Just a short post to document yet another case of "gym magic". I woke up feeling crummy all over. Stiff muscles (back and legs), joints aching (knees, hips, shoulders, elbows, hands), just feeble. But off I went to the gym to meet with my wonderful trainer. About 20 minutes in I realized how much better I felt.
So now, a couple of hours later, I feel better, though not great. But once again I see that going to the gym almost always makes me feel better. Hooray! It's still so hard to convince myself each time, hence the need to document.
Wednesday, July 31, 2019
Monday, July 29, 2019
Experimentation and Discovery
I'm still in transition mode, not sure where I'll end up. But now is the time to try new things, get out there and see what the possibilities are. I'm focusing this summer on getting myself more healthy, and have some mixed results. Without very many external constraints, there are so many possibilities!
Most days, I'm going to bed when I'm tired and up when I'm ready. No alarms! I'm still up with daylight, most days. I've discovered this means I'm sleeping more than has been my habit, not drastically, but maybe 20-30 minutes more. (This is based on a very casual look at fitbit data.) I think when I was working, I tended to sleep quite a bit more on weekends than during the week, so I suspect my daily sleep is more consistent, as well. There are a few naps, but not so many. Chalk this up as an overall win, for health and for just generally feeling good. I suspect the lack of daylight will cause my body to want more sleep in the winter, but I'll deal with that if it happens.
I tend to have a binge mentality. When I have an enthusiasm, I'm all in. If I have an absorbing book, I'll spend a couple of days where all I've accomplished is reading. TV binging is both a wonderful and terrifying thing for me. I can sit still for six hours at a time, leaving food and even basic hygiene by the wayside. It's a good thing I have a dog who has needs, or else the spiders would be using me to anchor their webs. I'm enormously enjoying getting out of myself by being in receive-only mode. On this blog is a scroll from Goodreads of the books I've read recently. For TV, I've done some Netflix and Amazon shows, but am currently signed up for the 30-day free trial of Hulu. Haven't decided whether to keep it yet, but I'm chugging steadily through Veronica Mars, which I missed the first time through (3-season cult network TV show from 2004, crowd-funded movie, new 8-show season just done by Hulu). I've found I'll need more than just my old dog to keep me from over-indulging and getting unhealthy on this. Exercise and chore breaks between chapters or episodes are what I need.
My binge mentality has also impacted how I do more active things, especially gardening or home improvement tasks. I get absorbed in a task, and then it's hours later and I am very sore. Often, the immersion is facilitated by listening to a book or podcast, which occupies that part of my mind not needed for the task. Taking lots of time is generally not a problem, but the soreness is. What I've discovered is I need to take breaks. I need to pace myself on the more vigorous tasks. Now, I watch the clock and after two hours, I'll be inside and drinking water and sitting down. If it's an outside task, I'm not likely to resume it until the next morning (this is at least partly driven by the summer heat). My stamina is not what it used to be. I want to build it back up, but it won't come in a day.
I did set out at first too ambitiously on reclaiming my fitness level. I went all in the first few days of June, and collapsed with a three-day migraine after a week. Pacing is key. Now, what I really need is consistency. Building a fitness base requires consistency. Fortuitously, an on-line running club I joined has decided that August will be consistency month. More on this later.
I'm also very concerned about finances. I'm fine for now, and likely for the long term, but there is a roll of the dice associated with this. I've spent some number of hours with budgets and projections, experimenting with how to track and think about money. In the flip side of bingeing, I'm also ok with abstaining from things for at least defined periods of time. So right now, I've decided I have more than enough stuff. I am on a moratorium from buying things. My only spending in July is for consumable supplies, and for services. So far so good. I'm not good with rationing (versus abstaining) so I'm going to have to decide how to re-start spending. Right now, I'm making a list, and I'll try a budget and see how it goes.
I'm exploring new approaches to my fitness. I've kept my trainer, but cut back to once a week. This is an experiment, to see if I can save money without losing ground. The key is that I have to fill in with workouts on my own. So far, I'm doing fairly well. I stopped running when the heat got brutal, but I've added back more walking, both fast without the dog and slow with him. Last week, I got my bike out of the shed, cleaned it up, and took it into the shop. I picked it up Friday, and rode it the two miles home. It will take a bit to build up to using it more -- just on the little ride home, my seat got sore and I could feel my knees creaking. But we've got a fabulous relatively flat trail right around the corner, and so I'll be out there some.
In a huge leap for me, I signed up for something at the adult ed program at the local community college, starting in September. The leap is not that I'm taking a class, but what it actually is. You would never guess in a million years, because I wouldn't have guessed myself before I sat down with the course catalogue last week. It's Introduction to Tap Dancing (!!!!). I am not a dancer. I am clumsy and uncoordinated. But I love music, and tap doesn't require a partner, and it can be only mildly aerobic while requiring focus and concentration and fine muscle coordination. Or, at least I'm assuming that's the case - I really know absolutely nothing about it. But I'm pretty excited about it.
I'm doing things out of the house, conscious that I need to work at being social. I've been lunching with friends (including going into town to meet friends from work) and spontaneously joined a dinner invitation with some casual acquaintances. I've gone to a few organized events, from group hikes to storytelling in someone's home. I'll probably pick up with a few more of those things. When going into town, I've been metro-ing, which sometimes involves a bus as well. Public transportation has certainly improved, with the benefit of smart phones, earbuds, and real-time arrival info. I'm investigating further-afield travel opportunities, with friends and with tour companies. And, a bit, on my own as well. Nothing booked yet, but soon.
What is not going well at all is my weight. I'm learning what to cook, how to manage food, but I'm overboard on total food and on sweets. I weigh more now than the day I retired. I experimented with the very popular trend of "intermittent fasting" - only eating during an 8-hour window, in my case 11 am to 7 pm. Based on a few days, this didn't limit my total calories and didn't seem to yield a lot of other benefits. The one thing I most liked was not worrying about breakfast before getting going for the day. Stopping to eat a bit later (10-11-ish) seems to work ok. Back when I was still working, I tried Noom - the pervasively advertised weight-loss app (their ads throw shade at Weight Watchers) - for a while. Since I don't believe I need any nutrition education, it wasn't for me. But tracking my food probably is a good idea, though I'm not doing it now. It does feel like two big meals and a snack are the right answer, and closing down the eating at night. Night time snacking remains a big problem for me.
So it feels like a nice mix of exploration plus trying to form good habits. Some fun discoveries, more stuff to start relying on and acting on, and perhaps some future posts.
 |
| Such a pretty bike is motivating! |
Most days, I'm going to bed when I'm tired and up when I'm ready. No alarms! I'm still up with daylight, most days. I've discovered this means I'm sleeping more than has been my habit, not drastically, but maybe 20-30 minutes more. (This is based on a very casual look at fitbit data.) I think when I was working, I tended to sleep quite a bit more on weekends than during the week, so I suspect my daily sleep is more consistent, as well. There are a few naps, but not so many. Chalk this up as an overall win, for health and for just generally feeling good. I suspect the lack of daylight will cause my body to want more sleep in the winter, but I'll deal with that if it happens.
I tend to have a binge mentality. When I have an enthusiasm, I'm all in. If I have an absorbing book, I'll spend a couple of days where all I've accomplished is reading. TV binging is both a wonderful and terrifying thing for me. I can sit still for six hours at a time, leaving food and even basic hygiene by the wayside. It's a good thing I have a dog who has needs, or else the spiders would be using me to anchor their webs. I'm enormously enjoying getting out of myself by being in receive-only mode. On this blog is a scroll from Goodreads of the books I've read recently. For TV, I've done some Netflix and Amazon shows, but am currently signed up for the 30-day free trial of Hulu. Haven't decided whether to keep it yet, but I'm chugging steadily through Veronica Mars, which I missed the first time through (3-season cult network TV show from 2004, crowd-funded movie, new 8-show season just done by Hulu). I've found I'll need more than just my old dog to keep me from over-indulging and getting unhealthy on this. Exercise and chore breaks between chapters or episodes are what I need.
My binge mentality has also impacted how I do more active things, especially gardening or home improvement tasks. I get absorbed in a task, and then it's hours later and I am very sore. Often, the immersion is facilitated by listening to a book or podcast, which occupies that part of my mind not needed for the task. Taking lots of time is generally not a problem, but the soreness is. What I've discovered is I need to take breaks. I need to pace myself on the more vigorous tasks. Now, I watch the clock and after two hours, I'll be inside and drinking water and sitting down. If it's an outside task, I'm not likely to resume it until the next morning (this is at least partly driven by the summer heat). My stamina is not what it used to be. I want to build it back up, but it won't come in a day.
I did set out at first too ambitiously on reclaiming my fitness level. I went all in the first few days of June, and collapsed with a three-day migraine after a week. Pacing is key. Now, what I really need is consistency. Building a fitness base requires consistency. Fortuitously, an on-line running club I joined has decided that August will be consistency month. More on this later.
I'm also very concerned about finances. I'm fine for now, and likely for the long term, but there is a roll of the dice associated with this. I've spent some number of hours with budgets and projections, experimenting with how to track and think about money. In the flip side of bingeing, I'm also ok with abstaining from things for at least defined periods of time. So right now, I've decided I have more than enough stuff. I am on a moratorium from buying things. My only spending in July is for consumable supplies, and for services. So far so good. I'm not good with rationing (versus abstaining) so I'm going to have to decide how to re-start spending. Right now, I'm making a list, and I'll try a budget and see how it goes.
I'm exploring new approaches to my fitness. I've kept my trainer, but cut back to once a week. This is an experiment, to see if I can save money without losing ground. The key is that I have to fill in with workouts on my own. So far, I'm doing fairly well. I stopped running when the heat got brutal, but I've added back more walking, both fast without the dog and slow with him. Last week, I got my bike out of the shed, cleaned it up, and took it into the shop. I picked it up Friday, and rode it the two miles home. It will take a bit to build up to using it more -- just on the little ride home, my seat got sore and I could feel my knees creaking. But we've got a fabulous relatively flat trail right around the corner, and so I'll be out there some.
In a huge leap for me, I signed up for something at the adult ed program at the local community college, starting in September. The leap is not that I'm taking a class, but what it actually is. You would never guess in a million years, because I wouldn't have guessed myself before I sat down with the course catalogue last week. It's Introduction to Tap Dancing (!!!!). I am not a dancer. I am clumsy and uncoordinated. But I love music, and tap doesn't require a partner, and it can be only mildly aerobic while requiring focus and concentration and fine muscle coordination. Or, at least I'm assuming that's the case - I really know absolutely nothing about it. But I'm pretty excited about it.
I'm doing things out of the house, conscious that I need to work at being social. I've been lunching with friends (including going into town to meet friends from work) and spontaneously joined a dinner invitation with some casual acquaintances. I've gone to a few organized events, from group hikes to storytelling in someone's home. I'll probably pick up with a few more of those things. When going into town, I've been metro-ing, which sometimes involves a bus as well. Public transportation has certainly improved, with the benefit of smart phones, earbuds, and real-time arrival info. I'm investigating further-afield travel opportunities, with friends and with tour companies. And, a bit, on my own as well. Nothing booked yet, but soon.
What is not going well at all is my weight. I'm learning what to cook, how to manage food, but I'm overboard on total food and on sweets. I weigh more now than the day I retired. I experimented with the very popular trend of "intermittent fasting" - only eating during an 8-hour window, in my case 11 am to 7 pm. Based on a few days, this didn't limit my total calories and didn't seem to yield a lot of other benefits. The one thing I most liked was not worrying about breakfast before getting going for the day. Stopping to eat a bit later (10-11-ish) seems to work ok. Back when I was still working, I tried Noom - the pervasively advertised weight-loss app (their ads throw shade at Weight Watchers) - for a while. Since I don't believe I need any nutrition education, it wasn't for me. But tracking my food probably is a good idea, though I'm not doing it now. It does feel like two big meals and a snack are the right answer, and closing down the eating at night. Night time snacking remains a big problem for me.
So it feels like a nice mix of exploration plus trying to form good habits. Some fun discoveries, more stuff to start relying on and acting on, and perhaps some future posts.
Sunday, July 7, 2019
Need Some Focus
I was puttering around this morning... Read the news on the ipad, put away a couple of things lying out in the kitchen, went out in the yard with the dog and pulled a few weeds, came in and decided that my mental lists need to be written down. I poured a new cup of coffee and started moving purposefully towards the computer, to crank it up and get things written down. I thought of the top priority item on the list. As if taken over by an alien source, I put down the coffee and started moving in the direction of the tape measure to start the first project.
Wait! What am I doing? Am I going to sit down and commit to making a list, or am I just going to plunge into the next top-of-mind project? This is how my days have gone, drifting from thing to thing. I am not frittering away all my time - things are getting done. Often, there is no question what is the most important thing to be doing (eg, installing the new smoke detector). But I'm not prioritizing or being terribly efficient in how I go about this. There is no doubt that some very important things are NOT getting done. The mental list is too long, and some things have to be in order, or at certain times (eg calling to schedule appointments, trips to a certain store).
Y'all know I'm a big fan of self-help books. I read Getting Things Done by David Allen a number of years ago, and a couple of years ago took a training class in how to apply the principles. The big thrust of this is to reduce mental drag and boost productivity by mastering the to-do list. Having mental lists creates mental drag, as the mind constantly says "I have to do this thing!", but says it at a moment you can't actually do it, so you make a mental note and have to put mental resources in remembering it later. If it's on a list, and you can be certain that list will be reviewed at some time in the future, then you can forget completely about it for now. Hence, peace of mind.
So the rest of the book and the training class are all about how to do this, full of practical techniques for capturing the list and working down the list. This is not project management so much as life management. But it's also not time management, or scheduling. Key points: Capture Everything that needs to be done in a limited number of input devices throughout your day (eg, email in-box and pocket notebook, don't also have sticky notes and phone notes and voicemails and other things floating around to remember); have set times during the week you take all the input and either do the thing right then (works for email replies, appointment scheduling, other things that take less than five minutes) or write it down in your single master to-do list. A major tenant is Do Not Maintain Multiple To-Do Lists, because then you have the mental drag of finding and looking at all your to-do lists. Many nuances about then working down the to-do list, what tool to use as the to-do list, how to code the to-do list. This group is not a fan of prioritizing a to-do list from top to bottom (because just by looking at the list you know what is urgent), but of using tags to group related items both by subject (home maintenance, gardening..., and by aspects of the task (phone call, email, trip to store, wear dirty clothes, how long will it take) which they call "context".
As in all these books, there are nuggets that are useful and have helped me out. I violated the One List tenent by always keeping work and home lists separately. My last couple of years at work were more reactive than planned, and we lived on email, so I just used my work email as my master list for work. For home, I've used various things, physical and of course many apps. Again, this is not detailed project management, but rather how to move through and between the myriad of different projects and tasks that make up life. It's not time management, in that it doesn't tell you how to schedule your day. It's simply ensuring that things you want to get can get done, and not slip through the cracks. But without having to expend mental energy always thinking about it.
Right now, I have notes scrawled around in various places, many things are not on the list at all, and I need to make a better list. Which I set out to do an hour or so ago, and immediately distracted myself into a new task. Then I caught myself in the distraction, went "AHA!" and cranked up the computer and instead of capturing tasks I wrote this post.
The good news is I have TIME. I'll get this figured out. I don't have to be phenomenally productive because I'm not juggling a gazillion things with deadlines. Just things I want to do, and sometimes it doesn't matter if they get done right now, but sometimes it does matter. I need a list.
Wait! What am I doing? Am I going to sit down and commit to making a list, or am I just going to plunge into the next top-of-mind project? This is how my days have gone, drifting from thing to thing. I am not frittering away all my time - things are getting done. Often, there is no question what is the most important thing to be doing (eg, installing the new smoke detector). But I'm not prioritizing or being terribly efficient in how I go about this. There is no doubt that some very important things are NOT getting done. The mental list is too long, and some things have to be in order, or at certain times (eg calling to schedule appointments, trips to a certain store).
Y'all know I'm a big fan of self-help books. I read Getting Things Done by David Allen a number of years ago, and a couple of years ago took a training class in how to apply the principles. The big thrust of this is to reduce mental drag and boost productivity by mastering the to-do list. Having mental lists creates mental drag, as the mind constantly says "I have to do this thing!", but says it at a moment you can't actually do it, so you make a mental note and have to put mental resources in remembering it later. If it's on a list, and you can be certain that list will be reviewed at some time in the future, then you can forget completely about it for now. Hence, peace of mind.
So the rest of the book and the training class are all about how to do this, full of practical techniques for capturing the list and working down the list. This is not project management so much as life management. But it's also not time management, or scheduling. Key points: Capture Everything that needs to be done in a limited number of input devices throughout your day (eg, email in-box and pocket notebook, don't also have sticky notes and phone notes and voicemails and other things floating around to remember); have set times during the week you take all the input and either do the thing right then (works for email replies, appointment scheduling, other things that take less than five minutes) or write it down in your single master to-do list. A major tenant is Do Not Maintain Multiple To-Do Lists, because then you have the mental drag of finding and looking at all your to-do lists. Many nuances about then working down the to-do list, what tool to use as the to-do list, how to code the to-do list. This group is not a fan of prioritizing a to-do list from top to bottom (because just by looking at the list you know what is urgent), but of using tags to group related items both by subject (home maintenance, gardening..., and by aspects of the task (phone call, email, trip to store, wear dirty clothes, how long will it take) which they call "context".
As in all these books, there are nuggets that are useful and have helped me out. I violated the One List tenent by always keeping work and home lists separately. My last couple of years at work were more reactive than planned, and we lived on email, so I just used my work email as my master list for work. For home, I've used various things, physical and of course many apps. Again, this is not detailed project management, but rather how to move through and between the myriad of different projects and tasks that make up life. It's not time management, in that it doesn't tell you how to schedule your day. It's simply ensuring that things you want to get can get done, and not slip through the cracks. But without having to expend mental energy always thinking about it.
Right now, I have notes scrawled around in various places, many things are not on the list at all, and I need to make a better list. Which I set out to do an hour or so ago, and immediately distracted myself into a new task. Then I caught myself in the distraction, went "AHA!" and cranked up the computer and instead of capturing tasks I wrote this post.
The good news is I have TIME. I'll get this figured out. I don't have to be phenomenally productive because I'm not juggling a gazillion things with deadlines. Just things I want to do, and sometimes it doesn't matter if they get done right now, but sometimes it does matter. I need a list.
Thursday, July 4, 2019
Clearing the Deferred Maintenance Backlog
I'm settling into a very quiet and comfortable routine right now. I have no big plans to travel or take on huge projects or goals, but I have huge list of things I want to do. I call it my "deferred maintenance backlog". It is sadly not an actual physical list, at least not yet, just a mental one. But it's big. It encompasses the house, the garden, the boat, and me, with multiple sub-categories under each big heading. What is not yet getting done is civic engagement, or any kind of study or class. I'm mostly pushing that off until after Labor Day. I'm focusing now on me, physical things, but not social things.
I allowed work to take center stage of my life for the past couple of years, and I used work as my excuse for not doing anything else. As a result, I have neglected a lot of things, and they have piled up. I am taking a lot of satisfaction in doing small things. Some of them are recurrent and will need to be done again sometime, and some of them are one-and-done, over and crossed off. As each gets done, I feel great. I feel productive.
June passed by as a whirlwind, but I did learn a few things. I started strong, going out running the first of June, and keeping it up for a week. The rest of my time was focused on getting the house and yard ready to have a bunch of family come and stay. Cooking, cleaning, shopping, building Ikea furniture. Then, the migraine struck. I was trying to do too much. I went into hibernation for a day, and had a couple of days of slow recovery. I recovered just as seven family members showed up to stay for a week. Lesson learned: slow down a bit. Take breaks.
While the folks were here, I totally loved the experience, but it left me knackered (as the Brits in the book I just finished say). Then another friend showed up, by herself so less tiring, but still preventing me from getting into a rhythm. So it's been only since the last week of June I've been able to build what feels like a solid routine.
After thirty years of having my alarm set for 5:30, I'm still an early riser. The sun is up by 6, and generally so am I. Because it is the brutally hot DC summer, I'm trying to limit myself to only half an hour drinking coffee with the ipad before starting my day. I've joined an on-line running group, and I'm following a training plan that requires running three times a week. I walk on the other mornings, either with or without the dog, depending on how fast I want to go. Then, down to the basement gym, where I do my functional fitness routines for another half hour or so. (I cut my personal training at the sports club to once a week for now, till I see how the money goes.)
After taking care of me, I try to spend an hour or two in the yard. There is so much to be done there! We had a nice spring, and things are lush and overgrown. Much gardening right now is mostly about taking things out or cutting them back. Some things I've done recently are already starting to pay off. (More at the garden blog, mostly pictures.)
Then, after a little bit of a sit to catch my breath and cool down, it's time for a shower. It took me a while to figure out when to shower, can you believe that? My weekday routine always included a shower, of course, before off to work. And I pegged a lot of other personal care items to the shower - good tooth care, taking vitamins and medicine, things like that. But I never had a weekend routine and often skipped a shower - I usually sat around in my jammies with coffee and the ipad till I felt like it I was running late, and then I'd pull on clothes and rush out to where ever I needed to be. Now, I want to first get going, and then when I'm done with the dirty and sweaty parts of my day, I'll take the time before lunch to get cleaned up.
The middle, hot, part of the day is for reading, cooking, shopping, indoor chores like laundry or bookkeeping. I confess some naps have snuck in there as well. In the evening, something social (movies or book clubs or hanging with the family) or more reading or TV, and generally after dark an hour or two ambling with my old dog around the neighborhood.
Interspersed with these things is a fair amount of journalling, meditation, and just sitting around.
I've been up to the boat for sailing and kayaking some, and would like to do more. But my list for home and garden keeps getting longer, and I'm sure my boat maintenance list will likewise grow as I spend more time with her. I'm working on dog-sitting arrangements so I could start staying overnight on her, because a dawn kayaking expedition is one of the great joys of life. To do that, I also need to build my kit, get fresh stove fuel and inspect the coffee stores, among other things. If it doesn't happen this week, it'll be next week.
So it's pretty much vacation now. It feels very selfish (what about smashing the patriarchy and saving the planet?) but I've decided to be selfish for a while.
Because I'm me, I can tell you I've read 14 books since June 1. Some were audio books while walking and gardening, some were YA books that only took a few hours.
More later, as I make lists and plans.
I allowed work to take center stage of my life for the past couple of years, and I used work as my excuse for not doing anything else. As a result, I have neglected a lot of things, and they have piled up. I am taking a lot of satisfaction in doing small things. Some of them are recurrent and will need to be done again sometime, and some of them are one-and-done, over and crossed off. As each gets done, I feel great. I feel productive.
June passed by as a whirlwind, but I did learn a few things. I started strong, going out running the first of June, and keeping it up for a week. The rest of my time was focused on getting the house and yard ready to have a bunch of family come and stay. Cooking, cleaning, shopping, building Ikea furniture. Then, the migraine struck. I was trying to do too much. I went into hibernation for a day, and had a couple of days of slow recovery. I recovered just as seven family members showed up to stay for a week. Lesson learned: slow down a bit. Take breaks.
While the folks were here, I totally loved the experience, but it left me knackered (as the Brits in the book I just finished say). Then another friend showed up, by herself so less tiring, but still preventing me from getting into a rhythm. So it's been only since the last week of June I've been able to build what feels like a solid routine.
After thirty years of having my alarm set for 5:30, I'm still an early riser. The sun is up by 6, and generally so am I. Because it is the brutally hot DC summer, I'm trying to limit myself to only half an hour drinking coffee with the ipad before starting my day. I've joined an on-line running group, and I'm following a training plan that requires running three times a week. I walk on the other mornings, either with or without the dog, depending on how fast I want to go. Then, down to the basement gym, where I do my functional fitness routines for another half hour or so. (I cut my personal training at the sports club to once a week for now, till I see how the money goes.)
After taking care of me, I try to spend an hour or two in the yard. There is so much to be done there! We had a nice spring, and things are lush and overgrown. Much gardening right now is mostly about taking things out or cutting them back. Some things I've done recently are already starting to pay off. (More at the garden blog, mostly pictures.)
Then, after a little bit of a sit to catch my breath and cool down, it's time for a shower. It took me a while to figure out when to shower, can you believe that? My weekday routine always included a shower, of course, before off to work. And I pegged a lot of other personal care items to the shower - good tooth care, taking vitamins and medicine, things like that. But I never had a weekend routine and often skipped a shower - I usually sat around in my jammies with coffee and the ipad till I felt like it I was running late, and then I'd pull on clothes and rush out to where ever I needed to be. Now, I want to first get going, and then when I'm done with the dirty and sweaty parts of my day, I'll take the time before lunch to get cleaned up.
The middle, hot, part of the day is for reading, cooking, shopping, indoor chores like laundry or bookkeeping. I confess some naps have snuck in there as well. In the evening, something social (movies or book clubs or hanging with the family) or more reading or TV, and generally after dark an hour or two ambling with my old dog around the neighborhood.
Interspersed with these things is a fair amount of journalling, meditation, and just sitting around.
I've been up to the boat for sailing and kayaking some, and would like to do more. But my list for home and garden keeps getting longer, and I'm sure my boat maintenance list will likewise grow as I spend more time with her. I'm working on dog-sitting arrangements so I could start staying overnight on her, because a dawn kayaking expedition is one of the great joys of life. To do that, I also need to build my kit, get fresh stove fuel and inspect the coffee stores, among other things. If it doesn't happen this week, it'll be next week.
So it's pretty much vacation now. It feels very selfish (what about smashing the patriarchy and saving the planet?) but I've decided to be selfish for a while.
Because I'm me, I can tell you I've read 14 books since June 1. Some were audio books while walking and gardening, some were YA books that only took a few hours.
More later, as I make lists and plans.
Wednesday, July 3, 2019
Well, THAT was exciting! (Parts 1 & 2)
I was just sitting down to write a nice, chatty, catch-up blog post when my smart smoke alarm started talking. It said, "There is an emergency. The alarm will sound. The alarm is loud." Sure enough, it went off and it was loud. BEEP, BEEP, BEEP. "Emergency. There is smoke in the bedroom." Then, my networked smart(ass) alarms in the basement, three of them, chimed in. B-B-BEEP! B-B-BEEP! B-B-BEEP! "Emergency. There is smoke in the bedroom-room-room." I got a notification on my phone there was an emergency with smoke in my bedroom.
So, first I looked around near the bedroom and saw and smelled nothing. So then I waved a towel at the alarm, as one does to disperse whatever is in the air. It kept on BEEPing and warning. I grabbed a step stool and pushed its single big button that was flashing red. The alarm responded with, "The alarm cannot be silenced. Smoke levels are too high. Emergency." BEEP BEEP BEEP. I still saw nothing and smelled nothing and even listened, nothing. I went all over the house, nothing. I brought the stepladder up from the basement. I used it to climb up and poke my head into the crawlspace attic. It was very hot up there, but it's over 90 degrees out, so what do you expect? There was no smoke that I could see by my phone flashlight, and no smell of smoke. I pushed the button on the alarm again, and again it said it would not turn off.
I was perplexed. I put the dog out in the fenced back yard, stepped outside myself, and for the second time in my life, dialed 911. Hey, I pay taxes happily to get civic services. I don't want to be one of those people, who disable alarms and safety devices because they know better, and then are sorry. No Darwin Award for me.
That call was also interesting. First question was address. Second question was "Police, fire or ambulance?" I said fire, and then there were a few excruciating moments waiting to be transferred. Started over with fire dispatcher. Address? Nature of the problem?
"My smart smoke alarm says there are high levels of smoke, but I can't see or smell any smoke. It refuses to reset, so I'd like someone to come out and look and make sure I'm not missing anything."
Response: "Please make sure all people exit the house immediately. We'll send someone out. Phone number? Name? Let's double check the address."
Then, we chatted a bit more. Again, I explained the circumstances, gave the brand name of the alarm, and confessed I had smelled burning plastic when running my ceiling fan a couple of days ago. I shut the fan off, and hadn't used it since. Finally, the dispatcher said they were on their way, she would let me go, but no-one was to re-enter the house before they got there.
So I stood out there, waiting, and went over what I should have done. I have a fire extinguisher, and when I poked my head up in the attic it should have been in my hands. Then, I realized I should have grabbed, at a minimum, my purse and car keys. I had the dog, at least. I stood there and mentally played, "If my house is burning down, and I can run in and grab something, what should it be?" My paper files, in a wheeled hanging file drawer? My oldest, not-digitized photo albums, armloads of big books in the other bedroom? My computer? (No, the computer has nearly nothing uniquely on it, I store almost everything in the cloud.) What else could I have done? Since I suspected an electrical fire, turn off the power in the basement? (Going to have to think that one through, I think it's right, except for two things: generally, advice is to leave, not go down to an area where you could get trapped, and how do you problem solve if you eliminate the source of the problem too quickly? So if I actually smelled a problem, flipping the switch might be a good idea except for the risk of going down to do it, but since I was unsure what or even if there was a problem, no.)
After slightly more than five minutes, I heard sirens. I heard them come up the parkway behind my house, turn onto the main road, then approach my street. The sirens were loud, and there was some honking. I stood out in the front, and waved and signaled as soon as I saw them.
They couldn't have been nicer. They poked around, and they used a "thermal detector" in the attic. They noted it was hot (well, yeah) but there were no hot spots that worried them. After checking everywhere, they (and I) turned our attention to how to turn off the alarms.
While my new basement alarms are wired into the house (as now required by code) the one in the bedroom is battery operated. So, we took the alarm down, and removed the batteries (six lithium AAs - they last for years). They waited while I replaced them (with ordinary AAs, will get lithium later) and it ran a test. It did not alert to smoke. All the basement ones also ran a test. So the lead fireman said, very seriously, "Call again if there is a hint of any problem. We'd much rather come back than not. And get that fan repaired or replaced!" He shook my hand and they went on their way.
So now, I'm sitting here sniffing the air regularly. I continually think I've got a smoke smell. I'm certainly not grilling tonight! I worry the wrong type batteries mean the alarm won't work right, even though it tested itself. (The firemen offered me a loaner alarm for the night but I declined.) And I've added even more things to my to-do list:
So, first I looked around near the bedroom and saw and smelled nothing. So then I waved a towel at the alarm, as one does to disperse whatever is in the air. It kept on BEEPing and warning. I grabbed a step stool and pushed its single big button that was flashing red. The alarm responded with, "The alarm cannot be silenced. Smoke levels are too high. Emergency." BEEP BEEP BEEP. I still saw nothing and smelled nothing and even listened, nothing. I went all over the house, nothing. I brought the stepladder up from the basement. I used it to climb up and poke my head into the crawlspace attic. It was very hot up there, but it's over 90 degrees out, so what do you expect? There was no smoke that I could see by my phone flashlight, and no smell of smoke. I pushed the button on the alarm again, and again it said it would not turn off.
I was perplexed. I put the dog out in the fenced back yard, stepped outside myself, and for the second time in my life, dialed 911. Hey, I pay taxes happily to get civic services. I don't want to be one of those people, who disable alarms and safety devices because they know better, and then are sorry. No Darwin Award for me.
That call was also interesting. First question was address. Second question was "Police, fire or ambulance?" I said fire, and then there were a few excruciating moments waiting to be transferred. Started over with fire dispatcher. Address? Nature of the problem?
"My smart smoke alarm says there are high levels of smoke, but I can't see or smell any smoke. It refuses to reset, so I'd like someone to come out and look and make sure I'm not missing anything."
Response: "Please make sure all people exit the house immediately. We'll send someone out. Phone number? Name? Let's double check the address."
Then, we chatted a bit more. Again, I explained the circumstances, gave the brand name of the alarm, and confessed I had smelled burning plastic when running my ceiling fan a couple of days ago. I shut the fan off, and hadn't used it since. Finally, the dispatcher said they were on their way, she would let me go, but no-one was to re-enter the house before they got there.
So I stood out there, waiting, and went over what I should have done. I have a fire extinguisher, and when I poked my head up in the attic it should have been in my hands. Then, I realized I should have grabbed, at a minimum, my purse and car keys. I had the dog, at least. I stood there and mentally played, "If my house is burning down, and I can run in and grab something, what should it be?" My paper files, in a wheeled hanging file drawer? My oldest, not-digitized photo albums, armloads of big books in the other bedroom? My computer? (No, the computer has nearly nothing uniquely on it, I store almost everything in the cloud.) What else could I have done? Since I suspected an electrical fire, turn off the power in the basement? (Going to have to think that one through, I think it's right, except for two things: generally, advice is to leave, not go down to an area where you could get trapped, and how do you problem solve if you eliminate the source of the problem too quickly? So if I actually smelled a problem, flipping the switch might be a good idea except for the risk of going down to do it, but since I was unsure what or even if there was a problem, no.)
After slightly more than five minutes, I heard sirens. I heard them come up the parkway behind my house, turn onto the main road, then approach my street. The sirens were loud, and there was some honking. I stood out in the front, and waved and signaled as soon as I saw them.
They couldn't have been nicer. They poked around, and they used a "thermal detector" in the attic. They noted it was hot (well, yeah) but there were no hot spots that worried them. After checking everywhere, they (and I) turned our attention to how to turn off the alarms.
While my new basement alarms are wired into the house (as now required by code) the one in the bedroom is battery operated. So, we took the alarm down, and removed the batteries (six lithium AAs - they last for years). They waited while I replaced them (with ordinary AAs, will get lithium later) and it ran a test. It did not alert to smoke. All the basement ones also ran a test. So the lead fireman said, very seriously, "Call again if there is a hint of any problem. We'd much rather come back than not. And get that fan repaired or replaced!" He shook my hand and they went on their way.
So now, I'm sitting here sniffing the air regularly. I continually think I've got a smoke smell. I'm certainly not grilling tonight! I worry the wrong type batteries mean the alarm won't work right, even though it tested itself. (The firemen offered me a loaner alarm for the night but I declined.) And I've added even more things to my to-do list:
- Meet with my insurance agent and make sure I'm adequately insured against total fire loss.
- Practice grabbing the fire extinguisher, mock fire it. (I have used them before, don't need a live fire exercise.)
- Think through what to grab if I have to leave. There are not many scenarios besides fire that would make me have to leave (I'm at the top of a hill, no external floods coming), so it's run out the door, really. The dog is most important, after people. Would I grab the gecko? Purse and car keys, most important after the dog.
Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.
Note: I hit "save" on the post above, but decided not to publish because I didn't want it to be the first post about being retired. I started another post, but then decided it was dinner time and started cooking. The saga continues:
Just as dinner was nearly ready, I heard the smoke alarm talking in the bedroom. I couldn't make it out, but I knew what was coming: BEEP BEEP BEEP. There it was again, and the chorus echoing up the stairs from the basement units.
It's really hard to be calm and collected in the face of this urgent, adrenaline-driving noise. With the heart accelerating again, I turned off the stove and I did the surface rounds: no smoke, no smell in the immediate area. I have a great conditioning to evacuate when there is an alarm - several items in my personal history make this urgent*. Not wanting to call out the firemen again, I put the dog outside. I noted the position of my purse and the car keys, by the back door. I grabbed the fire extinguisher and a flashlight. I re-deployed the step ladder, first to push the button to (temporarily) mute the noise, then to push my head cautiously into the attic, flashlight and extinguisher in hand. Geez, it was hot up there! But no smoke, no smell. Now what? The temporary pause was over and the urgent beeps resumed. I made a complete tour of the house, upstairs and down. Nothing.
I moved the stepladder back from the attic to under the alarm, and pulled the battery-operated device from the ceiling after pushing the button again to silence it. I got out my phone, and checked the app that shows status for all the units. It noted there was a high level of smoke in the bedroom, too high to turn off the alarm - and the beeps started up again, now in my hand. I took the batteries out of the alarm, and after a moment it was silenced. But the app still showed there was an emergency, and the basement units were flashing red (though thankfully silently now).
I was mostly, but not 100%, convinced the bedroom unit was malfunctioning. I didn't want to leave it disabled, because what if there really was a smoldering intermittent thing happening? Then I realized I was set! Due to a mix-up during last year's basement renovations, I had an extra battery-operated smoke alarm unit. It was still in its original unopened box, waiting for the contractor to stop by and get it. (He probably forgot, because it's been months.) I opened it up, and started setting it up.
This required connecting it to my wifi network, and integrating it with the other smart units in the basement. That, it wouldn't do, because the other units were still saying "Emergency!". So, batteries back into the old unit, it reset itself to a no-smoke indication (as it had done when the firemen were here), and then I was able to set up the new unit. I took the batteries out of the old unit again. It turns out the new unit needs some drilling and anchors to be installed permanently, so right now it's sitting on the top of the stepladder near where it will go permanently. But it's actively sensing, and not finding any smoke. So I have peace of mind.
I resorted to the internet, looking for tech support for the units. It turns out, mine is one of the oldest units made, and it had reached the end of its useful life. Conveniently, a symptom of its end-of-life cycle is to make false reports of smoke. And, apparently, to pass the self-test I ran with flying colors. Don't you love technology?
I am incredibly drained from the several rushes of adrenaline. Dinner was none the worse for sitting on the stove a while, but it'll be early to bed tonight. I'll be protected, and I'm certain I'll not sleep through any alarms.
--------------
* My home town high school caught fire during a school day, back in the 1960s. As I was told the tale, many classrooms did not evacuate immediately because it was exam season. The corridors filled with dense killer smoke, and many people were trapped, and some passed out from the smoke. While there were no fatalities, dozens of students and teachers were taken to hospitals all over Long Island for smoke inhalation, and several were injured while jumping out of windows or trying to catch those who jumped. This was national news, and led to the rapid installation in schools across the country of fire doors on stairwells and long corridors. This was recent memory in my high school days. My chemistry teacher had a badly healed broken back from catching jumpers, and my brother's bedroom in the house we lived in had a chain-link fire ladder bolted to the floor by his second-story window, as the house had previously belonged to a family who had children who jumped from the burning school. So any time the alarm sounded, out we went, orderly but always urgently. Then 9/11 happened. So besides the primitive reaction to the loud BEEP BEEP BEEP, all of my training is "GO! NOW!". No wonder I'm exhausted.
Note: I hit "save" on the post above, but decided not to publish because I didn't want it to be the first post about being retired. I started another post, but then decided it was dinner time and started cooking. The saga continues:
Just as dinner was nearly ready, I heard the smoke alarm talking in the bedroom. I couldn't make it out, but I knew what was coming: BEEP BEEP BEEP. There it was again, and the chorus echoing up the stairs from the basement units.
It's really hard to be calm and collected in the face of this urgent, adrenaline-driving noise. With the heart accelerating again, I turned off the stove and I did the surface rounds: no smoke, no smell in the immediate area. I have a great conditioning to evacuate when there is an alarm - several items in my personal history make this urgent*. Not wanting to call out the firemen again, I put the dog outside. I noted the position of my purse and the car keys, by the back door. I grabbed the fire extinguisher and a flashlight. I re-deployed the step ladder, first to push the button to (temporarily) mute the noise, then to push my head cautiously into the attic, flashlight and extinguisher in hand. Geez, it was hot up there! But no smoke, no smell. Now what? The temporary pause was over and the urgent beeps resumed. I made a complete tour of the house, upstairs and down. Nothing.
I moved the stepladder back from the attic to under the alarm, and pulled the battery-operated device from the ceiling after pushing the button again to silence it. I got out my phone, and checked the app that shows status for all the units. It noted there was a high level of smoke in the bedroom, too high to turn off the alarm - and the beeps started up again, now in my hand. I took the batteries out of the alarm, and after a moment it was silenced. But the app still showed there was an emergency, and the basement units were flashing red (though thankfully silently now).
I was mostly, but not 100%, convinced the bedroom unit was malfunctioning. I didn't want to leave it disabled, because what if there really was a smoldering intermittent thing happening? Then I realized I was set! Due to a mix-up during last year's basement renovations, I had an extra battery-operated smoke alarm unit. It was still in its original unopened box, waiting for the contractor to stop by and get it. (He probably forgot, because it's been months.) I opened it up, and started setting it up.
This required connecting it to my wifi network, and integrating it with the other smart units in the basement. That, it wouldn't do, because the other units were still saying "Emergency!". So, batteries back into the old unit, it reset itself to a no-smoke indication (as it had done when the firemen were here), and then I was able to set up the new unit. I took the batteries out of the old unit again. It turns out the new unit needs some drilling and anchors to be installed permanently, so right now it's sitting on the top of the stepladder near where it will go permanently. But it's actively sensing, and not finding any smoke. So I have peace of mind.
I resorted to the internet, looking for tech support for the units. It turns out, mine is one of the oldest units made, and it had reached the end of its useful life. Conveniently, a symptom of its end-of-life cycle is to make false reports of smoke. And, apparently, to pass the self-test I ran with flying colors. Don't you love technology?
I am incredibly drained from the several rushes of adrenaline. Dinner was none the worse for sitting on the stove a while, but it'll be early to bed tonight. I'll be protected, and I'm certain I'll not sleep through any alarms.
--------------
* My home town high school caught fire during a school day, back in the 1960s. As I was told the tale, many classrooms did not evacuate immediately because it was exam season. The corridors filled with dense killer smoke, and many people were trapped, and some passed out from the smoke. While there were no fatalities, dozens of students and teachers were taken to hospitals all over Long Island for smoke inhalation, and several were injured while jumping out of windows or trying to catch those who jumped. This was national news, and led to the rapid installation in schools across the country of fire doors on stairwells and long corridors. This was recent memory in my high school days. My chemistry teacher had a badly healed broken back from catching jumpers, and my brother's bedroom in the house we lived in had a chain-link fire ladder bolted to the floor by his second-story window, as the house had previously belonged to a family who had children who jumped from the burning school. So any time the alarm sounded, out we went, orderly but always urgently. Then 9/11 happened. So besides the primitive reaction to the loud BEEP BEEP BEEP, all of my training is "GO! NOW!". No wonder I'm exhausted.
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