Pacemaker Check

 Every six months or so, I have to have my pacemaker checked. Simple procedure: some sort of detector is placed above my pacemaker, and the technician reads the results on his or her computer.

And the first words are always an announcement of the remaining battery life. This time--"Eight years."

Food for thought--the obvious--I wonder if I will make it...

The technician continued looking at things on the computer--at what, I have no idea--but she kept saying "good, good,'' with no explanation of what was good.

Then, the most extraordinary question. "Did something strange happen on January 31?"

I brooded..well, I was in Australia, and yes, about that time I had  three skin cancers excised. 

"Why do you ask?"

"Because the record shows increased electrical activity on that date."

Light dawned--yes, the cauterization of the incisions uses electricity, and I have read that it can affect the pacemaker.

The session concluded with the repetition the all was in great shape.

I have gone back into my blog and found the entry for the day I had the excisions. Not January 31, but February 1.

But, of course, in Australia I was a day ahead of US time--so Feb.1 would have register as Jan.31 on the pacemaker, which would be set on US time.

Brooding

 I don't know how to write about this...I don't quite know what I am going to say. It's meant to be something about my current state of mind, which--if not actually anywhere close to depression--has me brooding on my age, my life expectancy, my worries about dementia, about putting poor Joan into a caregiver capacity, about how long my physical health will bear up, about how I will die...slowly with some awful malady like stomach cancer, or will I--like the poet who was 'half in love with easeful death' simply 'cease upon a midnight with no pain'? 

A good friend of ours has recently had a stroke and is badly incapacitated physically. He is in his early eighties and his wife has her 75th birthday next week. The burden of caregiving for a wheel-chair-bound husband will fall on her--and it looks like it will be a very difficult time for her, and it could--of course--go on for many years.

I know, I know--if I mention my worries, the responses are always--you're fine, you don't look your age, you walk four miles a day--yes, you have a pacemaker, but that's been ticking away merrily for more than ten years. What are you worried about? Your life expectancy is five years--but that's the average and it includes a lot of men who are already sick and at death's door: so your life expectancy is probably much longer than the average.

All very true, yes.

All very true...but it does not help...

The Daily Puzzles

 The daily puzzles have become a routine, and I feel rather childish in clocking them up each day. I suppose I justify my puzzling by the rationale that they keep my brain functioning and help to stave off dementia. I have always been skeptical about that: you often read that doing crossword puzzles helps to delay the onset of dementia, but I doubt if any study has actually established causation. Maybe people who do crossword puzzles just have more energetic and enquiring brains that deteriorate more slowly.

So the day starts with the New York Times Spelling Bee, which I work on as I eat my breakfast--listening to the classical music station, but switching off if PBS News comes on  Make words from seven letters, with each word including the letter in the center of the circle: words must be at least four letters. A four letter word counts as one point, and the longer the words the more points they garner. Words that contain all the letters ('pangrams') score very highly. My aim is to get to 'Genius' level, which is the highest level before you get to Queen Bee--all the words in the compiler's list. I never bother to try to get to that level. Generally, I do get to genius level..sometimes by accessing the hints that are available.

And then there is Wordle--again to be solved during breakfast. And I usually succeed at that, except when there are, say, two possible words and I simply choose the wrong one.

Some time during the day, I go into KenKen online and try the 5x5 HARD puzzle. I used to do the MEDIUM difficulty, but I found I usually got the right answer. So I started the HARD, and now my record is about 50:50. I often keep going until I find I have made a mistake somewhere, and I usually quit at that point, though sometimes I clear the puzzle and start all over again.

I also like to succeed--at sometime during the day--with the solitaire game Freecell. I am fairly good at it, and my wins certainly far exceed my losses. I get a lot of satisfaction when I manage to dig myself out of what seems like an impossible situation.

And there are crossword puzzles--online from the Guardian or in a book of 200 puzzles from the British Daily Telegraph. Incidentally, I learned to do the Telegraph cryptic puzzles as a boy--my father did them every day, and I learned all the tricks of the setters from him. These puzzles are not a daily routine--maybe a few a week.

So that's my puzzling day....

My Mother's diary.

 When my sister Anne died, Alison--her daughter-- came into possession of a small diary that my Mother had kept--intermittently-- over the course of several years. In addition to conventional diary entries, there were many other entries of a non-diary character: recipes, lists of Wimbledon tennis players, sums covering the costs of groceries, inspiring texts she had copied from books, comments on her serious reading (The Brothers Karazamov/ Dr. Zhivago), three poems that I had written when I was eighteen years old--she must have found them in an old school exercise book, and much else.

But what touched me most, were the entries concerning Juliet. The first was indirect--just the address of the Starr family in Grand Junction Colorado.

Then, on March 28th: "Anne came down quite early--we were still in bed. David had telephoned at about 3.30am to say that Juliet had been killed in a car crash." and then "March 30th, Easter Monday, funeral--David, Eva, Rachel, and Daniel."

And there was more about a phone call from me describing what had happened to Richard Starr--"his hand had been stitched back, but three fingers will be useless." Later, on June 16th, it was noted that his hand had been amputated. ("Poor Boy").

On March 27, 1980, the entry reads. "Darling Juliet, 1959--1978. Unheard, unseen, but always near--Grannie XX."

And the next year, 1981: "Dear Juliet 1959--1978. 'Grieve not that she is gone, rather rejoice that she ever was. Ever with us. Grannie XXX. Not forgetting her lovely baby. XXX.'

March 27, 1982 "Dear Juliet---most lovingly remembered today and always--not forgetting her little baby. Grannie and Grandad XXXXXX."

And the last entry; March 27 1983: "Dear Juliet and Baby. Always in our thoughts."

Washington DC March 8,2023

 After a bit of messing around trying to get into this blog, I eventually found my way, and I think I should start ruminating and blogging a bit, partly to fill my day (reading, walking, and various puzzles just don't do it) and partly to keep alive my writing. I doubt that my meanderings will be of much interest to anybody--but who knows?--maybe one day my only grandson might discover this blog and read it with interest.