Dividing America

 And here we are at the start of a brand new week.  Temps here in Central PA are predicted to rise into the upper 60s (F).  I'm looking forward to the real Spring finally arriving, rather than the fake spring that sprung from an overly warm winter.  We may have had a total accumulation of perhaps 3 inches of snow in total, none of which lasted more than few hours.  Just to be on the safe side, however, I will not put my snow shovel to bed until sometime in mid-April.

My back's a bit cranky again this morning.  The little A/C unit ;and the ceiling were deposited at a friend's house yesterday on my way back from York.  Of course, I was the one to carry both of them from my car to the patio at the back of her house.  The slight strain is muscular, I can tell because of where it's located, around kidney height and to the left.

I called and ordered a refill on Biggie's gabapentin this morning.  That his only med, I discontinued the Carprofen.  I took him off of it when his liver issues showed up and never put him back on it.  Honestly, I didn't see any change between when he was on it and when he was off, so I have no idea how much of a help it actually was.

I have buds on my nectarine tree.

I find it fascinating that Trump is calling for civil protests and possible violence over his approaching indictment and Kev McCarthy spit out something yesterday saying there should be no protest.  I suspect Kev is going to find out that most MAGAs see him as nothing more than a wet noodle.  By giving away the store to the Far Right in order to get the Speaker position he gave away what little authority he could scrap together to call a backbone.  MTG, Jordan, and the rest want to incite.  They see that as a strength while most Americans see it as ugly.  The Kari Lakes of this world see dividing America as giving them and advantage.  They don't understand they are actually driving people away.

As I said, yesterday I went down to York for lunch with a friend.  My route on my way back brings me up the Susquehanna past Scott Perry's Harrisburg Office.  Or, I guess I should say the former home that used to house his office.  His lawn shingle is down and that property is now up for sale.  Perhaps his neighbors complained.  Perhaps his landlords realized he was taking up space in a million $$$ property and kicked him out.  In fact, there are so many possible reasons.  I'm just glad that he's gone.

Kashing In

The phlebotomist who did my blood draw yesterday was good.  No hint of bruising what so ever.  This is a first.  Usually there's a red dot, followed by a blurry edged hint of black and blue.  I looked at my arm this morning and saw nothing.

My back's bothering me a bit.  The heating pad is already in place on my writing chair downstairs, and shortly the upstairs will be plugged in.  Not that I pulled anything, or the disc jelly as once again begun oozing, I'm certain it's the way I've been sleeping.  There are times when the dogs don't give me much space on the bed.

The new laundry room is coming along fine.  One of the original doors of the house separated the closet, back when it was a walk-in closet, from the bathroom.  That door is now gone.  I'm thinking of replacing it with a bifold door.  They're easy to install. 

I was told by one of the men working for the owner of the house next door that my neighbors were going to come down this week and clean it out.  That's not true.  I have texts from them.  In their minds, he bought that home 'as is,' with all the furniture inside.  

Here's a catchy song, whether any of the lyrics will make it into one of my books is up in the air right now, but I can definitely see one of my characters say "what me worry?"

So I see Elon is now saying he'll drop the charge for the blue check on Twitter to $8 per month, however he's hinting that anyone and everyone who subscribes will be certified, whether they're bots or not.

Ovcer 900,000 mail-in ballots have been received in PA, the vast majority being from registered Democrats.  This does not mean Republicans aren't voting for Shapiro and Fetterman, there's been a lot of ad space bought buy Republicans urging members of their party to vote Blue, mostly because Mastriano and Oz are such losers.

Lyndsey's going to have to testify - so says the Supreme Court.  I'll bet that brought him to tears.

And a lot of people are wondering... well, maybe not that many, if Kash will flip for cash, the Kash being Kash Patel.  Immunity!  That's as good as cash, ain't it.  You remember Kash, don't you?  The guy who said Trump could declassify documents simply by thinking it was so?  If this nugget of news is dropping now on major media outlets, you can bet there is a serious possibility it might be happening.  Can we talk about an October surprise?

 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2022-elections/early-vote

Back to lifting

Went to see my Orthopedic specialist on Tuesday for my 3 month check in and received, as I expected, good news.  Well, actually it was good and bad.  My back is a good as it's going to get, that's the good part.  I can once again lift 5 gallon buckets of paint that's the bad.  Why is it bad?  Because now I can open the store since that's when most of our 5 gallon buckets are sold.  That means getting up at 3:30 in the morning, something the dogs never get used to doing.
And there is always the possibility that the remaining discs between L1 and L2 will once again squirt out their jelly.
This is what my back now looks like.

If you blow up the picture you can see that the disc between L4 and L5 no longer exists, and that those vertebrae have fused together.  The same thing is happening between L3 and L4, in fact the fusion between those vertebrae is almost complete.  These fusions limit my ability to twist and turn and bend, to some extent - solid bone does none of those things.  At some point all that bone growth will need to be removed if I want to be able to walk.  Hopefully it will be years from now.

Early Morning shcedule

I will be leaving to go to work shortly, and I'm not happy.  Because of my back issues I have weight restrictions - I can't lift heavy weights.  Even though she knows this, what does the ditz who writes our schedules do?  Gives me an early morning shift.  Early mornings are when our contractors show up to buy their paint and most contractors, if they're any good, use a lot of paint.  Translation:  they buy 5 gallon buckets, and I can't lift 5 gallon buckets.  Their 65 - 75 lbs is way above my limit.

When I pointed this out to our scheduler, instead of changing the schedule she said "well, you'll just have to call someone to lift them for you."  Since staffing is very limited early in the morning, those contractors might have to wait.  Now, let's talk about good customer service, shall we?

Anyway, I had a nice sit down chat with the store manager during which I told him I didn't want those little, rubbery disks between my vertebrae to start poking their little noses out again.  He agreed hardheartedly.  You see, if it were to happen again while I was at work... well, that would be a worker's comp issue.  That would be an expense they would not soon forget.