Quick drop-in from Sweden

Just a quick note. I brought the iPad but no keyboard, so I have to tap this out. Complete report when I get home. 

View from a hotel window,
sublime edition

After three fabulous days in Stockholm, today was a marathon of trains and buses to get to this ineffably cute coastal holiday city of Kalmar. I’m staying in a converted 200-year-old fish processing facility literally built out over the water. Tomorrow’s agenda is to simply spend a lazy morning on the hotel’s waterfront deck drinking coffee and catching up on my notes, then storm the castle (oops, I mean tour it) and then board my ship in the evening  

The adventure continues!

I went to the supermarket next door, and found this!
Rye crisp “sandwiches”! Shelf stable!
This could be the perfect bring-along airplane snack!

Baltimore Interlude

I spent the weekend in Baltimore, looking at boats and airplanes. It was a fun little getaway, and it makes me want to do more of these solo-ish trips. I also considered it a useful rehearsal for my trip to Sweden. I used a new bag I bought for the trip, and brought the clothes, toiletries and gadgets I plan to bring to Sweden. 

When I read about the Sail250 extravaganza at the end of last year, I went ahead and booked a hotel room in Baltimore on the dates. Later, several people from my sailing club booked spots at a marina in the port for the same reason. Friday, I drove up to downtown Baltimore. The traffic was huge, but while I was slugging it out on I95 towards the city, they were practising for the airshow Saturday and Sunday, so I saw regular flights of fancy planes swooping across the sky.

After dropping my bag, I set out to look at the ships and to rendezvous with the club and their boats. The club tradition is potluck happy hour with heavy hors d'oeuvres, so I wore a backpack with my contribution. The marina was almost three miles away by a direct route, but I followed the shoreline and made it much longer, stopping to admire many beautiful tall ships along the way. However, I was ready to be done somewhat before I got to the marina!

I was greeted with enthusiasm by club members, and a very boozy Painkiller was quickly in my hand. As I hadn't had much lunch, the first few sips went to my head and that was enough drinking for me. Joining us on the boat was the brother of a club member, who was in town because he had a technical role for airshow logistics - very interesting to hear his stories. Not long before sunset, we all piled on to a the wide deck of a trimaran and took a slow tour by water of the harbor and the boats. 

The next day, I set off by water taxi over to Fort McHenry (site of "by dawn's early light", war of 1812, not it's 250th yet!). There I set up on a sloped hill centered on the airshow "box", and picnicked on a pastrami sandwich from a local deli. It had been forecast to rain, and while there were a couple mild sprinkles, it didn't thunder so the air show went on. The park had many people but was far from crowded. Sadly, I realized I hadn't applied sunscreen (because of the cloudy skies, I reckon), so after a while I put on my black rain jacket and sweltered but didn't burn. (Except for my very red nose!)  The fast and noisy jets were a lot of fun to watch - the British, the French, and the American teams. Many people had brought hearing protection, and I had in my earbuds. Surprisingly to me, my Airpods 4, which are advertised as not blocking the ear canal completely, still have remarkable effective active noise cancellation. I have a decibel meter app on my phone, and the noise peaked at 113 db! Definitely feel-it-in-your-bones and maybe-damage-ears territory. But thrilling!

For dinner, I visited a unique "Halal Fusion Tacos" place in downtown. Very cool and very delicious! Later, in my room, I watched the Congo-Uzbekistan World Cup match, where Congo came from behind in a thrilling and important victory. 

I think Baltimore has a whole lot to offer and recommend it as a place to spend a couple of days. I managed to get over 12,000 steps each day I was there! But I was never far from a place to sit and have a drink or an ice cream. Very fun.

June TidBits

 Here's a few musings going on in this overthinker's brain...

GLP-1

As noted previously, my weight loss has slowed, if not completely stalled. I requested, and got, an increase in my dosage to the next tier, 5.0 mg. The way my (self-pay) prescription works, I get four vials for injection at a time, delivered to my house in an insulated cold box by UPS. I can request from my WW provider a refill 2 weeks before I run out. My provider sends the approval to Lilly, they send me a note to pay, and then it gets shipped out. Experience has shown it arrives in 3-8 days from when I initiate with WW, so I can't wait until the very end. They don't ship for it to be in transit over the weekend (because coldpack), so if it's all approved and paid for on a Thursday or Friday, it'll be shipped out on Monday to arrive shortly (last time, arrived on Tuesday). 

So my increased dosage arrived when I still had one vial of the lower (2.5 mg) dosage left, but I went ahead and started the higher dosage. I'm counting the weeks and the timing of when I can re-order, and layering into my calculations that I'll be traveling for two of my scheduled injection days (requiring keeping vials cool and transporting and disposing of my syringe and needles), but also I need to skip a dose the second week I'm traveling because I've got a colonoscopy scheduled the week I'm back and they require 8 days since the last injection to be clear from my system. So, my thinking is, I'll bring the single, lower, dose with me, and a single syringe. I've already checked (via Reddit) on how to dispose of sharps in Sweden. I'll inject in the hotel and dispose of my sharps on land the morning before I board the ship, so no pesky needles around in a place where all garbage is sorted before disposal. 

Further, I should request my refill from Europe, to be processed and sent the Monday after I get home, so I'll be there to unpack and refrigerate when it arrives. 

Overthinking! Sometimes it's useful! More often it's not! But it happens!

TV and Movies

My TV watching comes in bursts, and my tastes change depending on my mood. For a long time, my "total veg" show has been Antiques Roadshow. I used to watch it with my mother, and I find it comforting but it doesn't require a lot of attention. I can walk away and miss a bit without it mattering. But, I'm pretty much caught up with current episodes. So now, the comfort watch is the Great British Baking Show, steered by my friend Kim. It's a competition, but far from cutthroat. It has a 10 (or so) episode season, with an arc as people are eliminated. Some of the hosts are just annoying. And, it makes my mouth water! But it doesn't take a lot of brain power and I enjoy it. Many seasons in the can! I started with the earliest season on on Netflix, and digressed to check out "season 1" on Roku. It started with a different format, where they traveled around Britain each week, and the challenges were simpler. The hosts and judges were mostly different, though Paul Hollywood was there at the start. I decided to stick with the Netflix seasons for now.

I continue to chip away at Vikings, and it is really growing on me. But for some reason, I don't pull it up very often at home. Maybe because there, if I turn on the TV I'm more into just zoning out. Vikings takes more brain power from me. But I'll have at least a season downloaded to the ipad for my flights to and from Europe, and I'm likely to want to catch up as I'm in the area!

I only ever watched the first two seasons of the alternate space-oriented history, For All Mankind. I checked, and there are five seasons total so far, and one 6-episode season of a spin off, Star City. So I'm back into it now. It takes more brainpower than a reality show, but it's less... fraught? violent? than Vikings, so easier to watch.

 On movies, I watched SuperGirl. Fun! Not five stars, but I enjoyed it. The dog is a big part of it.

Books

I've drifted into too much social media time, and I'm consciously re-prioritizing reading and listening to books in an effort to keep the surfing time down. I'm keeping a queue of current and popular books on my library website, fed by reading reviews and recommendations. Randomly, they come through in bunches, and I feel the pressure to get to them all in the three weeks I'm given. But I've become brutal about not finishing anything that doesn't really pull me in. I don't have a rule about how far in I have to go before giving up. But I have started keeping track of my DNF's in GoodReads, with usually a sentence or two about why I quit. I also get a daily email from "BookBub", with lists of e-books currently discounted to $1.99 or thereabouts. Many of those are back-catalogue, and I'm filling out my collection of a few authors I really enjoy and will likely enjoy re-reading, when I see them pop up. I still only do e-books, but I have an e-ink reader that lets me have apps from all the popular vendors, not just Amazon. My preference is Bookshop.org, made by a support organization for independent bookstores. I've nominated a local store, and they get a few pennies from every book I buy.

None of the recent books I've read really stand out. I continue to mostly read mysteries, thrillers, science fiction and fantasy that include elements of mysteries and thrillers. Once I find an author I like, I'll work my way through their whole oeuvre. One series I'm listening to is "Mrs Pollifax", who as a woman of a certain age is an unlikely part-time agent for the CIA. They were written starting in the 1980s, go all over the world, and the world has changed a great deal from when they were written. It's interesting to read about maneuvering before the Wall came down, for example. They are a little bit more hard-boiled and less comedic than I was expecting when I picked up the first one, but they are all the better for that.

I did read "Yesteryear", a buzzy current book supposedly about a tradwife. It was unexpected, and I didn't love it, but it definitely has a big reveal worth staying for. But I really don't think it has important things to say about our culture today, it's just an oddity. I listened to "Heartwood", a novel about a woman lost off the Appalachian Trail and the search for her. It's told in different voices from different POVs. I found it un-satisfying as a survivalist story, but maybe a bit more interesting as a police procedural. It tries to straddle both, while striving hardest to be character-driven. 

Biking

I got me an e-bike! It's pretty exciting and a lot of fun. I rode it home from the store three miles away, and have had a couple of additional rides - the longest one just ten miles. I really like exploring on the bike. It's legal to ride on trails in the area, but some of our paved trails are quite narrow and I need to get more confident about slow-speed maneuvering in close quarters. Passing pedestrians is quite fraught. I'm pretty sure I'm going to sell my Vespa, because I'm not likely to use both. The Vespa has some utility for errands, whereas the bike is really only "go for a ride" - because the theft incidence of ebikes and of parts - especially batteries - is really high. I will eventually try to figure out if I can fit it in the back of my car -- if I can even lift it into the car - it weighs 48 pounds. A rack on the back of the car would require a trailer hitch (surprisingly cheap) and a sturdy rack - which is likely to be nearly as expensive as the bike itself. Still, there are spots within a reasonable drive that would be fun to ride on.

I keep the power-assist function on the bike quite low. The way I have it set up, the harder I push a pedal, the more power-assist I get. It has eight conventional forward gears, so I'm shifting all the time riding on hills. On the steepest hills (which includes the last two blocks to get to my house), I push the power-assist higher and pump hard on the pedals and fly up the hills. My bike does have a throttle which will provide power without pedalling, but except for a cautious trial on level ground, I haven't used it.  I want to experiment more, however, because I read people use it to get started from a stop while pointed up hill - something which is otherwise a little bit tough.

World Cup

I've been following it, and watched a couple of games. Very exciting - on Saturday night, Congo came from behind to beat Uzbekistan, and thus advance to the next round of the brackets - the round of 32. Our family watches these games and have a text going during it. I'm also paying attention to Norway and Sweden and Germany, especially, since I'll be in Sweden during the semi-finals and finals. I'm pretty sure the folks on the ship will figure out a way to watch those games, they will be a topic of conversation, and I don't want to be a complete ignoramus. So it's fun, besides!

Quick Trip to Oregon

 (Or, Sleep is Over-rated!)

I made a quick trip out to the West Coast to see my girl. And, not coincidentally, to see the legendary Oregon Coast. The physical geography definitely lives up to the hype.

The problem is, there is no efficient way to get to where my girl is, a small inland town. I flew to and from Eugene, which required a mid-continent connecting point. The way the schedules worked out, I got into Eugene at 10 pm their time, 1 am my time. Then I picked up a car rental, and drove on down to Roseberg, another 90 minutes.

It's always a challenge to set up in a rental car, figuring it out. And my problem-solving abilities were not at peak performance in the middle of the night. This time, at least, I didn't need to search the car interior for the key fob, it was handed to me and I was given a parking space number. First, I had to try to adjust the seat so I could reach the pedals (is it electric? do I have to start the car first?) and then adjust the mirrors. I'm used to a proximity fob in place of a key, but after searching for a button to push I found instead a place to insert a key. I studied the small, square fob and finally found a button that caused a key to pop out. It started right up, but because it was a hybrid, it didn't sound like it had started. But things on the dash lighted up. Next task was connecting the screen to my phone where I had input my Roseberg motel address. I had cleverly brought both USB-A and USB-C cords with me, because I once had to switch cars due to having only the wrong cord. So imagine my surprise to find the cord was only charging, not connecting to the systems. Finally, in the menu, I found something saying "cord for Android only, activate Apple Car Play via bluetooth". So finally I pulled out of the parking lot and set out.

It was very very dark. It wasn't far to the single expressway that went all the way to Roseberg. But the expressway was dark and winding, requiring attention and both hands on the wheel. I knew I needed noise in the car to stay awake and alert. I had set up my book to play, and started it when on the expressway. It ran five minutes to the end of the chapter and stopped. In no position to take my eyes off the road or a hand more than momentarily off the wheel, I punched Apple music and the "Just for you" box that popped up. 

AAARRRGGGGHHHH! When did Apple decide I had absolutely APPALLING taste in music? There was a series of 70s and 80s disco country pop schlock playing, most of which I had never heard before, but all of which was horrible. I kept hitting "skip" and something else awful came on. Finally, I punched enough buttons to find my own actual playlists, and started up an R&B series that Apple took and ran off with, much better (though still maybe not my first choice). Upon sober reflection the next day, I'm guessing the horrible mix came about because of the singing group I'm in. Every new session, I make up a playlist of the original recordings of the songs we are going to do, and every session there are some real stinkers in the mix, along with many fun ones. Karen Carpenter, anyone?  

So finally I got to my motel, just a block from the expressway, and fell asleep the instant my head hit the pillow. 

At the seal habitat

The next morning, Friday, I went and picked up my girl. She is living in a nice house with co-workers. Everyone else was off at work, so we just packed up and headed to the coast, two or more hours away.

More difficult driving - windy 2-lane roads through the (gorgeous) mountains, often with a steep drop-off and no guard rail. But the coast was worth it! And so, frankly, was the drive. Remember those middle and high school days when a drive was how to capture your kid and maybe have an actual conversation? I learned a lot about my girl's life out there. She is doing difficult work, difficult physically, mentally, and emotionally, taking all of the actual job, the company she works for, and the environment she lives in, into account. So brave! So capable! 

We went up to look at a seal habitat off a state park, catching our breath in the brisk cold constant wind. After contemplating the seal family dynamics for a while, we hit up a vegan restaurant in Coos Bay. Then off to a little local sea aquarium, that had tanks filled with water circulating from the bay right there, and many interested sea creatures. My girl knew them all! 

By then, we could check into our fabulous motel for the next two nights. Built on a hillside looking over the ocean in Bandon, Oregon, every room had a water view and a balcony. We both crashed for a while, took a little walk, brought some Chinese food back to the room, and crashed again. 

Puffin sculpture made of
beach-combed garbage

Saturday was our chill day. We drove 10 minutes to a beach access, and walked along the cliff and down by the water. The wind! The wind was whipping around at nearly 20 knots, as it apparently does all the time. It was high tide, and there was some shelter from the wind down on the beach.

Back to the room for another rest, then a foray on foot down through the little town of Bandon. We found an art gallery / local foodstuffs place built in an old warehouse, and picked up a couple of goodies. We picked a horrible place for lunch - waited 45 minutes for avocado toast and bowl of chowder - and the chowder was served with oyster crackers that were rancid and smelled awful. Oh well. We walked down to a dairy for some really good ice cream, and we had leftover Chinese food in the room in case of emergency.

More chill out in the room, watching the view and dozing. We had a low-tide rendezvous planned at other beach access point. My girl was excited to get to tide pools at low tide and see who and what was living there. It was absolutely the most fun ever! Rocks that had been surrounded by water before were high and dry, and many had tunnels and passageways through them. We saw some critters, and I got a commentary on the life styles of tidal animals.

High tide- later, we walked to those rocks

We did dinner again on foot in town at the brew pub - something every little town has. We were actually surprised at how not-crowded the town and restaurants were, considering it is a tourist town and the weather was fabulous. Back in the room, we figured out how to get Netflix loaded onto the TV, and watched the movie "Remarkably Bright Creatures".  This fun and enjoyable movie is told partially from the POV of an old smart octopus that lives in a cute little local aquarium a lot like the one we had visited the day before, so it was highly appropriate.

Sunday morning, up and out of the room by 6:30 am. Drop my girl in Roseberg, and off to Eugene airport. Arrived in Chicago to find the flight on to DC was delayed by several hours due to thunderstorms on the East Coast. So we finally landed at DCA at 12:30 am, and then sat on the tarmac in sight of the terminal for another 90 minutes before we got to a gate. (Is there anything more frustrating than staring at your destination a short walk away for more than an hour?) Not too many Ubers at that time of night, and they charge a premium. But the DC metro shuts down in the wee hours and it was way too far to walk. Finally, walked in my door at nearly 3 am.  VERY long day.

 

But worth it! 

 

Stylish dog on my plane

 

Moving Along

I'm feeling kind of at loose ends at the moment - waiting for things to happen. They start happening next week! But right now, I'm filling time with chores.

The good news is, I've really been feeling a lot more energetic recently. I've motivated myself by scheduling things to happen, and I'm out there doing things to clear the decks so when they do (happen), I'll be able to take advantage. So chores and more chores it is - gardening and house, mostly. But I'm getting things done that have literally sat on a list for years. Trivial things, not major improvements, but things that I notice or that make a little difference in each day. So some feeling of satisfaction from that.

And more satisfaction from the fact I am clearly stronger than a year ago. It's obvious in my weight workouts. It's also showing up in the activity stats my watch collects. So far this year, my average steps are higher than the previous three years. That makes them the highest since my counted steps fell off a cliff at the end of 2022. (Why did they fall off a cliff? I went back and looked - I think I decided to let my knees determine how much I moved overall. The knee operation was in November 2023 - and I spent much of the year waiting for it.)

The less good news includes my knees - both of them - are hurting more than a little. Not so that I can't walk, just enough for me to feel them every time I climb stairs. But I've decided not to allow them to limit me so much. I'm squatting and lunging and stair climbing away. And walking and standing. My doctor has assured me that I will not damage the knees by using them, and I choose to believe him. And really, they usually feel at their worst when I start an activity, and feel no worse, or even better, as I move along.

More less good news is that my weight loss has slowed or stalled. I weigh every day I'm home, and the weight jumps around a lot each day: down .4 pounds, then up .8, then down .3, then down another .1, then up .2 .... Pop quiz: did I lose weight or not? Picking a trend out is not so easy - I have to use averages, step back and squint. Are any of the numbers the lowest I've seen this year? That's a positive sign! But then up 2.4 pounds the very next day! I won't stop the daily stepping on the scale, but I'm only rarely spending any time figuring out what that means for the trend.

I am spending that time right now, because I'm coming up on the time to order my next four weeks of meds. Is it time to increase the dosage? I'm definitely having more food thoughts, a change from a few weeks ago when I was more gliding along. So continuing to look at the weight data is important, but so is assessing how much effort I'm putting into managing my food. I liked when it seemed more easy and natural to make the right choices.

So I'll continue to monitor for the next few days. Unless I have a big whoosh of a loss in the next week (usually heralded by peeing my brains out), I'm going to request the next higher dosage. The good news is, that will give me two weeks to get used to that higher dosage (5.0) before I go away on vacation. The internet has many horror stories of side effects - I don't take them all seriously. But someone pointed out that this first step increase is the only time the dosage is literally doubled. Each additional increase is another 2.5 mg, but  it's a smaller percentage increase. 

To make me feel better, here is the big picture - my weight as an adult:

Each horizontal line is 10 pounds. The red line is where I stabilized before. 
The blue line is my goal weight in previous weight loss efforts.

 

I'm back down to the pre-intuitive-eating weight, before I decided "Fuck It, I'm just eating". Yay! And on this scale, you can't really tell that the slope has tapered off in the last month. So I really like this picture.

 

 

Diving Deeper: Nuance, But It's Still Lovely

I was grabbed by a headline in the NY Times today, "How to Be Old". Hey, I'm old, and I'd like to know how to be! So I read the piece. Very forgettable. Except for the very last line: "I’m fond of quoting the poet Philip Larkin: “What will survive of us is love.” That should do it." What a lovely thought! I was charmed, and intrigued.

As the NYTimes does, there was a link to the whole poem at the Poetry Foundation website, "An Arundel Tomb" by Philip Larkin. (The link is preserved in my cut-and-pasted quote above.) I have as an attribute the ability to fall deep down rabbit holes, to keep digging deeper on something that interests me. In fact, one set of feedback from a corporate assessment process described me this way: "When you read an interesting book, you will go look up additional references. More, you will collect many books on different aspects of the same subject, and you will actually read most of those."

Guilty as charged. When I am into something, I'm all the way in. I clicked through to the provided link, and read the whole poem. Then I read the commentary from the Poetry Foundation. Then I read more, and this short quote is not all there is to the poem, or the story.

Philip Larkin is no Mary Oliver; he was a cynic, an atheist, and "notoriously grumpy". My man! Dude! Where have you been all my life? I guess this is what I get for majoring in field trips rather than English. I mean, I'd heard the name, but had no idea what he was about.

Here, the poet is musing on how much we want to believe in love, even when it is not true or pure or simple. Here is the whole thing:

 

An Arundel Tomb

By Philip Larkin

 

Side by side, their faces blurred,   

The earl and countess lie in stone,   

Their proper habits vaguely shown   

As jointed armour, stiffened pleat,   

And that faint hint of the absurd—   

The little dogs under their feet.

Such plainness of the pre-baroque    

Hardly involves the eye, until

It meets his left-hand gauntlet, still   

Clasped empty in the other; and   

One sees, with a sharp tender shock,   

His hand withdrawn, holding her hand.

They would not think to lie so long.   

Such faithfulness in effigy

Was just a detail friends would see:

A sculptor’s sweet commissioned grace   

Thrown off in helping to prolong   

The Latin names around the base.

They would not guess how early in

Their supine stationary voyage

The air would change to soundless damage,   

Turn the old tenantry away;

How soon succeeding eyes begin

To look, not read. Rigidly they

Persisted, linked, through lengths and breadths   

Of time. Snow fell, undated. Light

Each summer thronged the glass. A bright   

Litter of birdcalls strewed the same

Bone-riddled ground. And up the paths   

The endless altered people came,

Washing at their identity.   

Now, helpless in the hollow of   

An unarmorial age, a trough

Of smoke in slow suspended skeins   

Above their scrap of history,   

Only an attitude remains:

Time has transfigured them into   

Untruth. The stone fidelity

They hardly meant has come to be   

Their final blazon, and to prove   

Our almost-instinct almost true:   

What will survive of us is love.

I think it is a better and truer choice to quote the last TWO lines:

Our almost-instinct almost true:
What will survive of us is love.

It's the "almost" that makes it real and profound to me, not a saccharine myth, but the human reality. In their day, marriage among the aristocracy was not a matter of romance, but rather business. But we want this romantic image to be true. And by wanting it, it will become more true.

(And, I'm as touched by the little dogs as by their clasped hands.) 

I was able to get an ebook of a novel Larkin wrote, so I'm ready to continue to dive even deeper. Apparently I have to go analogue to get any of his poetry books. Maybe.

May Check-in

Me, in mixed white stripes on a sunny day.
It's important to have contrast, thus red shoes.
And for accessories, my black-and-white dog.

Today starts my 13th week on the weight loss meds. I started February 12. How am I doing? So far, so good! Things are going pretty well!

As of today, I've lost about 15 pounds. This is fuzzy, because I waffle on what my starting weight was. My weight is volatile on a daily basis. But since there is no official registry of my weight or weight loss, I have decided to measure from the single highest weight I have been this year, on January 24. That was right after my January vacation and about three weeks before I started the drug. But it's a choice that makes me feel good, because it shows today's numbers in the best light. And who am I accountable to for this? No-one, that is! So let's go with the feel-good choice!

Speaking of feelings, how do I feel overall? Pretty good, that's how! This is a big change from a couple of weeks ago. I got home from France having over-exerted myself and with a head cold, and felt crummy throughout the body a lot of the time. My internet buds tell me often the GLP-1 drugs lead to a decrease in arthritis swelling and pain, both for rheumatoid and osteo forms (I have osteo). But I felt crummy throughout my joints and muscles, all.

But that was two weeks ago! Now, I feel SO much better! What am I doing that might be helping this? 

- Prioritizing sleep. Rigorous go-to-bed times. On those occasions I'm awake in the middle of the night, tossing and turning, and I end up with less than six hours sleep, I take a nap. But that's happening less, the past couple of weeks. I've racked up some super slumber time.

- Prioritizing exercise. I've been doing a functional strength workout with a trainer twice a week for some time now, but I'm pushing myself harder and volunteering for heavier weights. And, significantly, I've added back a cardio component. I did this in February, then fell off the bandwagon in March and early April. On the trip, I was appalled at how out of shape I was for all the walking I did. So back onto a cardio machine four times a week now. It's for just 15 minutes right now, but I'm pushing my heart rate up high and keeping it there for most of the time. After three weeks of this, I'm able to keep up a much higher intensity for most of the ride. Nothing motivates me quite like actually seeing the improvement!

- Taking a supplement and a longer-term anti-inflammatory. For my frequent body pains, I take tylenol. I can't take ibuprofen because it ruined my stomach. Tylenol helps quickly with pain, but does nothing to change the underlying condition. But let's not discount dealing with the pain! I also had in my medicine cabinet from my knee doctor a vial of a prescription anti-inflammatory, Celebrex. It doesn't act quickly, but over time it is supposed to be very good at treating inflammation. I've got a couple of months supply on hand for daily consumption. In addition my doctor recommended, in an off-hand way, taking a supplement I'd never heard of, Co Q10. I still don't know what it does or how it does it, but I'm taking it daily. Of course I've googled it, but evidence on supplements is scarce and shaky. But it doesn't seem to be hurting me, at least.

Sleep, exercise, and tylenol make me feel better right away, and the first two also have longer-lasting positive impacts. But I'm not sure I'd stick with them without the immediate impact. I've always had a hard time believing in the impact of vitamins, supplements, and long-term remedies. You have to take them on faith, faith in the science and studies. But tracing how I feel right now to these longer term remedies is tenuous at best.

So I feel good right now! Yay! But I am suspicious, and I don't trust that this will continue. But I'm continuing with both the supplement and the drug, as an experiment. It's an experiment with a flawed design, since I changed a few things at once. But just in case it's making a difference, I'll continue for now. 

They say that 15 pounds is about a clothing size. The truth is, I was in denial about how heavy I was for the past year - I assumed I'd lose the weight in a week a or two. So I had bought very few clothes for my large size, and instead wore clothes that strained a bit. So now, those clothes are fitting much better! 

My wardrobe in retirement consists mostly of clothes in which I can hike, garden or sail. I have in my closet wedding/fancy clothes, but not much of nicer but not dressy clothes. When we went casual at work many years ago, I was wary of specific prescriptions of what constituted suitable clothes. I suggested a test: if, when you got home, you were going to mow the lawn, change the oil on your car, whip up a huge batch of floury bread from scratch, or hike a few miles on the Appalachian Trail, and you didn't feel a need to change from your office attire first, then your office attire was incorrect. Those very slightly nicer clothes are the ones I've been digging out of my closet and trying on. The picture at the top is an example. I'm still not sure I'm suited for white clothes, because my impulse to just drop to my knees outside and start pulling weeds is somewhat incompatible. I don't want to look like a fashion plate, but I'm trying to not look like I'm about to hike when all I'm doing is meeting someone for lunch.