thread. I know that book is around here somewhere. Prolly holding hands with Cryptonomicon. I wonder if any one else has by chance read it? My feet are incredibly dirty so I will have to go and give them a scrub. Because I spend a lot of my day barefoot, dirty feet are a common thing and I keep a hard bristle laundry brush in the shower for just this reason. I'm thirsty. I keep drinking but I'm still thirsty. Tea, coffee, water, lime squash, milk - makes no difference. I drink, but my thirst is not quenched. Maybe too much salt on the chips. Ok I will go shower and clean my footies, fetch a glass of water and see if I can entice Mo to come to bed. Then I will read awhile and lock up for the night. I'll probably have to get another glass of water when I go to lock up! 🙁

Well, they were not defrosted completely, but unfrozen sufficiently for me to pull the huge, icy block of scraps apart for individual bagging. The $22.16 bag of scraps was mostly chicken white meat. It broke down into: Eight bags of chicken breast chunks, each of which contained enough meat to cook a soup, stew, rice or pasta dish of 2-3 servings, with a generous amount of chicken therein. Eight whole chicken breasts, seven of which were very large and one of a normal (medium) size. Two steaks of medium size and (by the look of them) medium quality also. One medium sized lean, boneless pork chop that appears to be of excellent quality. So, not a bad haul. Individually wrapped and stored in the freezer, they can now defrosted on an as-needed basis.

I too disliked Angie and Danny and would have been happy for them to be eliminated, although in my case I was OK with her - it was him who got on my nerves. That being said, I don't think they got a square break here. Unless there were factors we don't know about, I'm surprised at the final outcome.

In the city, the practice is to tear out the roundabouts (one by one) and replace with traffic lights. The new traffic light system costs several million and the Minister of Transport rips off 20-25% of the budget. And a few years later they tear out the traffic lights and replace them with multi-million dollar roundabouts, and the Minister of Transport rips off 20-25% of the budget. But on the highway, they can't easily do this because the disruption to the flow of traffic would be far too severe for the public to bear. So it's been roundabouts on the highway from the beginning.