THANKFUL

 

Frankly I'm not in a celebratory mood this holiday season. 2022 has been a stressful, sucky, and expensive year for me.

However on this Thanksgiving I must remind myself of the many things for which I am thankful.

For one, the recent hurricane did no damage to me or my property; this seems miraculous since it came ashore here.

Also I am one of the few people I know that never came down with even a mild case of Covid. I attribute this to the fact I wore a mask overlong. The reason being to hide my bandaged face.

And I am indeed thankful that despite the dermatologist's prognosis I didn't end up with a disfiguring scar although my face had a pit that was deep and wide. And I refused to pay a plastic surgeon for stitches because this was sprung on me directly after surgery; I had not budgeted for this! Yes, I now have a scar on my face but it's so slight you can barely see it.

However this did not happen by magic! I never allowed my wound to dry up. I kept it constantly moist with petroleum jelly. I bandaged up before bedtime and before going out. So now I don't need any stink'n plastic surgeon!

Often this area still stings and pinches, but I'm told this is a positive thing. The nerve endings are returning.

After paying over $2000 in all at a different Dermatology Clinic the latest biopsy on my nose thankfully proved benign. However the chronic itch remains and can't be explained.  I should have just bought a tube of Cortisone cream and saved myself a whole lot of money. But I realize that chances should never be taken with the possibility of a skin cancer!

Those expensive blood tests revealed a high hemoglobin count. Since I've never been a smoker I was told this is due to an excess of vitamins.

Yes I do take lots of nutritional supplements. That's the reason my hair has grown back! If I stopped, people would be calling me cue ball and melon head behind my back. Now I'm thankful they don't have the opportunity!

Plus I take a lot of these supplements to keep my acid reflex under control. The alternative is an agony akin to torture! It's as if someone shoved a flame-thrower down my throat and duct-taped it to my body! Prescription medication has side effects as well as long term consequences, no thank you!

The cooler air has returned! (Ahhh) Hope it lasts thru spring or at least until I can afford to have my old and dead air-conditioner replaced.

And of course I'm thankful that sanity prevailed in the recent Midterm Elections, in many states anyway.

UNBELIEVABLE

 

A hurricane in November!!! October had been so cool and comfortable I thought we were safe until June. I started filling up my freezer for the holidays. The thought of having to throw all that out made me sick! I couldn't believe a hurricane was on the way and heading straight for us. But that's what you get with global warming, climate change, etc; a stink bug by any other name is still a stink bug.

Yes Nicole was only a Cat 1; but we were hit with one of these my first October in Vero Beach back in 1999. -- Power was out for a week! And this is a bad spot for outages period! Plenty have occurred when the sun was shining and the wind was like a fairy's breath from the south. I was in a constant state of anxiety.

I noticed that no one in the neighborhood was boarding up, but my main worry was a lengthy loss of electricity. The TV news was reporting mass outages up and down the coast and the thing hadn't even hit land yet.

Hurricane Nicole came ashore in Vero Beach around 3:00 AM. I slept thru the landfall. I was in disbelief when I awoke to my fan still running and bedside clock working. It felt like a miracle. Hurricane Ian had left the neighborhood a bigger mess and all we got was the outer feeder bands from that one.

I looked with sadness upon the damage this Cat 1 had wrought upon other parts of Florida and I was filled with disbelief. Hurricane Nicole had come ashore here and yet my neighborhood was barely touched. But despite this you can bet my already high insurance premiums will skyrocket again!

Immediately after I viewed the Midterm Election results which I had been dreading; it was no exaggeration that our democracy was at stake! The network TV stations had been elusively storm coverage. Of course they ran the results on a tiny strip at the bottom of the screen, but I was unable to decipher anything due to my posterior vitreous detachment.

However the AM following the storm I gave out a big sigh of relief! There was no Red Wave except perhaps a ketchup throwing fit at Mar-a -Largo.

But unbelievably we are stuck with zealot Ron DeSantis as our governor again! (EEK and YUK!) My take on this man is that he's a dangerous and delusional creep and a giant Trump turd.

Now even his lord and master the orange blob has turned on him and even gone so far as to threaten him.

This should come as no surprise. When his traitorous followers were ready to lynch his then pet Mike Pence during the insurrection Trump was all for it! The fact that anyone ever supported this vile man in the first place is what's truly unbelievable!

SOME LIKE IT COOL

 

Hot, hot, and hotter! That describes Florida most of the year.

A repairman told me my air conditioning unit was on its last legs and he doubted it would last throughout the summer. Well my A.C. lived on borrowed time for 4 years after that. I held my breath every time I turned it on and kept the temp at 80 until last summer when I raised it to a miserable 82 to keep my rising FPL bill down.

Early in October it finally gave out. Thankfully it had gotten me thru one more summer. And in October the temperatures had dipped just enough that I was comfortable without it. Plus we even had one cool spell where I needed a blanket on my bed. This felt welcome and wonderful!

Due to expensive doctor bills: I'm awaiting the results of another biopsy for skin cancer plus I've got a root canal scheduled for later this month. One of my 3 cracked teeth crowned during the pandemic has gone bad. And now my property taxes are due! So it will be spring (knock-on-wood) before I can afford to have the unit replaced.

However we're into the cooler months, right? -- Wrong! Summer returned yesterday Nov. 1. It was 86 degrees in my house. My tolerance for heat ends at 84! -- I hope it's not going to be one of those kinds of winters!

Every fan in my house is on as I walk around in my birthday suit keeping a tall glass of ice water nearby at all times. 

Trying to sleep in this heat is even worse, although I slept with 2 fans running; one on the ceiling the other beside my bed. I have a satin top pillow for my hair but last night my face stuck to it from sweat.

After midnight I grabbed my pillows and moved to the foot of the bed to get the effect of the fans more directly. But they were just blowing hot air around.

What is really depressing is waking up to a hot morning knowing it's only going to get worse as the day rolls on.

The temps are supposed to drop a bit later in the week. It can't happen fast enough!