Observing

Low-rent garage

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In anticipation of a potential ice or snow storm, we covered our Fusion with tarps to preclude having to scrape off ice and snow.

It was a little windy and it was blowing the tarps up when we first put them on, so we brought out our trash, recycle, and yard waste bins to use as anchors. 😂


One friend walking by texted us: “Bob and John, Peter and I would like to know if your garbage cans attacked your car before or after happy hour last night?” 😍

Responding that it’s been fun watching people walk by and doing a doubletake when seeing it, she responded: “If you only had a garage. 😂”

I texted back: “Bob’s 1999 Tacoma — in flawless condition — gets that spot.”

An act of kindness

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Yesterday was World Kindness Day, and I did my part to “bring joy” to someone with “a random act of kindness.”

My friend, who occasionally bartends while pursuing her dream of being a comedian, recently made the above post about an incident.

I made a greeting card with that quote on the outside and added the “World Kindness Day!” heading to it, and on the inside, I included:

I found out where she was working last night, and I went to that bar and had a couple of drinks while I caught up with her. I added a 50% tip to that bill, and said my goodbyes.

Before I left the bar, though, I watched her go in the back for something, and I gave the card to one of her co-workers to give to her once I was gone.

A little bit later, I got this text from her:

My work here is done. And my heart is full.

Blood pressure and heart rate stats for October 2025

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I have white coat hypertension (a.k.a. white coat syndrome), so I keep a record of my daily blood pressure readings to take to the doctor’s office whenever I go. I record my heart rate, too, but only because the machine takes it along with my blood pressure.

White coat hypertension aside, knowing your numbers is just plain smart, since high blood pressure is known as “the silent killer.” Do you know yours?

Invaluable AI prompt advice

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I continue to be impressed with the advice about AI prompts that you’re giving to create an image, which is to add a statement like “ask me clarifying questions” to the end of your prompt to help your AI program of choice create a more accurate portrayal of what you’re going for.

Recently, I wanted an image to accompany one of my exercise check-ins. I prompted Copilot AI adding the clarifying statement, and here is the back-and-forth I had with it to create the perfect image on the first try:

Draw me a photo quality image of a 50-year-old man in work casual pants walking by a company snack room holding 2 cookies on a small plate and then 4 cookies in his pocket. Ask me clarifying questions to better understand my needs. One question at a time, keep going until you’re confident you have enough to create a complete image.

Great setup—this has the makings of a wonderfully sly scene. To start shaping it visually: Would you like the man’s expression to be neutral, guilty, smug, distracted, or something else entirely?

Smug.

Perfect. Smug opens up a lot of fun possibilities—maybe a raised eyebrow, a half-smile, or even a glance toward the camera like he knows he’s getting away with something.

Next: what kind of setting do you imagine for the snack room? Is it sleek and modern, cluttered and cozy, or maybe a bit dated and corporate?

Sleek and modern.

Got it—sleek and modern snack room. Think glass-fronted fridge, minimalist counters, maybe some brushed metal and soft lighting.

Next: what kind of work casual pants is the man wearing? Are we talking chinos, slacks, tech-fabric joggers, or something else? And what color?

Tan chinos.

Excellent—tan chinos give us that classic work-casual vibe. They’ll contrast nicely with the sleek snack room.

Next detail: what kind of shirt is he wearing? Button-down, polo, sweater, or something else? And any particular color or pattern?

Button-down.

Thanks! What color or pattern is the button-down—solid blue, plaid, white with stripes, something else? And is it tucked in or untucked?

Blue plaid, tucked in.

Awesome—blue plaid button-down, tucked into tan chinos. That gives us a crisp, office-ready look with just enough personality.

Now, about the cookies: what kind are they? Chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, snickerdoodle, something else? And are they visibly different or all the same?

Chocolate chip.

Classic choice—chocolate chip it is. That’ll make the cookie stash instantly recognizable and relatable.

Now, about the cookies in his pocket: do you want them subtly bulging through the fabric, one peeking out, or clearly visible like he’s flaunting the stash?

Mostly subtle bulging through the fabric with one sticking out a little bit.

Perfect—subtle bulge with one cookie peeking out adds just the right touch of visual mischief.

Next: do you want any other characters in the scene? For example, a coworker in the background, someone reacting, or is it just the man and the snack room?

Two other coworkers in the background reacting.

Great—two coworkers reacting in the background adds a layer of storytelling and contrast to the smug cookie thief.

How would you like them to react? Options could include:
– Shocked or disapproving
– Amused or entertained
– Whispering or gossiping
– Trying to pretend they didn’t see anything

Let me know which vibe you’re going for.

Whispering.

Perfect—two coworkers whispering in the background adds a layer of intrigue and social tension.

Next: what kind of environment surrounds the snack room? Is it part of an open office with desks and glass walls, a hallway with carpet and cubicles, or something else?

Part of an open office with desks and glass walls.

Here it is—your photo-quality image is ready now. Let me know if you’d like to tweak anything or build on this scene further.

𝄞 See the tree, how big it’s grown… ♪

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It’s September 23rd and 12 years ago today, in 2013, I started working at Red Hat.

One Arbor Day around that time, Red Hat had saplings in our building lobby to take for free in the spirit of “plant a tree,” and I took this River Birch, which we — meaning Bob — planted in our front yard.

Almost 10 years later, whenever we sit on the front porch in the morning, I marvel at the tree it has grown into.

Blood pressure and heart rate stats for August 2025

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I have white coat hypertension (a.k.a. white coat syndrome), so I keep a record of my daily blood pressure readings to take to the doctor’s office whenever I go. I record my heart rate, too, but only because the machine takes it along with my blood pressure.

White coat hypertension aside, knowing your numbers is just plain smart, since high blood pressure is known as “the silent killer.” Do you know yours?

Blood pressure and heart rate stats for July 2025

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I have white coat hypertension (a.k.a. white coat syndrome), so I keep a record of my daily blood pressure readings to take to the doctor’s office whenever I go. I record my heart rate, too, but only because the machine takes it along with my blood pressure.

White coat hypertension aside, knowing your numbers is just plain smart, since high blood pressure is known as “the silent killer.” Do you know yours?

Note: I was on a Danube riverboat cruise at the beginning of July, hence the several days with no readings.

Particularly puzzling prepositions

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I thought of the “in” vs. “on” usage the other day for a term I, then, promptly forgot. But, it was similar to saying “in line” vs. “on line,” as in, “I’m standing in/on line for the next teller.”

AI reports:

When discussing waiting in a row or queue, “in line” is the grammatically correct and most common usage in most parts of the English-speaking world.

However, the phrase “on line” is a prominent regional variation, particularly prevalent in the New York City region. While it may sound less conventional to those outside this area, it is still used and understood in that specific region to mean waiting in a queue.

That’s specifically about “in line” vs. “on line.” The Britannica Dictionary talks about how to generally chose “in” vs. “on”:

More interesting than both of those, this entry — from Reddit, I believe — confirms that “the struggle is real”:

Why are “in” and “on” used seemingly randomly in English and how do you explain the difference? I have a friend from Mexico and he asked me to explain the difference between “in” and “on” in English and I didn’t know what to tell him because it really seems random which is correct to use.

  • You get in a car but get on a bus
  • Get in a helicopter but get on a plane
  • Sit in a seat but sit on a bench
  • Read something in a book but read it on a website
  • Lie on the couch but lie in bed
  • Do something on Tuesday but do it in May
  • See something on television but see it in a movie

Why is it like this?

Affordances that actually help

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“Affordances” in the discipline of user-centered design are the things about a product that make their usability “easy” or “intuitive.”

I’ve noted 2 things on this riverboat whose affordances do not advance their usability:

  1. The icons on the water machine, and
  2. The handles on the doors into the lounge and bar.

Water machine

Its affordances: The two icons that indicate sparkling water (on the left side) and still water (on the right side).

I watched person after person put their glass under the right icon when they wanted still water and under the left icon when they wanted sparkling water, which is the intuitive thing to do.

The problem is that both the sparkling and the still water are dispensed in the middle of the machine, so you need to put your glass there regardless of which kind of water you want.

A better affordance would be if those two icons were stacked (like a stoplight) in the middle of the machine above where the water actually comes out, which would make it intuitive to always put your glass there.

Door

Its affordances: The handles on these doors are the same on both sides, and they are the type of handles that one intuitively pulls.

The problem is that you need to push the door to enter the lounge, and you need to pull the door to exit the lounge.

Better affordances would be to have standard handles that people intuitively know how to use — so a flat handle on the side you push to enter and a handle like that one that’s already on them on the side you pull to exit.

Rant over.

Simple syrup, rock candy, and science experiments

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At Costco this morning, a man had a cart with 10 25-lbs of fine granulated sugar and 6 18-packs of bottled water.

Of course, the wheels in my head started immediately spinning to answer the question: “Is there anything you can make with just sugar and water?” So I took it to ChatGPT:

With just sugar and water, you can create a few things, including:

  • Simple Syrup: This is made by dissolving equal parts sugar and water, typically by heating the water and stirring in the sugar until completely dissolved. It’s a versatile liquid sweetener used in:
    • Cocktails
    • Sweetening coffees or teas
    • Making lemonades or other fruit beverages
    • Moistening cakes or pastries
    • Creating sorbets or granitas
  • Rock Candy: You can grow rock candy crystals by creating a supersaturated sugar solution (dissolving more sugar in water than it can usually hold at room temperature by heating it), then letting the solution cool. As it cools, the sugar molecules will crystallize onto a string or stick placed in the solution.
     
  • Hard Candy: By boiling a sugar and water mixture to a high temperature (hard crack stage), then pouring it into molds or onto a prepared surface, you can create hard candy. Note that some recipes for hard candy may include additional ingredients like corn syrup.
     
  • Science Experiments: Sugar and water can be used for interesting science experiments, such as demonstrating density. By creating solutions with varying amounts of sugar, you can layer them in a glass to create a colorful “rainbow” effect.

Our freezer inventories

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Why yes, we do keep an inventory of what’s in our freezers, which informs our weekly menus and helps prevent waste. You know you want a snapshot of what’s in each of them at the moment.

KITCHEN FREEZER
6 Angus burgers 1 can OJ
Eggo waffles 1 package cheese ravioli
Mini breakfast quiches (Box of 72) 1 portion tortellini & meatballs
18 spinach egg white frittatas 1 10-lb bag of ice
¼ bag french fries Plan-ahead brownies
Chopped celery Chocolate ice cream

 

HALL FREEZER
2 lbs. bacon 2 (2-packs) of RAW cordon bleu
16 PB&J Uncrustables 2 packages smoked sausage
4 chicken breasts 1 bag African peanut soup
1 package of 6 chicken thighs 1 bag crispy crown potatoes (hash browns)
2 pork tenderloins 1 bag mixed vegetables
2 trays of 6 chicken & veggie dumplings $1M-dollar spaghetti plan-ahead
AmyLu chicken patties 2 lunch portions Italian Wedding Bake
3 packages hot dogs 2 bottles of OJ
1 package hot dog buns 6 plain bagels
½ bag of shrimp (~12 oz.) 6 sesame bagels
2 1-lb packages lunch meat (1 ham, 1 turkey) 1 lb. butter
1 bag boneless chicken bites 1 whipped topping
4 1-lb packages ground beef Haagen-Dazs® ice cream bars
2 bags of scallops

Look at me now

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I’ll admit that I have a little bias about thinking a lot of weight-lifters are self-centered or narcissistic.

That assessment deepens as I observe someone staring at themselves in the mirror even when they’re not actually exercising — which is to say that I get that some body builders want to make sure their “form” looks good as they’re exercising. But that doesn’t explain why they’re still staring at themselves when they’re between sets.

Today I witnessed staring at yourself raised to a whole new level:

Image generated by Copilot AI

I mean the dude brought a selfie stand with him for the occasion. Perhaps he’s an “influencer.” 🙄 What’s next, light stands and hair-blowing wind machines?

Momma, I’m depending on you to tell me the truth.

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A man is sitting in the Planet Fitness locker room — not in the area with the lockers, but in the area with the showers. Why???

He is fully clothed, looking straight ahead, and talking — possibly into a phone, although there isn’t one in sight.

He says into the air: “He was a rolling stone. You know, wherever he laid his hat was his home.”

He was speaking, not singing, and I thought, “Is he speaking the lyrics to that song, or is he talking to someone on the phone and trying to pass that off as an original thought? What’s happening here?”

Then he says: “Yeah, wherever you lay your wig be you home. I know you wear a wig, girl.”

As weirdly riveting as it all was, I’d finished dressing, and I took leave before he gave an update about papa’s outside children and another wife…

It’s another sleepy, dusty Delta day…

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AI’s summary of the lyrics of this song:

The lyrics tell the story of a family reacting to the [June 3rd] news that Billie Joe MacAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge.

The family discusses the event during a meal, sharing memories and observations about Billie Joe and other happenings in their lives.

Over time, the story reveals that Billie Joe was seen with a girl throwing something off the bridge.

A year passes, and the family experiences more tragedy, including the father’s death.

The narrator is left spending time picking flowers and throwing them off the same bridge.

Blood pressure and heart rate stats for May 2025

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I have white coat hypertension (a.k.a. white coat syndrome), so I keep a record of my daily blood pressure readings to take to the doctor’s office whenever I go. I record my heart rate, too, but only because the machine takes it along with my blood pressure.

White coat hypertension aside, knowing your numbers is just plain smart, since high blood pressure is known as “the silent killer.” Do you know yours?

It’s Cher’s birthday today!

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Cher (/ʃɛər/ SHAIR; born Cheryl Sarkisian on May 20, 1946) is an American singer, actress and television personality. She’s 79 today!

And as Bob is wont to do on celebrity singers’ birthdays (or when they die, truth be told), we’re playing “All Cher All Day.”

At around 6 p.m., he walked by me to put 6 of her CDs back in the collection, when I asked, “Do we have any left to play?”

Him: 27. Then we can move on to the Sonny & Cher CDs.

Me: 27 more CDs???

Him: Yes.

Then, after checking the collection: “Actually, only 17 more.”

Shortly we’ll be having dinner, and it’ll be none other than:

Click image for recipe.

And Bob’s most delicious dinner!

Wait… football players line dance on the field?

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While on the Planet Fitness elliptical machine, facing one of their huge TV screens, I saw a headline on GMFB that asked, “Should ‘tush push’ be banned?”

I was, like, “Huh? Is that a line dance they do when they make some great play or get a touchdown?”

At the height of my line-dancing days, I knew close to 50 line dances, one of which was the Tush Push.

Turns out the tush push in football is a play, not a dance, and a controversial play at that.

What the Tush Push (a.k.a. the “brotherly shove”) looks like in football:

What the Tush Push looks like in line dancing:

Airbnb adding new services and experiences

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Airbnb expands into services and experiences, plans more social and AI features (8 minute read)

Mehta, I. (2025, May 13). Airbnb expands into services and experiences, plans more social and AI features. TechCrunch.

“Airbnb has introduced a new feature that allows travelers to book services and experiences. The new offerings can be added to trips or booked independently.

There are currently 10 categories of services available, including:

  • catering
  • photography
  • massages
  • personal training
  • makeup

The services are available in 100 cities worldwide across eight countries. Airbnb is also launching exclusive experiences that involve celebrity partnerships. It has planned social features for release later this year.”

TLDR Newsletter. (2025, May 14). TLDR.

I just don’t 𝙪𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙧𝙨𝙩𝙖𝙣𝙙.

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The lady in front of me at the register was purchasing this:

Cashier: Would you like this double-bagged?

Inside my ready-to-explode head: No. No. No. No bag at all! It’s got its own handle!

Customer: Oh, yes. That would make it so much easier to put in my car.

Me in my ahead again: 𝙒𝙝𝙖𝙩??? How will the handles of two bags (which will no doubt end up in a landfill) make it easier to put this item in your car than the handle that’s on the bottle? What is 𝘸𝘳𝘰𝘯𝘨 with people???

As the cashier grabbed the first of my six items, I immediately said, “I don’t need a bag for any of this.”

New Google logo

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Google has updated its colorful “G” logo for the first time in almost a decade. An update to the Google app on iOS and Pixel phones shows a new logo that blends the logo’s red, yellow, green, and blue colors into a gradient, as reported by 9to5Google.

Google’s new logo

Blood pressure and heart rate stats for April 2025

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I have white coat hypertension (a.k.a. white coat syndrome), so I keep a record of my daily blood pressure readings to take to the doctor’s office whenever I go. I record my heart rate, too, but only because the machine takes it along with my blood pressure.

White coat hypertension aside, knowing your numbers is just plain smart, since high blood pressure is known as “the silent killer.” Do you know yours?

China’s megacity of 34M people, but few have ever heard of it

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There are some great, great images in this mostly-visual story.

Chongqing, the world’s largest city – in pictures (4 minute read)
The Guardian. (2025, April 27). Chongqing, the world’s largest city – in pictures.

“Chongqing, China, is as big as Austria. With 34 million inhabitants, the city is the emblem of the fastest urban revolution on the planet. It has become a symbol of the Chinese ability to reshape the world. This article contains a gallery of images from all over the city showing sights like the Yangtze River, street food stalls, various shopping centers, and more.” TLDR. (2025, April 28).

The 2025 Mordecai neighborhood yard sales

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Because Bob clears out things regularly and donates them to Cause for Paws, we didn’t have that many things to sell at a yard sale, so Bob joined forces with our across-the-street neighbor to be on the map for our neighborhood day of yard sales.

A quintessential customer service experience

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In case anyone (everyone?) has forgotten what a good customer service experience sounds and feels like, we just had this one with a staff member at the Anne Murray Centre museum in Springhill, Nova Scotia. Email exchange:

We (2 of us) are interested in visiting the centre on Thursday, Oct 2, 2025 at around noon. This will be during a cruise ship port call from 9:30 a.m. – 6 p.m. in Halifax. We’re planning to rent a car at the port as soon as we get off the ship, drive to the centre, spend an hour or 2 there, and then drive back to make sure we’re back in time for the 6 p.m. ship departure.

Our questions:
1) Does this seem doable to you?
2) Do the tickets have a time of day (e.g., entry at noon) associated with them?
3) When would be the earliest we would be able to purchase tickets?

Thanks for any help!
John & Bob

Thanks so much for your message and interest in visiting the Centre.

The last of September is usually our last opening, but we can come in for you by appointment. You can just pay at the door. Yes, we’re 2 hours from Halifax and it sounds like a great little trip for you.

Please email me a couple of weeks prior to remind me and confirm, and I’ll make sure someone is here for you.

All the best,
Wanita

Thank you for your prompt and very customer-service-oriented response and generosity, Wanita!

I will definitely email you a couple of weeks before our trip to confirm and with any further details we might have at that time. We appreciate you!

John & Bob

Hi John and Bob,

Thanks so much for getting back to me and for your very kind words! Looking forward to seeing you in the Fall.

Cheers until then,
Wanita

Customer needs awareness

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Having been in the technology business — one way or another — during 40 years of working, I’m very interested in the evolution of the number of outlets being provided in various venues, such as hotel rooms, cruise ship cabins, and waiting areas.

On a recent trip, I stayed at both a Quality Inn and a Hampton Inn, and while the outlets available in the Quality Inn room were adequate, the ones in the Hampton Inn room far exceeded them.

In addition to the outlets in the walls, there were 2 outlets built into the desk itself, 2 built into the lamp sitting on the desk, and 2 on the lamp on the nightstand between the two beds.

The most impressive to me, though, were the two on the microwave. It’s the first time I’ve seen that.

You can safely plug in devices that draw 4 amps or fewer into a 4-amp max outlet, which includes many small electronics like phone chargers, small lamps, and some low-wattage appliances.

A 9-amp max outlet can safely power most common electronic devices like lamps, chargers, computers, and TVs, as long as the total wattage of all devices plugged in doesn’t exceed the outlet’s capacity.

Blood pressure and heart rate stats for March 2025

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I have white coat hypertension (a.k.a. white coat syndrome), so I keep a record of my daily blood pressure readings to take to the doctor’s office whenever I go. I record my heart rate, too, but only because the machine takes it along with my blood pressure.

White coat hypertension aside, knowing your numbers is just plain smart, since high blood pressure is known as “the silent killer.” Do you know yours?

Plumbing repair experience

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We had a surprisingly pleasant and amusing experience with the guy who came out to do our plumbing repairs.

The plumber, Matt, was a nice-looking, young blond guy with tattoos on his neck and elsewhere, and he was as country as a bowl of grits. What an accent!

He was here for about six hours, repairing two of our toilets and our urinal. The urinal repair was quite involved!

I was surprised that he knew how to work on a urinal, as I assumed the plumbing company would have commercial and residential plumbers, and it being less common for urinals to be in houses, the residential plumbers might not be familiar with them.

Matt talked to himself a lot while working. Bob and I were both amused at his ramblings, and we both howled when, at one point during the urinal repair process, he ejaculated: “Holy shit; that worked!”

Later, when we received his emailed invoice for the work, we learned that he wasn’t talking to himself, because this transcript was included:

Called en route
Arrived
Met Robert
Was shown 2 toilets and a urinal

Toilet 1 leaking from tank to bowl bolts
Toilet 2 has a bad flapper
Urinal leaking from bottom, possibly seal or flange

Recommended full rebuild on both standard toilets
Customer approved
Turned off water to home
Rebuilt both toilets with all new components
Turned water back on to home and tested toilets
Toilets working as they should be with no leaks

Explained to homeowner I would have to remove urinal from wall in order to diagnose and make necessary repair
Turned off water to urinal
Cut hard caulking seal
Removed urinal and found broken PVC urinal flange
Non-stock item, had to source from supply house

Drilled out old flange with success ← time of “Holy shit; that worked!” outburst
Cleaned hub
Installed new flange with bolt kit
Made sure flange was level

Allowed glue to cure for a while before setting flange under load with fixture
Set urinal
Secured to wall
Turned on water

Urinal won’t stop flushing
Replaced diaphragm and vacuum breaker
Urinal now flushes and stops when satisfied
Caulked around urinal perimeter

Cleaned up trash and tools
Wrote up notes
Job complete

Customer paid by check

So, apparently, he was not talking to himself but dictating his work progress.

Bob and I both LOLed again at the transcript comment: “Urinal now flushes and stops when satisfied.” Much like ourselves when peeing in it.

Blood pressure and heartrate stats for February 2025

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I have white coat hypertension, also known as white coat syndrome, a condition where blood pressure is higher in a medical setting than in other settings.

That’s my main impetus for taking my blood pressure daily, the results of which I take to my doctor whenever I go for an office visit. She always appreciates seeing my charts, which help her more confidently make any adjustments that might be needed to my BP medicine.

Also, with high blood pressure being called the silent killer, it’s comforting to me to “know my numbers.” Do you know yours?

Average BP for February 2025 was 121/53

Average heartrate for February 2025 was 49.

Ironing things out in the men’s locker room…

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I’m a good shirt folder. There, I said it.

I like to fold the shirts—t-shirts in particular—after doing the laundry.

If a customer tries on a shirt in a store, or unfolds it to get a better look at it or to judge how extra large the extra large is, and they just throw it back on the table or display, I’ll refold it. (I understand my sister does this, too.)

I’ve done this occasionally in the Planet Fitness men’s locker room, when I’ve taken off a shirt to put in the locker while I work out.

I’ll admit that, at times, I’ve been self-conscious while folding one, especially if a bunch of macho dudes (watching “the big game” on the locker room TV) are are just hanging theirs up on the hook in the locker or—worst yet—just balling it up and throwing it in there.

Well, imagine my surprise today when a gentleman had an iron in the locker room, and I don’t mean a travel iron, but a full-fledged steam iron:

He was using the wide shelf in front of a mirror as his ironing board, ironing a nice green-and-white-striped polo shirt.

And he didn’t even appear to be on my team; although, as we all know, it’s impossible to tell by just looking.

Prompt: Strangest habit

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Writing prompt: What is your strangest habit?

I’ve written about this before—it’s probably making an entry on my Google calendar when I change my razor blades. (A quick search shows that I’m probably not even halfway through this one’s life.)

Thinking back on why I started doing this, it was once when I noticed how often other guys seem to change theirs and thought, “I wonder how often I change mine. I know it’s not nearly as often.” So I made an entry in my calendar the next time I did.

In what I was going to call a non sequitur, but is actually tangential, since razors are naturally associated with shaving, I can’t think of shaving without still being flummoxed about this incident 45 years ago:

I’m in a suite in the college dorm, in a bathroom shared among four rooms, and I’ve just lathered up my face to shave. One of the suite residents walks in, looks at me, and says with a critical tone, “That looks like something a cat licked on.”

What’s your strangest habit?

Imma be honest about Instagram

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I don’t like Instagram (IG)—never have. There, I said it.

The biggest issue I have with IG is that it’s a platform based on images, so a photo is required with every post. I don’t want to post an image most of the time I want to share something. I’m a writer. My product is text. So almost every time I post there, I have to create an image of that text. And that’s just silly.

I only joined it to host my 50-word stories when I decided, in January of 2021, to write 3 of them around a theme every day in 2021. I’d heard of accounts that had a shtick going viral on there, accounts like:

and I had big dreams of my 50-word stories being my shtick and doing the same thing. Since that didn’t happen, and I’m done writing them, I’m happy to not log in daily there to post them.

It’s no secret that IG is a “young people’s platform,” so my biggest draw to go there now is that it’s where a lot of my work colleagues post stuff.

So, I’ll hang out on my @instatome account, and let my @jm50wordstories account rest.
 

8 years of entries from my sentence-a-day diary for this day

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In October of 2014, after learning from a friend and colleague that she kept a “sentence-a-day diary” and loving the idea, I started one myself. These are my one-sentence diary entries for this day for the last 8 years.

January 13

2015
Tuesday: While stopped at the light at Blount Street, waiting to turn right onto Peace Street, a man stepped off the sidewalk and pulled on my back passenger-side door handle, which thankfully was locked; I think he thought I was his Uber ride.

2016
Wednesday: At 9:00 this morning, Bob and I met with Inclusion Studio, the people who are designing our house remodeling and addition, to see the two options they’d drawn up for us, one of which we ended up going with.

2017
Friday: It was Grand Central Station at our house with several contractors here putting final touches on our addition/remodeling, and a Red Hatter came by to look at my skis for a possible purchase.

2018
Saturday: Brett Taylor repaired our roof this morning; we got an estimate this afternoon to remove the tree whose branch fell on it, and it was $10,000; and mom just made a donation at bingo tonight.

2019
Sunday: Mom called me this morning at Vivian’s complaining of kidney pains, and I took her to urgent care where she was prescribed acetaminophen, and at 8:30 at night she called me to take her to Vidant Hospital for a stiff neck and numbness and we spent 5 hours in the emergency room to be told her chest x-ray and CT scan were clear.

2020
Monday: I had my consultation with Dr. Hum, which included an x-ray (where they made me remove my earring and I’ve decided not to put it back in after 30 years), and we scheduled my tooth implant; I did my upper-body strength training at the Red Hat fitness center; and I read a little more of The Once and Future King, before abandoning it and reading 26% of My Year of Rest and Relaxation.

2021
Wednesday: “Bob” from Luxury Bath & Kitchens came by to assess our office windows and we ordered some replacements, including a frosted picture window replacement for the “downstairs” bathroom, and it was “free night” on our weekly dinner menu for which I had cereal and Bob had salmon.

2022
Thursday: Today is 9 months until the day I retire.

Calendaring

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As soon as my indicator came on, I checked my Google calendar for the last time I changed my oil. Don’t you keep that info on your calendar?

I want to make sure it’s been at least 6,000 miles since I last changed it, and it has. And it’s good timing, because I have to get an inspection to renew my registration, and I can get the oil change at the same place and time.

Another, perhaps odd, thing I keep track of on my Google calendar.

Money well(ness) spent

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It was a big medical expense year for us, one for which we’re glad we have good medical insurance.

I’m guessing most of this was from my total knee replacement surgery, because the only other expenses we had was the abdominoplasty, collagen injections, dermabrasion, and lipoplasty.

Thanks Red Hat and Cigna.

Range of motion (ROM)

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In medical parlance, I’m “PO83,” which stands for “post-op 83,” and which means it’s 83 days after I had my total knee replacement (TKR).

I haven’t been obsessing over what’s referred to as my extension (how flat I can get my knee) and flexion (how much I can bend my knee), which are two very important things to monitor after a TKR.

I was “released” from physical therapy (PT) on December 10, 2021, when I reached a flexion of 120. I’ve worked harder at PT at home than I did when I was going to the Raleigh Orthopaedic Clinic to do it.

According to “the literature,” a completely straight knee joint will measure 0° and a fully bent knee will have a flexion of at least 135°. If you’ve had a knee replacement, your physician may look for a knee extension close to 0° and a flexion in the 125-135° range to consider you fully recovered.

Degrees used doing everyday activities
65° to walk
70° pick an object off the ground
85° to climb up stairs
95° to stand from a sitting position
105° to tie shoelaces
115° (or greater) to squat or sit cross-legged
125°+ covers most activities. However, squatting or sitting on your heel may always prove challenging. (Note: I don’t think I’ve ever sat on my heels in my life, nor do I want to.)

I measured today, and my extension is at 0° and my flexion is at 137°. I’m calling it a win.