Seventy-One! Who’da thunk I’da made it this far. Damn. A good friend/adopted sister called at 0630 this morning to wish me happy birthday and we talked for over 2 hours. Man I had to pee!

Didn’t do anything special. Made butterfly coconut shrimp and fries for dinner. That new Ninja Air Fryer we bought last Friday sure works good at making “fries.” And bacon. Made bacon in it this morning and it turned out damn near perfect.

Anywho, SWMBO had an old friend drop by and bring her husband so I got to keep him entertained. Nice guy. I could look forward to them visiting again. I think I sold another Harvest right freeze dryer though. He really liked the astronaut ice cream.

Not a whole lot else going on. Heart is still playing games. Doc put me back on the pee pills. I regained almost 10 of the 17 lbs I lost because I retain a LOT of fluids. We’ll see how it goes. Still staying on my “diet” which ain’t a diet but a eating habits change. Not having as much progress quitting sugar as I’d like. Slow and steady wins the day though. I didn’t quit smoking the first 50 times I tried either.

The left side of my head aches and I’m thinking it’s because of all the excitement today. I mean, there had to be some excitement somewhere in the world, right? I really think I’m missing some setting on my new CPAP and not getting the full effects of the treatment and been waking with a low grade headache. Have an appointment with the pulmonary folks tomorrow and we’ll get it all worked out.

Tape & Paste buy still isn’t through with the FILA. Heck, he doesn’t even show up for work until 1100-1200 and leaves anywhere between 1630 & 2100. Mostly he does get in 6 hours of work. He’s having trouble getting the paste to dry out as fast as he’d like so he can go on to the texturing part so tonight we’re leaving all the doors and windows open. I kinda sorta blocked the lower part of the doors so no big animals can wander inside and try to take up residence. Or cause more damage.

Joy.

Logged in an “played” with both ChatGPT and Bard over the past couple of days. Can’t see where either would be of much use to me. Both seem pretty knowledgeable and quick to respond. Both gave pretty much the same answers to the same questions. Both admonished me to continue to see my Doctor.

Sure will be glad when the FILA is finished and I can go somewhere and get out from under all these trees for awhile!

Trying to use only my cast iron pots & pans for cooking. All the “non-stick” and such pots & pans have all worn out, started flaking, over the years and I’m getting tired of buying new stuff every year or so.

So, I have a 8″, 12″, and two 10″ skillets, a 12″ (or so) griddle, and two enamel covered iron stew pots (which are actually called something else but I’m having a severe senior moment here). I also have a steel-clad aluminum fry pan I really like using. I probably don’t need to look for a “sauce” pan but there should be something in an enamel coated iron somewhere. (Cooking acidic things, like spaghetti sauce, can ruin your seasoning in an iron skillet.) I do have a couple of small steel sauce type pans that we use a lot though. My iron wok. Can’t forget my wok.

And they all work with induction stoves. Which I’m going to get one of (probably) next year.

I have one of those old blue ribbed-like roasting pans (like Grandma had!) that I hardly ever use since I’ve been doing that kind of cooking in the Instant Pot then oven. A couple of those copper colored non-stick roasting type pans that have the electric burner they sit on. Pretty and useful when we use them. Which I’ll do until the pretty copper colored non-stick wears off or starts to flake.

The post-use for iron is a bit labor intensive; but once I get the seasoning done right that should ease up a bit. Should. My griddle is getting pretty close to non-stick now that I’m not afraid to use a lot of bacon fat or lard in my cooking. (Dutch Ovens! Knew it’d come to me!)

Anywho, another learning experience. I do like cooking though. Course, about the time I get any good at it it’ll be time for me to check out.

Found a guy/group on YouTube called “Dzivia” and his/their “Rujnuj” album. Nice. Somewhat reminds me of “Hu” but Nordic sounding. Sorta.

June 21st. Already been there.

Amazon has a 2-quart enameled sauce pan for less than $40. Hmm…

Two guys are taping and pasting the FILA and doing a pretty good job. I manage to drop in a couple of times a day to look around. (Once when they’re there and once after they’re gone for the day.) Gonna take about a week to finish that part. Meanwhile, another $15k to the contractor … He says he’ll be done by the end of July.

Tomorrow is World Pantyless Day.

So, anyone know when Summer will arrive?

I mean, I know the first official day of summer is 21 June, but, Wx wise when the Hell is summer going to get here? Tired of wearing my coat on my walks and using a “summer” quilt.

June 21st (in a few days). Wow. Got married the first time 50 years ago; days before my 21st birthday, in a random spot at Tilden Park in Berkeley, Ca. Freaked a bunch of picnickers out. Bunch of cars pull up, people get out and gather near a tree, and have a marriage ceremony. I think we even dodged a couple of frisbies. Well, we lasted 11 years when we should have just had some great sex for a night and gone our separate ways. Would have made both our lives way less complicated. (But then, circumstances wouldn’t have led me to SWMBO who is the best person to ever happen to me.)

Pretty crappy outside yesterday so I did things inside. Replaced a boob light in the coat closet with a LED light we took out of the MILA. Hooked up my auto-tuner to one of my HF antenna’s. Started 35 ice cream sandwiches to freeze drying. (Would have been 36 but, well, one died for the cause.)

About 1400 I got kinda lazy and watched “John Wick Chapter 4” on the big tv in the living room and that took almost 3 hours (with pee breaks. My old bladder likes the pause button). I do like that sound bar we bought with the tv though. Makes it more of a “theater” experience. The Dog doesn’t come into the living room with the sub-woofer going though. It doesn’t appear to hurt him but he doesn’t like the vibration (or something).

Then, back to the grind: dishes, some laundry, dinner (batch-it night since SWMBO works the genealogy library and there’s no telling what time she’ll get home). Can of Nalley’s Beef Stew cause I got really lazy.

When she did finally get home and had a bite to eat, we sat and watched “Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania.” And that took us up to bedtime.

Pretty lazy Saturday. It’s a rough life. Someone’s gotta do it.

Dang! That almost sounds like a line from a hit song or something. “Never gonna eat again. Cause I read those fookin’ labels.” Man, some of the things that are in our foods! Things that I’m trying to cut out of my diet completely. Which means that I’ll never eat a packaged item again.

Which probably won’t happen because I’m not going to turn into a freak about all this. Just do the best I can and go from there. Can’t ask any more of myself.

Been kinda sorta taking it easy and doing just the light stuff around the house these past few days. Good thing I have a rider mower! Still had to man-handle the whack-weeder around though. That’s an hour long job in itself. Two recharges of the whacker battery so I get a break.

Started the tractor up and did some things out in the back 40. Cleaned her up some and did the weekly grease gun to her nipples. All 18 (or so) of them. Yep, keep her greased up and she’ll work her ass off for ya.

Hooked the dump trailer to the truck to make a dump run tomorrow. I think I have the air purged from the lines. Or mostly anyway. Won’t really be able to check that and fix it until I empty the trailer. Tomorrow. And hopefully I can get it to work one more time so I don’t have to manually unload the thing. That would be a pain.

The wall-board/drywall guy dropped off a trailer that’s over full of wallboard this afternoon. Says he and “The Crew” will be back about 0730 tomorrow to start putting it in. We’ll see.

Feeding the Missionaries tomorrow. BBQ Chicken. Baked Sweet Taters. Peas. Probably some ice cold canned pears for desert.

Gained back a couple of the 17 lbs I lost last month. Partially because I’m still in AFib off and on and don’t feel like getting too occupied with making things for dinner. So I take the easy way out. But I’ll get back on track.

Still wearing that little heart monitor and that’s a giant pain in the ..er.. chest. Press the button when I feel my heart fluttering, grab my phone and make an entry in the app. Lady from the “Electro Cardiologist” office called today and made me any appointment to see him and the results of this monitor for next OCTOBER. Glad I’m not an emergency or anything.

My Doctor’s office e-mailed me to make an after ER visit visit. I’m having mixed feelings about his Doc still. Kind of upset that I had to self-diagnose to get anything done. Seems all those times I complained of my heart fluttering over the past couple of years would have triggered something in his training and I’d have been checked out way earlier. Partially my fault too since I have enough Medical Training (Independent Duty Hospital Corpsman) that I could have been a bit more insistent about getting it checked out. But we didn’t and here we are.

Never been “normal” so I don’t know if I wish I were that or not; but I do wish I wasn’t having these problems.

Haven’t had a soda in 3 days and I’m starting to notice.