Walking is making a difference in my afternoons. I’m sleeping through the whole thing and barely waking up enough to eat dinner. On the upside, they make for wonderful father/daughter conversations with Tipper. We talk about all sorts of things such as whether the berries on that tree are safe to eat and how inexcusable it is for people to litter by the railroad tracks. We got in 2.5 miles yesterday and I’m hoping for about the same today, just in a different direction. I want to think that the exercise is doing me good even though I’m not feeling it at the moment.
Kat and G got in a strenuous four-mile hike at the park yesterday afternoon. They can do the uphill and climbing things that Tipper and I can’t do. They also move at a considerably faster pace than I do. Maybe we’ll all come out of the summer feeling a lot better.
That is, assuming we can get my prescriptions filled. The pharmacy my insurance company said to use told Kat quite dismissively “We don’t accept that insurance.” Okay. I messaged my doctor and she sent the script to a different place that’s not nearly as convenient and certainly isn’t within walking distance (sorry, I’m not up to an 8-mile walk). Unfortunately, that puts one more thing on Kat’s already overflowing plate.
Here’s an interesting news story this morning: Keystone Group says 87 burials have been found over six acres of the former Diamond Chain site. A better headline would have been that 87 graves are being moved to another cemetery. What happened is that way back in 1820, a cemetery was designated within a four-acre plot just South and a little West of the city center. By 1860, that cemetery was full. Those who could afford to moved their loved one’s remains to the newly created Crown Hill cemetery further to the West. The rest were covered up and left there. Over the years, slaughterhouses and a bunch of other stuff occupied the land, and then Diamond Chain came along and dominated the sight. The buildings gave the city a strong industrial look back when that type of thing was important.
They had one problem, though: the place was freaking haunted. Gee, I wonder why. Whether you believe in such things or not, I know that the security company hired to watch the place at night couldn’t keep the three-person staff filled. The average longevity of night guards was less than three days. Reports of encounters were frequent. My guess is that anyone walking in that area is even more likely to have an experience now that the graves have been disturbed again. There are far more than 87 graves that need to be moved, but the city says that costs for doing so would exceed 12 million dollars. There’s also the fact that the city appears to be renigging on a multi-million dollar development deal for the site, but that’s a totally different story.
Weather for Sunday is still looking wet. If you’re coming to the race at all, you’re going to want to bring an umbrella along with everything else people cart in and out of there. The Snake Pit is definitely going to be a muddy mess. A heavy round of rain looks to arrive mid-morning which may put a damper on some of the formalities, but they should be out by noon, giving officials time to dry the track. The question is still there for mid-afternoon rain which could be heavier. At the very least, it’s not unreasonable to expect a delayed start and possibly the need to finish the race on Monday. Yes, you can park here both days. Yes, it is going to cost you both days. Have you seen how much food a teenager consumes?
Are we ready for today? No. Are we doing it anyway? Yes.
Morning Update: 07/27/24
Yesterday may have seemed tenuous. Today is impossible. This is going to be short. We spent most of my doctor’s appointment trying to figure out which meds I still need and which we can let drop completely. The result was Kat picked up an entire grocery bag full of meds from the pharmacy. Yay. Thrill. We chatted a bit, the doctor and me, and then he dropped the bomb I’ve been fearing: my next visit with him, in January, will likely be my last. Community Health Network is closing the facility where the doctor has had his office for the past several years. When they close that office, they’re not picking up his contract anywhere else. He’ll be 75 by then, so yeah, he’s had a good run, but he wanted to go out on his terms, not theirs. That means, again, I’ll have to find a new PHP. I’m getting really tired of that juggle.
The last thing before I left was round two of the pneumonia vaccine. Not a big deal, right? I’ve had one before I don’t remember having any problems with it. So, when my insurance-provided ride wasn’t outside when I left, I decided to walk home. After all, it’s only four miles if you cut across the IMS plaza to Georgetown. I grabbed a bottle of water and took off. I’d made it to Georgetown and 25th, a little short of three miles, when our next-door neighbor passed. He stopped and gave me a ride the rest of the way home. Sweet.
I don’t know if it was the shot, the heat, or the accumulative activity over the week, but shortly after I got home, I felt as though I was going to collapse. I asked G to make dinner for the night, which he happily did, and went to bed. And stayed there. I was up just long enough to eat some of what G had fixed, and was then back in bed, reminding myself that I would need to order groceries this morning. When I woke up at 6:00 AM, I was running just enough of a fever to experience chills. I quickly put in the grocery order and went back to sleep, leaving the cats to everyone else. I didn’t bother looking at the news until 8:00.
From a news perspective, ignore the biting back and forth between candidates. We’re at that stage where the candidates are constantly trying to one-up each other and the truth of anything they say needs to be questioned. The wildfires in California are a big deal and, once again, scary as hell. Reuters did an undercover investigation showing just how easy it is to get fentanyl from China using readily available online sources. If you know anyone who has any kind of addition, this should worry you. The Olympics are Olympicicking (my word) and, as always, there are allegations of someone cheating. There’s always someone who just can’t play well with others.
Groceries should be here soon and then I’m going back to bed. I’m not in a human condition this morning. I’m misunderstanding most of what Kat says. Better to leave the decision-making to others today.
Share this:
Like this: