Day: 07/21/2018

WHEN IT’S A LOT OF STUFF … COMPOUND INTEREST? – Marilyn Armstrong

/ Marilyn Armstrong / 22 Comments

FOWC with Fandango — Compound With and Without Interest

My life has been compounded recently. I knew that with Garry’s surgery coming up, it was going to get complicated. Recently some of my own issues have been popping up — the fibromyalgia which doesn’t bother me often. When it does, it’s usually a day or two of downtime. After that, I’m good again.

But it hit me hard at the beginning of this week. I could not afford any downtime.  Too much to do and it had to get done. If I didn’t stay alert and on target, life was going to fly out of control.

I did not realize exactly how crazy it could get.

Last night, I crawled into bed. Looking forward to listening to my audiobook for a while, then drifting off. Garry was doing his best to watch a movie with the headphone more or less catty-corner over the bandaged ear, but more or less on the “good” ear.

Garry was not a happy camper. His headache just kept getting worse. Nothing he had taken was doing much to help it and we were both getting a feeling that the cup over his ear and the strap around his head were actually causing the pain. I can’t tell you how many times the bandages have caused more pain to me than the surgery under it. I thought that might be Garry’s problem too.

That and being really stoned. I was trying to figure out what to call his state of mind and suddenly, it blazed forth. He was “one toke over the line.” Maybe considerably more than one toke. Quite possibly going to stay that way for a while to come.

I did what I could to loosen the bandage, settled in and turned on my book. I turned on the speaker first, which I always do, and noticed it had gone “searching.” It does not typically do that. After a few minutes, it settled down was ready to play.

Garry could smile at Duke, even today when he was not his usual smiley self.

I turned on the book and curled up. That’s when Garry said, “I can hear your audiobook.”

“You mean … you can hear the narrator? Can you hear the actual words?”

“Yes, and it’s kind of confusing because I’m also watching a movie.”

If anyone could work with two different sounds in each ear, Garry who spent years with a hearing aid in one ear and an IFB communicator in the other would be the one.

That coil is NOT supposed to be picking up ANYTHING. It’s not supposed to work at all without power. I turned off my book and speaker, then turned it on again. He could still hear it. The words. The narrator. And, in the other ear, a movie.

And the Duke …

That is not supposed to happen. I went online to see if I could find anything that talked about hearing Bluetooth through a cochlear implant without external hardware. And, lo and behold, it turns out that Apple was creating exactly that so cochlear implant owners would be able to hear their iPhones without extra equipment.

We don’t have an iPhone. What he was hearing was my little Anker Bluetooth speaker which I bought maybe six months ago. But there was no arguing with the event: he definitely could hear the speaker and when I turned the speaker up, he could hear it better.

I figure the tiny coil they inserted in Garry’s right ear is essentially a manmade replacement for the coil that we are born with. I suppose there’s no reason why it can’t, given the right frequency, work as if it were Garry’s own inner-ear coil.

This is NOT something anyone warned us about and I’m not even sure anyone else has experienced it. I know that it’s theoretically possible, but it presupposes you have Bluetooth software from Apple — which I don’t. Maybe Anker bought their software from Apple or maybe they came to the same discovery on their own.

It’s not like I can look at the Anker manual. First off, there was no manual and even had their been one, I’m sure this information would not be in it. Most people would not care anyway.

As Tom said, “Well, at least you know it works.”

When Monday comes, I will have to call the doctor and ask him about this. It’s pretty strange.

What happens if Garry finds himself lost in a crowd of iPhone users? He could get very compounded.

MORE THAN JUST A DUCK – Marilyn Armstrong

/ Marilyn Armstrong / 22 Comments

RDP #51: DUCK

Normally, I would happily just post pictures of ducks and rivers and stuff, but yesterday a duck boat sank killing 17 people on board on a lake in Missouri.

We have duck boats in Boston that tour the city then ride down a ramp behind the Science Museum and take a trip down the Charles River. We’ve done it with Kaity when she was little.

I’m still at a loss to understand why a duck boat was out in that kind of terrible weather — especially since it was expected. Many of the people who died were members of one single family.

That’s not the kind of “duck” I had in mind.

AND HELL’S COMING WITH ME … – Marilyn Armstrong

/ Marilyn Armstrong / 11 Comments

Wyatt Earp: All right, Clanton… you called down the thunder, well now you’ve got it! You see that?
[pulls open his coat, revealing a badge]
Wyatt Earp: It says United States Marshal!
Ike Clanton: [terrified, pleading] Wyatt, please, I …
Wyatt Earp: [referring to Stillwell, laying dead] Take a good look at him, Ike … ’cause that’s how you’re gonna end up!
[shoves Ike down roughly with his boot]
Wyatt Earp: The Cowboys are finished, you understand? I see a red sash, I kill the man wearin’ it!
[lets Ike up to run for his life]
Wyatt Earp: So run, you cur… RUN! Tell all the other curs the law’s comin’!
[shouts]
Wyatt Earp: You tell ’em I’M coming… and hell’s coming with me, you hear? …
[louder]
Wyatt Earp: And Hell’s coming with me!

Hell is definitely coming …

The dust rose from the desiccated, dusty road that is Main Street in Tombstone. The horses looked hot and tired. They had every right to be. It was godawful hot. In the sun, more than 125 degrees and I don’t care, dry or not, that’s like sitting in an oven. Add basting and soon, you could be Thanksgiving dinner somewhere.

Tombstone

I think when it isn’t quite as hot, you can ride the stage. When the temps are that high, it’s not good to stress the horses more than they are already stressed merely by pulling the coach. Slowly pulling the coach. It’s a pretty big carriage, though they are also huge horses.

Still, heat kills. It’s bad enough to make horses pull the stage in such weather, but to add the weight of passengers might be too much. Those big horses come dear, you know. The interior of the stage is probably pretty hot too.

As we wandered around the town, we bought souvenir tee shirts. One for me, one for Garry. Of course, we did. Wouldn’t you? They were pretty pricey, so we bought only two. We also bought some books. And a calendar. I think we would have bought the coach, the horses and maybe the saloon if we could have. We really liked Tombstone.

We also love the movie. I really don’t know how many times we’ve watched it. Often enough so we both know all the lines. the scenes. We laugh before it’s funny because we already know. So being in Tombstone was awesome. No, I mean it. Really awesome. As in “we were struck with awe” and also, we didn’t fall down with heat stroke, though I’m pretty sure we were pretty close to it.

Garry bought a tee-shirt that said “You tell ’em I’M coming…” and mine said, “And Hell’s coming with me.” You had to see us together to really feel it.

These days, our sense of justice has been so deeply damaged, we have returned to watching Westerns to get some of that old justice juice going.

The movie is “Tombstone.” It was shot in Tombstone, Arizona in 1993. They more or less rebuilt the town to make the movie and have kept it that way. It brings in tourists. We are exactly the kind of tourists for whom they are always waiting.

We would gladly have spent more money, but retirees don’t have a lot of spare money. And, to be fair, we own many, many tee-shirts already. I had settled for taking pictures and staying in the shade. No wonder they had covers over the sidewalks. Even for Arizona, that was a serious heat wave, but at least the shade made it possible to inhale.

We watched Wyatt and his crew clean up the west. They killed them all. The move is full length, but it always feels too short. Garry says that’s how you know a movie is perfect because you don’t want it to end.

I didn’t want it to end.

WHICH WAY? by Garry & Marilyn Armstrong

/ Marilyn Armstrong / 6 Comments

Cee’s Which Way Photo Challenge

Photo: Garry Armstrong – Just a truck in Douglas

I fully intended to take some pictures while we were coming and going from the hospital today, but I was too edgy in the morning … and too tired by the end of the day. It has been quite the day!

Windy day in the parking lot

Bridge over Chocolog Road

Photo: Garry Armstrong – Midtown in Douglas