Every day's a holiday

In December of 2020 I enrolled Zoe into the Dog Aging Project. Her certificate:



She was also a member of a trial for Rapamycin (called TRIAD) to see how it helped with heart health. Dog Aging is a longitudinal study so there's a lot of data entry and twice a year we'd drive over to Texas A&M to get her an EKG and blood workup to see how her heart was doing. She was the first graduate of the Triad study finishing the protocol after 3 years but was still monitored until she died and contributed with an autopsy after.

Today I finished the registry for Beaux:



so he is following in Zoe's pawsteps.

He may be too small to be in the Triad study but it is still going on and if we have the opportunity we'll do it.

My emotions are whipsawed. I'm so happy to be able to provide more information for this study but to be so close to Zoe again is difficult. She and I put in a lot of miles together.

I've never been a rabid honey person but have always thought maybe I should know more about it.  Somehow I stumbled on The Honey Jar  people.  I sometimes use a quarter to a third cup of honey for baking.  What is in the store is not cheap and not really engaging.  It is OK.  Even the local stuff is only OK.  But I went down a short be hive hole and bought a sampler of honey (and some honey sticks... never had them before) from the Honey Jar site.  Whole other world of honey.  I've got four jars open and really enjoy trying to figure out what each tastes like and which I like for what.  Clover, wild flower light and normal and Orange Blossum are all entirely different tastes and consistency.   At some point I'm going to decide which is best for my baking and buy a gallon.

I put a quarter cup of wild flower in my latest bread, still rising, not yet ready to taste.  The honey is from Utah.  But the clover blossom honey is what they recommend for baking so now I need to try that too.  Once I figure out which I like I'll buy a gallon.  At $75 that seems ridiculous but it does not ever get stale or expire and this stuff can be returned from crystalization by putting the container in warm water.  So when 12 ounces of mediocre honey costs $8 or $9 in the grocery store a gallon at $75 seems like a pretty good deal.

Of course, I was just looking at the paint bucket that contains a gallon of honey and wondering just how I decant it to a usable jar.  OH, just solved that problem.  It also comes in a one gallon jug.  Porable.  And I just ran across someone who decanted them to mason jars which would prevent any crystalization of the stored jars.  

All of this to service the baking of some of the best whole wheat bread I've ever had.  All worth it.

I had an hour and a half of pickleball drills yesterday.  I've been doing it every week.  It is fun in and of itself but also improves my game.  BUT increasingly it has demonstrated how bad my right knee is, pretty much the only major original equipment joint I have left.  I didn't play this morning because of the knee.  

There are five or six indicators of when it is time to replace a joint and I'm hitting four of them.  I can do daily stuff just fine although I feel a painful twinge occasionally.  I can still do resistance training but definitely have a weaker side on the right doing things like lunges.  It is not screaming pain but close.  

It would be easy for me to just go on and not do anything and I really, really want to do that.  I've gotten injections and really work the leg with resistance work so it is as strong as I can make it right now.  But the shot was not as effective last time, not nearly so, and my leg is not getting better no matter how much I work it.

It almost feels like I've already made the decision but I'm maybe a week away holding out hope that the painful twinge I get when I reach out to the right to get a ball is transitory and I can train through it.

UGH.

Nothing on the schedule after the end of October so we'll see.

PB this morning. Some drama. There are half a dozen fairly good players who don't want to play with people who are not so good. Then there is the majority in the middle and sometimes one or two players not so good. That is the in the group that signs up as 'Advanced'. Then there is an 'Intermediate' group that has lower level players. Some of the lower level players are not really trying to get better. They are just showing up, standing on the court and hitting the ball when it gets close to them. There needs to be a whole other group for them. There is but they don't show up for it because it is called 'Beginners' and most of these players have been playing for a while but just don't want to lose the weight and work at improving their game.

So the top level group tends to be cliqueish and have earned the grumbling about them from the others. I'm in the middle group but could, on a good day, hold my own with the higher level players. I like being challenged but like to win occasionally and hate being blown out.

It is a great social experiment carried out every day at PB. I try and frequently fail to rise above it. In the words of Ron White: "I have the right to remain silent, I just don't have the ability."

We are still in the overly warm embrace of summer. It is in the mid 90s every day and feels worse. No clouds, no rain, just unrelenting August sun. I was listening to a book about Montana during the depression and I don't think that helped. Dusty and hot and fires and pretty much like here.

I will gratefully clean and change the filter on my A/C during its quarterly maintenance. We would be so much worse off without it.

The battery in the Lexus died which does not at all surprise me. I'd bought a mobile jumper and so had no problem getting it going again. We took it to the guy that sold it to us. I could have easily changed out the battery myself. Turns out I definitely should have. He charged us way too much and, of course, I had to pay. He charged $70 to test the battery that I'd told him was dead. In a car that was in his shop a month ago. The whole thing cost about $300 more than it should have cost. A trip to Walmart and half an hour replacing the battery would have been worth it. He will know I'm not pleased and he's lost a lot of trust. But not much I can do. I went to him because the last place overcharged.

Meanwhile, and far more importantly, the dogs are both lizard hunters and have been enjoying the hot weather where the lizards are busy.



On top of the fence is a lizard. The two of them sat like this for a really long time. Maybe 15 minutes. Just looking and hoping the lizard would come down and play.  Beaux has some dachshund in him and is really a hunter.  Toby is not quite so serious but loves the chase.

Both continue to be adorable.

I pretty much stopped watching American football.  Most people would not find that odd but I spent a lot of my life reorganizing my schedule around the games.  When they were broadcast and when they were streamed by a service that was reasonably priced I watched.  Mostly NFL but a lot of college.  Then the money took over the game underwritten by the gambling and fantasy and they sucked all of the life out of it for me.

But I got a piece back last night.  Texas was due to get their ass kicked by Ohio State in the stadium here in Austin. The average ticket price to see the debacle was $822.  Tickets ranged from a low of $445 to $33564 to sit up near Matthew McConaughey.  

FUBO has managed to make me stick around for a bit longer so I had the game available and we watched.  What we saw was one of the greatest college football game comebacks of all time.  With seconds left UT scored  coming back from being rolled leaving the half score 23 to 3 to winning by a point after the Ohio offense stalled on the 30 and the Ohio kicker missed what would have been a game winning field goal.  

I'm halfway annoyed that it was a good game.  If it was as bad as it should have been I'd not care at all but now I'm almost interested again.

Regardless today is tennis and soccer.  Ben Shelton finally gets his chance at the gold ring and Austin FC plays against likely the best MLS team this year, likely to defeat.  Actually neither Shelton nor Austin are favored.  I'm just hoping the former is over before the latter starts.  If it is a five set match it will be close.

Then I'm done with tennis for a while at least until January when Austrailia gets going again.

I've got an appointment at HEB to get a Covid and Flu shot so I'll likely feel like crap in the morning.  But I've got pickleball so will move all the blood around and feel better.

I've got a 30 day trial with the Tiller financial system.  I got a bit burned out on it a couple of years ago and moved to Monarch.  My problem with all of them is I don't really need a budget, I just need a good tracking system.  Things have changed with AI so that I'm really just paying $90/year to have access to the Yodlee connection that downloads my transactions.  There are a couple of other things that I can do but what works really well is the auto download and the daily message with what has happened and where we stand.  We've been spending too much money, some of it discretionary, some of it just inflation WHICH DOES NOT EXIST!!!  So I need to have it in my face so I think about everything.

Time to do some exercise type stuff and then get shot.

I signed up to help set up the new dog center at the shelter.  Bed construction, etc.  I thought I was volunteering for this morning but turns out I was volunteering for next Wednesday.  So now I've got the morning with nothing planned.  Not that it matters too much.

I was scheduled to play PB this morning but yesterday I played three hours and my knee bothered me the entire time.  I had forgotten my knee brace, a sleeve one, and it really mattered.  I fixed that for the future by putting a spare one in my bag but that does not bode well for the longevity of my knee.  I've been working on leg strength and really I'm in fairly good shape if not nearly as bulked as I used to be.  I thought I was making a lot of progress in rehabing my knee but yesterday was a huge mental setback.  The last half hour the only thing I could think about was knee replacement, how good my left knee was feeling four years after replacement.  For a number of reasons I can't get it replaced right now so I just have to back off of PB, play less, and not forget a brace of some kind.  Not happy about it at all.

Lunch today is with my networking group.  Always and interesting time.  The three of them are wildly successful business people that I first met when they were starting out so it is fun to hear the stories and offer advice and for whatever reason they tolerate me.  I'm the age of their parents and they are all about the same age as my two sons.  So it is a surrogate relationship.

It was weird to read about the newly released reports of cancerous air in Manhattan post 9/11 and the fact that it went on for longer than they said.  Dana and I visited the site when it was still smoldering, less than a month after the event.  Definitely in the mesothelioma ball park.  As far as I know there were no adverse consequences for us.  That would have really sucked having dodged that after years of living in the industrial environment of ships.

The US Open has been entertaining and will be so for four more matches.  Two men's semi finals and the woman's finals.  The marquee match for me is tonight with Shelton and Tiafoe.   It is a match of heavy weights with serves in the 140MPH range, I'm sure.  I suspect that Shelton will win but it is too close to call and I'm just happy that one of them will be in the finals.

A first for me.  

I was clearly not paying attention as I carefully poured coffee into my 3+ year old Ember mug which still worked as long as it sat on the charging plate most of the time.  My process is to pour the coffee into the mug then into a glass measuring cup which I put into the microwave.  The measuring cup long ago lost its markings so there is no way to measure how much coffee so I just pour it into the mug first and then get the right amount into the microwave.

I've been doing this exact same thing for the past eight or so years.  

But I was gathering a bit of wool and listening to a book after returning from a walk.

So I skipped the step of pouring the coffee from the mug to the measuring cup.

Next thing I knew was this zap of an electrical sound.

I immediately hit the microwave stop 30 seconds into a one minute heating.

If you ever wondered it takes a little over 30 seconds to ignite the electrical base of a battery powered coffee cup.  

Lovely smell as you can imagine.  Far as I can tell the microwave is fine and probably chuckled a bit at the foolishness of an old man.  Turns out that Ember has a sale on the cups so I bought another one.  

With winter coming on it is such a nice luxury to have coffee set at just the perfect temperature as I sit out on the porch in the cool weather.  

And I have a spare charger now.

Today is my volunteer day.  I went to the shelter but they are in an ignore the volunteer mode today. 

The problem with volunteers (oh, we need more, please sign up) is they are treated as a commodity to be pulled down from the shelf and used and then kind of ignored until they next need at which time everyone looks around at the shelf and says 'boy, we need more volunteers on the shelf'. 

I could always work with the dogs cleaning out their cages in the mornings.  It is back breaking work at 20 years old and way too hard at my age.  And a little dangerous.  Some serious infections lurking that my young body would flick off but my older one might just not like so much.  

Later this month the shelter is opening a new building that will work a lot better and maybe be safer to operate in and I'll do some of that.  Meanwhile my contribution is mostly online.  I had them create a Google workspace for the Intake Volunteers and I'm getting that organized as well as some other computer based projects.  I've got a side kick, a retired science teacher, and volunteer to help.  She and I keep up with getting cat/dog appointments entered and other online type stuff.

I miss walking the dogs at the dog sanctuary and could conceivably go back there but they are worse at volunteer management.

My first real run in with not being on GLP1 was today.  A bit yesterday too but mostly today.  There is a great chain of pastry shops called Paris Baguette.  You walk in, get a tray, and select from a huge selection of fresh pastry.  Fortunately it is a few miles from our house.  Unfortunately it is not so far that I can't easily get there.  On GLP1 I might be interested in half a pastry.  Today I had two whole ones.  I enjoyed them more than I would have on GLP1 so that is nice.  My morning diet was only a protein drink up to that point and I'll have yogurt for lunch so no big deal.  But I can tell the difference.  So far my weight hasn't changed.  I'm supposed to have a caloric surplus to gain any muscle mass.  But I don't think much pastry is part how I'm supposed to do it.

Coming up on 20 days since my last GLP1 shot and I still feel the changes slowly but surely returning things to normal.  I'm still 185 and eat about the same way I did on the juice but with no nausea and no feeling of bloating.

Some good pickleball yesterday and today.  I've abandoned the lower level PB players I was with, the Intermediate group, and now play with better players.  More movement, more difficulty, more losses.  But I was standing around a bunch with the lower level group.  Playing down to the level.  Now I'm having to focus and move and I'll get there.

I had my 65+ medical appointment yesterday.  The med system we use has a team approach to helping seniors lead by a gerontologist.  He definitely looks at things differently and it is really helpful.  Medicine that I've taken for years is now viewed through a different prism and the results is I'm going to wean off of Omeprazole to see how I do with out it.  I've been taking it for 25+ years but no longer drink and no longer have much stress and so maybe I no longer need it.  Less med is good.  Dana and I both now have a 24 hour line to call with urgent problems, a nurse specialist who sees us ever couple of months, and a line directly into the system pharmacy for questions and assistance getting prescriptions straightened out.  We have a team of senior specialists as our primary physician.  Zero cost.  So nice.

After about 45 mins of discussions and record review and the usual BP measurement we decided I was fine.  He said that at this point I'm likely to live long enough that having a PSA test is more dangerous than not.  The logic is that I've had a low PSA since I was 50 and it is unchanged in all that time so I'm unlikely to have any kind of aggressive prostate issues.  So now if I get the test and there is a blip the danger is more in chasing the anomoly with biopsies and such than in not being tested at all.  Yeah, I do not want to go down the prostate rabbit hole.  

Different medicine at my age.  Really nice.  He also said I was one of his youngest patients.  Funny.  He is in his 40s so should be around for a while.  Really nice set up.

Beaux still smells like a skunk.  I've washed him twice, the second time with special skunk enzyme cleaner.  Didn't matter.  He does not seem to notice anymore and for some reason Dana does not much smell skunk.  But Beaux can not sneak up on my now.  I can smell him coming.  I've given up on fixing it.  He doesn't love getting a bath so at some point it is just mean.  But I'm really tired of the smell.

I made us reservations with a VRBO place in Port Aransas in the last week of October.  So off to the beach.  The weather should be nice and the area should be pretty quiet.  The place we got is actually on the beach.  One floor with walk out the back patio onto the sand.  We are not much ocean swimmers and I'm always leery of the Gulf of whatever country it is today but I love to walk on the beach and love to just sit and listen to the waves.  AND Beaux has never seen water like that and Toby has only seen it once.  So we'll end up walking their little stubby legs off.

And good sea food too. 

I'd much rather go to Jacksonville, FL, but the trip is kind of hard and would be more so on the dogs.  Port Aransas is only four hours.  

I've got to get a good dog bed for the Lexus.  Fortunately both dogs travel well.

So far, so good.  I gained most of the five pounds back and then lost a pound.  So clearly my body is trying to figure out what the hell I'm doing.  But I'm currently a pound and a half under my plateau and I've not much varied my diet.  I did have a bunch of pastry on Friday.  Found a GREAT pastry shop that is, fortunately, not exactly convenient to get to but it is so nice.  I indulged.  But I am of the opinion that intentional indulgence is critical to a happy diet.  So I do.  As long as I get my required protein and fiber in I can have mostly what I want when I want it.   

I'm not ravenous but am starting to enjoy food more.  The one thing about GLP1 is that I would get nauseous as my digestion was so slow.  A normal meal felt like I'd just gorged myself at the Thanksgiving table.  Bloated.  I'm not getting as much of this now.  I've not had a shot in two weeks so I'm 40% clear of the effects.  Or so.  It feels like I'm in the clear and will be fine.  I still do the Lifelong Mobility program every day.  He has a system that is just enough strength without being too much and well interspersed with movement and balance days that it is really not an arduous thing to do and I feel really good nearly all the time.

Other than that we're just cruising along here.  The weather says it will be 104 today.  I was watching Premier League yesterday and they were wearing longsleeved fleece in Ipswich.  They would have had winter layers if they'd played in Sunderland no doubt.

Meanwhile, Austin FC tied Philadelphia and was really the more dangerous team.  We were several times just inches away from getting the one more goal we needed to win.  But the team actually looks good and is fun to watch.  Organized and disciplined.  

Next game for Austin is Wednesday against a good Mexican team.  Fingers crossed.