As consistent as the weather

Oh, hello!

I have been anything but consistent, and that is a combination of fatigue, pain, and routine change.

I have started to be more active. It hasn’t always been following a strict routine of predetermined exercises, but it tried to start that way. I fired up a chair exercise routine in an MS app and it half lied to me. There were a lot of standing with a chair, and squatting.

Not wanting to fall while home alone, I did the best I could.

Exercise isn’t everything!

Truth to that. I embarked on a different strategy as my leg’s muscles and tendons revolted. I did some stretching on my calf muscles by leaning against a door frame with one foot planted behind me, flat on the ground. I also followed that up with bed sitting quad stretching.

There was a lot of calf rubbing last week.

I often wish they would relax, and when I vape enough cannabis to relax, it’s often a struggle to walk with a body ill at ease with relaxed muscles!

What else did you do for physical activity?

Why house cleaning, of course!

The hallways are like an obstacle course. There is a lot of box remains from our new bed! But the cleaning! The kid has many toys and bargaining was in play. To date we have not really had to purge many toys. The basement flood destroying the toy room sure helped with that! But that single purge was merely a stop on the road to toy overload!

We have a couple of TROFAST boxes in the living room, so the deal was to fill one. We sorted though the drawers of one unit, and filled most of a bin. We sorted toys into genres mostly.

A small drawer for the current passion toy, LEGO Super Mario. Our second tiny drawer is dedicated to Playmobil. The third gets various action figures. The two keeper drawers are for vehicles and dinosaurs.

Cleaning went well, honestly, and the child was rewarded with a trip to the toy store for more aforementioned LEGO. It was played with, and stored in the LEGO drawer when done! I’m hoping to continue this trend, and move on to the other TROFAST!

Still there remains a lot of toys in the living room, and we will chip away! We have plans to remove the rocking chair and ottoman to our bedroom in a trade with a blanket box that was only holding clothes on top.

It will be the new tickle trunk!

Good, because we have such lovely friends, the kid is back to a level of dress up clothes he had pre-flood, but nowhere to store them all!

And this whole trunk/chair trade emerged from a broken bed incident! We had long been on a simple metal frame with plastic casters. Apparently the bed was bowing a bit from repeated hard falls into bed by me.

MS sucks.

The entire family was sitting on one side of the bed, essentially over one caster, and it died in a horrible shriek of agony. Time slowed. We could hear the beginnings of the breaking plastic, but no way to react fast enough to get off the bed. That was it. A sign that we should finally buy the new bed we have dreamed of since IKEA opened in our city.

My partner made the trek to the furniture warehouse and purchased our new bed. It came in 4 boxes which I’m told were heavy. I am sure my partner was aware that I was sad that I could not perform the heavy lifting in this endeavour. She was capable of lifting in the four boxes herself, and I exclaimed how proud I was of her.

Beautiful and strong!

With the help of my ever wonderful boss, the bed was assembled while the daddy/son LEGO assembly was happening. I honestly don’t feel as bad about the cost of LEGO now that it is a replacement for the outside world activities we no longer have accessible to us.

The kid does miss the indoor play areas. He mentions them every time we drive past.

Throw in smacks and a lunch, and we are basically at the price of a small LEGO set! We are going to have to start allowance to start paying for these purchases, to get a sense of money and responsibility instilled into the kid.

A discussion on remunerations yielded a decision for a monetary recompense over a direct pre-purchase of a toy. Is he low key smart or something? Possibly to save up for a bigger set instead of monster blind bags??

We shall see.

It has begun

My legs are a mix of jello and stiff… so hard jello? Oh that’s the worst jello!

So I did it, I completed the green ring! Thanks for the motivation, friends!

I carved out some time during my lunch break to do a 30 minute session on the Aby app. I struggled with the sitting exercises because it focuses a lot on legs. The first two drills involved sitting with your back straight and moving just a foot at a time. I 100% did not complete the reps in the time given! Lifting my leg with my quad just doesn’t seem to transmit. The second drill just involved raising your foot off the ground while seated! These are the kind of things I should be doing when I’m just sitting around.

So I trudged through the rest of the workout, really thinking that a simple chair isn’t sturdy enough if things literally go sideways!

And I must’ve worked out, because I was stiff and muscle sore. A sensation in the muscles I have not felt in a while. Thankfully I get a massage tomorrow! Not a luxury I’ll be afforded every time!

Oh, and I’ll also be getting a haircut on massage day! A return of the “Treat yourself” Saturday?? Maybe I can make a special supper request…

I shall ponder food!

Oh, in a weird twist this evening, I decided to throw on the Apple Music – New Music playlist generated for me on Fridays. First songs were from Weezer, Smashing Pumpkins, Foo Fighters, and Al Green… What century is this!

Alright, I have finished on call for the week, and maybe had a little too much celebratory vapes to unwind. I’m actually proud at how much I wrote!

I hope it made sense?

I fell

And now it’s time to get up.

Give me sound a little cliché, but it needs to be done. Every change for the good means the beginning does it not?

I took the day off from work.

Well, I took this day to recover and reflect. I feel like I need to be more active which is not a bad thing. I have neglected this part of my life and it showed when I tried to get myself off the floor. I am going to say this out loud to make myself accountable but I think it is time to start another exercise program that is more on my timetable.

I had started an exercise program with flexibility and range of motion in mind with the NeuroSask program, but their timetable did not work with my work life as daylight savings time is a jerk.

I have a couple apps on my phone and a couple apps I shouldn’t have on my phone so I think I shall delete some time-sink games and devote more time to reading and self-improvement.

The MS apps would be:

• Aby
• Emylin

Now I don’t know much about these two apps yet. They have basic features, like logging the day. There also appears to be articles relating to the disease, so yay for curated articles. I’ll have to investigate further.

Don’t drink the Kool-Aid!

I will take out whatever apps show up as games with the most time spent in the lease reward given. Basically if I spent half my time watching ads to get in game rewards then it’s not worth my time and it shouldn’t be worth your time.

Anyway, getting distracted, and exhausted. I will try to get the exercises started, if the spoons come back. And if not today, Tomorrow! Someone call me out on this if I don’t do it!

The future is now, in my head?

I had a dream musing today as I walked around my house.

In my #humanframework train of thoughts, I pondered augmented reality, and how it would fit in.

I currently wear glasses part of the time, and I was thinking of the Google Glass. I don’t know if they could accomplish what I would like it to do in my mind, but here’s an attempt to explain it.

First, the glasses would sense where you are with a beacon for the home, possibly the wifi ssid. Then it would have references to the house and rooms and the things therein. If the house inventory is maintained, the HUD visible through the lenses would provide info to anythng you vocally queried.

House (smart-ish house) would be another imagination post.

I would like to open the fridge and ask how old the milk is. Given the fridge would be smart, the house would be able to provide the purchase info of said product, and even provide a little line from the purchase date to the product if it is in view.

Packaging would also be another post.

The lenses should be able to determine the amount of milk poured and update fridge inventory accordingly.

I would also like to be able to say “How does this work” and the hud would identify items in view and prompt which item. Also, if it can identify said object, I propose that you could ask how to fix a specific issue.

In the smart home inventory, the model/serial/relevant info would be available and interface with a consumer database of answers to the question asked. It would be beneficial that the manufacturer has a maintained database of products and fixes for SPECIFIC models or versions.

I know that this dream is currently a bulky solution, but I am only a dreamer, and today, this was a rabbit hole my brain tumbled down. I know if I got time to ponder it further, I would dream of other potential ways to use it or tie it into the dream… So much to think about.

I’m sure these aren’t new thoughts, and I don’t care. I’ve had the thought and that’s the fun of dreaming. It can be a shared dream, so dream away! It’s fun.

Oh, and I finished BrainDead, and I loved it. I may have to keep this one to watch a few years later when I have the urge to watch confusing politics and brain bugs!

And I will be investigating tattoo parlours, just do it indeed!

I (still) want tattoos

But what to get?

I feel like sanity has returned and the head tattoo idea may be more difficult to get completed due to the body region… so maybe a sleeve theme or mishmash of random of images important to me?

If I were given the choice to get one right now, it might have to be a Sine wave.

Sine Wave

I feel like this is strong imagery for the thoughts in my head. It depicts basically everything and I challenge you to prove it wrong.

This can appeal to the disenfranchised angsty teenage times were “It’s all been done” as everything is cyclical, right? Hearts are beating and make a fancy repeating little wave. Even two party political systems areon a wave back and forth.

Honestly, I can’t think of much that doesn’t devolve into the ebb and flow of things. Mood, colours, breath.

Everything is in and out. Everything!

And if you’re wondering, my mind went to burgers.

Anyway, that’s A tattoo idea. I don’t want to throw out the gremlin vs ninja tattoo, but since they can’t be fighting on my brain, I envision this…

A brain patterned arena floor, with a thunderdome mesh of neurons keeping the gremlins vs a lone ninja. I would love to see that as an artistic interpretation!

That would be a bicep onto itself! Get some “wave” themed stuff for the other arm.

A pond ripple, a broadcast tower with radio waves, or anything else to represent repetitiveness?

Something that will require pondering!

My brain didn’t die

But the bugs sure feast in the show I’m currently watching!

BrainDead (2016)

Now, when I say my brain isn’t dead, it just means it hasn’t gone to mush. I have been lacking inspiration for the past few weeks, and it certainly shows.

I had taken the blog entries out of my nightly routine in favour of other activities: video calls, changing bedtime routines, general health…

There are many things I can use and make excuses with but really I won’t. It just wasn’t a priority, plain and simple.

I was using this as a venting process to get things out of my head, but that hasn’t been an issue of late. At least, my restlessness at night wasn’t caused by thoughts. Stiff legs are another story.

But enough of my apparent pity party. Let’s take a bite out of my initial mid-series thoughts.

First of all, I think I like it. Definitely binge worthy, and a spooky take on events of the past administration south of our border. It skirts naming too many names in favour of imaginary senate people to disconnect you a bit from real life.

Next, a pandemic or blight of brain eating alien bugs? Ok, that screams B movie… But the show appears to have a little money. Enough for believable sets and locations. CG is a bit rough, but what can you expect from a political sci-fi series.

Oh, and I was recommended this show from a highly unexpected source… My father! I never would’ve expected a suggestion for a show I had never heard of and enjoy it!

So I am about 5 episodes in on this 13 episode series. I truly hope it was envisioned as a single season series so I don’t get left hanging at the end with so many unresolved questions…

So, as a quick review, I would say watch this one. Go, find it, watch it, enjoy!

A time to change has come

And it doesn’t honestly feel like change.

I recently received my driver license renewal form for my health clearance and what not. With a neurodegenerative disease, it was appropriately declared to the motor vehicle agency on acquisition of my license upon moving to this province.

I declared I had MS, and had to get medically cleared to operate a vehicle. Standard stuff, and for the safety of the others that share the road, not a hard task to complete.

I had many good driving years up to this point, and had hoped for many more.

Life decided no.

My balance started to go, especially when I was warm. At the same time, my legs would lose their strength. I knew it was time to stop driving a motorcycle. I kept my hopes that it wouldn’t be forever, but living where it’s hot, wearing a helmet and riding jacket, really made a body warm. If I couldn’t keep the bike stationary at a red light, should I be driving?

No.

I kept the bike around for the good days to see if I could squeeze in a day or two in a month. I knew the ride was over when I could not consistently throw a leg over the bike to sit in it!

Bye bye bike.

At the same time, my driving frequency was drastically reduced. I exclusively was a passenger because I never wanted to endanger my family with my driving. I didn’t drive much anyway. Over the 2020 pandemic, I drove twice. Both times were to drive-thru trips.

One trip was to the McDonald’s in our neighbourhood. My son was with me for “Boys Day”. We had a day of father-son bonding. It’s important to spend time with your children, and we rarely get to do that as an outing. I drove there with care, but it was lunch time on a weekend. I felt safe but knew that my time driving may have been numbered.

I don’t want to endanger my kiddo!

So we drove home and sat in the back of the vehicle. Tailgate open! In the shade of the noon time sun, we feasted upon our, some would say, food.

And the other time was to run out to Wendy’s to fix an error in an order my partner had made. Dairy allergy means pay attention when someone says no cheese!

Anyway, this week a letter to renew my license heath clearance. A decision had to be made.

Weighing the pros and cons, if I surrender my license, we would not change our lifestyle and we would spend less in car insurance. Slightly.

I could not think of many pros. I was told “Freedom” and I think “I don’t want to be the old guy who mows down a couple pedestrians because he wouldn’t surrender his license!”

I feel like it’s a fair statement. I also feel like I was of sound mind when I made the decision. I thank my partner for not pressuring me to drive. I feel like the old guy safety hazard is a good argument.

Besides, what actually changes?

They’re going to know…

It’s an ever increasing trend of “How much do companies know about our day to day?”

Now, I know this is probably very coincidental, but I received a La-Z-Boy catalogue in the mail today.

Am I mad?

No, not really. I am currently in the market for a recliner as my next home purchase after seeing fellow MS friend over at Right Leg Down in their comfy recliner in our Zoom meetings.

Currently my posterior makes its home to an old fashion hand me down from the in-laws. Not mad or ungrateful, but I feel like it cuts off my circulation and sometimes is a struggle to get in and out of.

My partner and I were on the website last night, and then they arrived with the mail today, they passed me the catalogue with a little smile on their face.

How did they know!? Conspiracies! The Earth is flat! Coincidences aren’t real!

Ha, no, I have a solid grasp on reality.

So now I have a paper reminder from a store that likely wants my business. A quick run through of their site and the options are overwhelming. I tried shopping by price but had to stop. Price doesn’t impact function and comfort!

Oh price. My nemesis?

I have to give my butt a chance to sit on a chair before committing to ten or more years! And what’s this? There’s a store in town, and they have in-store shopping with physical distancing? I may have to go to my first store in a year!

Excluding the pharmacy.

So with that being said, 2021, will you be the year of furniture? Maybe!

And the parade of appliances confiture?

No, that was a typo that made me giggle so it can stay. Mmm, jam…

So as our TV is slowly dying, it’s come time to purchase a new one. I am honestly shocked that the TV I punched in the mid 2000’s still worked to this day! Kudos Panasonic, you made a sturdy plasma tv!

What better time to shop than Black Friday/Cyber Monday!

…

Guess I got distracted shopping and left this one unfinished. I have since purchased a new television. It’s a Samsung. I have dropped a Samsung into my house tech infrastructure!

And I can’t really be mad. The price was right, the features were there, and honestly, I could’ve almost moved the AppleTV to another room if it wasn’t for the app issues with CBC Gem. Apparently there isn’t one! And Airplay isn’t recommended due to playback issues!

So I have an AppleTV connected to a Samsung TV. Have I fulfilled a step in some ancient prophecy that ends the world? Or saved it? Since I made the unholy union, Cinnamon Hitler lost for a second time, impeached for a second time, and has left a greasy stain on history. And apparently he doesn’t want to hear RICHARD NIXON’s name. So yeah, pepper Nixon in conversations or something.

And I watched it happen on my magic picture box. I also feel like my eyes were used to my plasma’s refresh rate because I have questions about if people see things the way I do. I can’t really compare with my partner because they don’t see much of a difference with types of HD.

Maybe I have evolved TV eyes! Is that a thing? Can I see sound yet?

No. But maybe some day?

Blogus Interuptus?

I thought I was trying to be fancy Latin pants, but I Harry Potter failed?

This got off to a strong start. I found a slice of time to unwind, decompress to words, fill my day with a few minutes of self expression.

But what happened?

Life. I had been encouraged by friends to reattempt a nightly “check-in” video chat at 8pm medicine time. It became too distracting to write so I fell into the nonsense and unwound from the day with a laugh with friends.

Even that had to be reined in.

We have a little one who wakes up throughout the night. Sad and unhappy with being alone. We have had to switch up our night routine for everyone’s benefit. So now I have exchange my partner as a bedmate for my offspring.

The plus side, we all sleep!

Apparently it’s some ancestral behaviour where there is a fear of being eaten if not in a group? I don’t know how to explain it, but I understand it enough to get by.

Kind of like the rest of things in life.

So now I need to find a new slice of time to vent out these thoughts and creativity. So much of my day is already taken up by my regular routine of not doing a whole lot, and going so many rooms in the house…

OK, so I am a huge consumer of pop culture so clearly I spend my days being programmed by random outside sources. I could be radicalized!

Yes, by a fancy burger made from a cronut or something.

Ha, truth. I watch a lot of food porn! It all looks so delicious. If you looked at my TikTok follows, you’d find a lot of food content! I’ve even technically made an appearance in a TikTok in still image format, so that counts right?

So I don’t know about the rest of the week, but the weekends are wide open because we have nowhere to go. I need to plug in my Apple Watch to charge at some point of the day… So why not now! And if I’m super ambitious, maybe I’ll write a couple!

That may be untenable, sure, but I can try! Do it for future me!

OK, I can’t see the top line anymore, so maybe on to a new, future post!