Taking it easy

Taking it easy

"Take it easy," they said.  "Get some exercise," they said.  Well, I can manage that - did a mile on the treadmill on Tuesday - took 16 minutes so not exactly knocking myself out.  And then there was yesterday.  Thanks to the non-existent climate change, we had peeing rain the likes of which I haven't seen since New Zealand.  Our basement got flooded at the end of last year and I'm a bit sensitive about such things so, having checked the basement first thing in the morning (before the REALLY heavy rain) I rushed home at 10 a.m. to check it again.  My ersatz outdoor bodges had worked pretty well and just need making permanent.  I cut up a lump of 4" x 4" preserved timber and added it to the top of the border edge outside the basement as further water diversion.
Time to look at the source of the water - the houses up the hill from us.  Our neighbour up there is a great guy who, among other things, mows our grass.  His drive took a real beating in the new year storm from water flowing down the edge of it and undercutting it.  So I cut some small channels to direct at least some of the water on top of it rather than under it.  When I chatted with him later in the day, he wasn't happy with that and, instead, wanted to channel the water away from his drive and into our basement or at least into our yard for me to take care of.  So out with the adze and shovel and dig a bloody great channel through the rocks and tree roots of our other neighbour's yard (she's OK with that).  Now to decide what the hell to do with the water from any future storm - I've built a rock dam which should hold most of any real downpour but there's more to be done.  I'd like to drill a big hole in the bottom of our crawl space wall so that any water that builds up in there can get out: it'll spill into the porch rather than the games room so it's not a perfect solution.
At 3:15 I hit the wall I have to love so much.  I was right under the kitchen floor at the time with about 2' of headroom - really shouldn't make that mistake again.
And to prove that "chemo brain" is a reality, I forgot to fill in my class's first period attendance and totally spaced my review meeting with the boss.  Crap.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Where's the teapot?

Insomnia, where is thy stingalingaling? I can't really say I enjoy sleeping as I'm not there to appreciate it.  However, getting up to go to the bathroom at 2:15 and finding that my feeble brain thinks that's it for the night has a certain lack of charm, too.  So, having set myself a couple of deadlines ("If I'm not asleep by 3 a.m., I'm getting up.")  I've been up since 4:05 and what better or more traditional way of celebrating than with a pot of Typhoo.  Not a bag dunked in a mug but a proper laid out on a tray (no lace doily) pot of char complete with milk bottle, spoon and ramekin to drop the bags in when the time comes.  But somewhere hidden deep in the bowels of our expensive kitchen (thanks, Annie) lurks our big green teapot.  I can picture it in every cupboard - up front and centre in the plate cupboard, lurking with the weird half bottles of cooking tequila above the stove, everywhere.  But can I find it?  Nah.  I spread the searc...
Read more

A Last Day of Insanity

A Last Day of Insanity I start chemo at 8 a.m. tomorrow so today involved some last minute stupidity.  I'm supposed to get exercise to stop me feeling tired (they really expect me to believe that?) so I refereed three games at a soccer tournament yesterday and three more today.  I'm too miserly to buy a pedometer / Fitbit so I can only guess at how far I walk, jog, sprint, run backwards during a soccer game but it's not unreasonable to say that, as I don't really stand still much for the duration, I cover maybe 3 miles in a 1 hour game.  So now my legs ache and the muscles in them are slowly tying themselves in knots. The no-alcohol beer regime starts tomorrow and I plan to start tonight as turning up at the hospital with a hangover is generally frowned upon.  I have visions of having something like a football pump of bubbling green acid shot into my belly so I'm sure reality will be better. I'm not allowed processed meat at all (I think it's because all...
Read more

Thank you to my "support group"

The idea of a disease support group has always made me say "no thanks" and I still don't fancy the thought of sitting with a load of other people discussing symptoms.  However, I can't express how grateful I am to the people around me who are propping me up right now.  Susan, of course, is her usual unflappable, patient and understanding self, despite the crap she has to put up with at work.  To have to come home to discover that I have eaten tonight's dinner for lunch can't possibly fill her heart with joy. I enjoy the regular phone calls from Ithaca where we talk about nothing in particular.  Susan's sister Jean keeps me up to date on what's happening in Texas and shares, just a little, her own experiences with cancer.  Folks at school are, as always, curious and cheerful and put up with my actually answering the traditional greeting of "How are you?" honestly.  I feel I owe it to them to tell them I feel like crap, a bit wobbly, starving ...
Read more