Checking-in! Work is crazy busy, as it always is at the end of the year and I feel like I’m spread kind of thin.

Worrisome news about my friend. I hadn’t gotten a response to any if three texts I’d sent, so I reached out to their daughter to make sure everything was okay and they were just busy. Turns out they’d lost use of the right side of their body and were rushed to the E/R. Brain surgery followed. They believe that one of the falls they’d had caused bleeding and pressure, causing problems. They’re going to be in hospital for a while (still in ICU), once they get a bit better they’ll get a normal room and start physical therapy. I’ve visited a couple of times so far and will most likely go tomorrow. They recognize me and “know” me, but I’m not sure they remember my name. I think they do, but I haven’t asked. They were happy to see me though. Speaking is so difficult for them, it’s heartbreaking. They know their name and birth month, but not day or year, or what year it is.  Seeing them struggle to think, answer a question like “are you feeling better today” and not be able to give an answer makes me feel so helpless. I want to remove whatever block is keeping them from telling us everything they could possibly think of or want to say. Sadly, the days of living independently are behind them for the foreseeable future. Luckily their daughter is able to move them in. Speaking of their daughter, that woman is shouldering so much with a brave face, hugs and a smile. She’s so inspirational. I’m strong when I’m there, but the tears start as soon as I get to my car. Guys, my friend is only 54 years-old, soon to be 55. Way too young and strong for this. They bravely served their country in the first gulf war (non combat) and because of all the shit they breathed in while there, cancer is ravaging them in the cruelest of ways. 

The holidays are going to suck this year. I’ll try to be on the west side as much as I can to visit the hospital. I was also told by my boss that I have to go to the Rose Bowl game. Look, I know it’s a privilege, but I don’t give a shit about football during normal times let alone now. I wanted to either spend New Years day at home or at the hospital and now I have to be with a zillion people, PLUS I think I have to go to dinner afterwards. Look, I work the next day and normally get there at 4:15am (east coast time), I’m going to be useless. I’m willing to be useless if it’s because I’m doing something I want to do, not a dumb football fame. What a waste of a ticket. 

Sorry this post is a bummer guys. I hope my next post will have better news.

Let your friends and family know you love them.    

I made it through the walk! I’m in better shape this year than I was last year, but I need to be in even better shape for next year. I remember I started to feel pain/discomfort around mile 5 last year, but didn’t until mile 10 this year. We were in Beverly Hills when it felt like the tendon on the back of my left knee pulled. Luckily I brought two compression knee sleeves in my bag, so I put one on. It helped, but it slowed me down a little. I felt bad, I went with a co-worker again this year who is 10 years younger than I am and I feel like I held them back (not as bad as last year though!).  I had to add the second compression sleeve just before we got to the federal building. It was a little slower from there on through the end.  We stopped at a VERY fancy designer consignment store, I think at mile 14.5. We had to be buzzed in to look at all the Prada and Chanel. I ended-up making very good use of the comfy chair they had. It felt so good to sit down for a bit! The wind started to kick up the further into Santa Monica we got, sun was bright too! Seeing glimpses of the glittery ocean kept us going.  We reached the statue of Santa Monica around 3:40pm. Considering we stopped for a total of about 30-40 minutes during our trek, we made good time. We also took our time looking at the different buildings and museums. Honestly though, I was so glad I’d parked my car at the end, so we only had to walk a short block back to it. 

We only encountered one angry unhoused person (over by the lake at Alvarado) and one person urinating as we walked by Crenshaw and Wilshire. A tip if you plan in doing a walk the length of Wilshire blvd, stop to eat  before you get to Beverly Hills. We forgot that it’s basically business and residences along the route until you get to Westwood (not a lot of choices there either). Basically no good places to stop until after you pass the V.A. and cross over San Vicente (#2). We ended up (against our political values) stopping at the Starbucks at Santa Monica/Wilshire to get water, a cookie and use facilities). 

I think the scariest part for me was walking over the first on/off ramp exit/entrance to the 405 fwy.  I was in the middle of the road and my right leg started to shake and I could’t feel my foot. Then I got a cramp. My friend helped me finish crossing and then it felt fine by the time we’d fully crossed the freeway. I think that was at mile 12. It really made me feel old!

As far as routes go, I enjoyed last years more as it took us through so many different and interesting neighborhoods and had more curiosities to look at and explore. Hopefully next year will be more like that. If you live in southern California, you should think about doing it next year. It’s always the Saturday before Thanksgiving and is totally free. You don’t have to train for it unless you want to do it fairly quickly. A lot of the participants really take their time and do just fine. Maybe just take a few walks ahead of time!

According to my watch: 34,955 steps, 16.5 miles, 1,247 calories burned and 6 hours 9 minutes walking.

Today I’m stretching, taking it easy and watching Ken Burns’ new documentary “The American Revolution” and I’m working from home tomorrow. 

Maybe I’ll try yo take a short walk to Trader Joe’s later?

Hi guys- just a quick check-in. It’s the Saturday before Thanksgiving here in the US, so that means I’ll be participating in The Great Los Angeles Walk in about 2 hours. This year it’s from One Wilshire to the ocean in Santa Monica, about 16 miles (finally got a more accurate number!). I’ll be working from home Monday in case I’m really feeling the aftereffects. Looking forward to this.

It’s still a challenging time. My friend’s cancer hasn’t miraculously gone away, but I’m spending as much time with her as I can fit into our schedules. If you know me IRL, there’s a 95% chance you have met her at least once as we’ve been friends for about 23 years. We’ve been friends through marriages, divorces, breakups with boyfriends, new jobs, etc. 

Work is still the same, but I’m trying to keep positive. I’ve had meetings with 4 people above me to try and extricate me from working with the over 80 man and I’m hopeful that will happen in Q1 next year. Meanwhile, I’ve put up a Christmas tree in my bedroom and the new one in the living room. Yes, it’s early, but the lights are pretty. I’ll most likely decorate them next weekend.

Well, time to get ready to leave. If you see me in Santa Monica later, say hello. I’ll be the one in black (shocking!), barely able to walk, lol.

Okay, soooo I got my hair cut. Short. Shorter than I have in probably 15 years, at least. I’m under no illusions as to why I did it. It’s one of the few things I can control right now. I’ve never been a cutter and I didn’t want to go down the eating disorder road even more than I already have, so the only option I could see was to cut my hair. I mean, I like it and have received compliments, but I hate why I did it. I can’t cure my friend’s cancer. I can spend time with them, lift them up, keep them steady, make them laugh…but I can’t cure them. I can’t stop a co-workers decline in mental acuity, but I can help fix things as much as I can before amy mistakes are found (or catch them before they become mistakes).  But I could cut my hair in a chin length style. That’s all I can do. Apart from cry. I do that a lot too.

 Hey everyone, I’m going to dictate this, so please excuse any typos or weird turns of phrase. I’m sorry it’s been a while since I posted. I’ve been struggling with whether I should even post anything at all actually. Apart from everything else that’s going on in this country which honestly is just a drain on everything, especially emotionally. I’ve had some things go on that have been taking my attention away from things that I should be focusing on. A lot of you know one of my friends I don’t wanna name them here but it’s very good friend of mine that I’ve known for over 20 years. They’d been diagnosed with stage four lung cancer last year and we found out a few weeks ago, well I found out about six weeks ago that the cancer had spread to their brain and that they’re in treatment of course, but I don’t know what the prognosis is to be honest. I am just spending as much time as I can with them and helping as much as I can. Trying to lighten the load for their family a little bit and their boyfriend. Yeah it’s been really tough. We went out today and drove around the city for the most part of the morning/afternoon. They live in Santa Monica and so we drove out to Los Angeles and went to a restaurant we hadn’t gone to in a while. We seem to always do things around getting lunch! Of course we got turned around and stuck in traffic with all the construction and everything going on. But we went back to their home and we were going to pick up some things in order to run some errands return some items and I had them get out of the car so that it would be easy for them to exit the car and they proceeded to collapse onto the pavement, which was really bad. You know they hurt their nose and their hand and wrist and getting them to the apartment just to rest. Thank goodness their boyfriend saw my car in the street as he was leaving and came back and the neighbor that saw everything and came to help stayed and watched my car. Honestly, I was rattled. It was almost like a seizure and they don’t remember what happened.  

So, planning our next trip I think I need to take into consideration a little bit more that their mobility is limited, but on the flipside too if I coddle them too much they’re gonna get upset. So it’s a fine line to walk when it comes to wanting them to have feel a little bit independent but still be safe. I mean the last time we went out two weeks ago and spent the day together. I think it was two weeks ago And their balance was OK but it would you know they would be shaky every so often and I asked about a cane or a walking stick or something for support and they didn’t want one because they needed to keep working those muscles to walk on their own. They didn’t want to atrophy anything And just a couple weeks later they have a walking stick which I know they don’t like. But I don’t know if it’s the medicine that’s doing it or if it’s the cancer that’s doing it. So that’s been keeping me busy mentally and preoccupied and stressed and upset pretty much all the time when I stop and think. 

I guess Work is is OK. I’m not thrilled, but that hasn’t changed just I’ve got someone that I work with who as I’ve mentioned here before I feel that their cognitive abilities are in decline and that’s been hard because I’ve worked with them for it’ll be 10 years in a few months And to see that decline happen has been difficult. One of the side effects of their decline is they’re already short temper has gotten shorter and so there’s a lot of yelling going on and I don’t know about you guys, but I certainly don’t like being yelled at when it’s not their place to yell at me nor is that anybody’s place to yell at me, but It’s hard to get really upset back when I don’t know that they understand that they that they shouldn’t be doing it. I mean it’s not like it’s terribly abusive or anything. It’s not like an HR issue, but it’s you know reactionary to different situations and you know that makes it hard. So yeah it’s been a lot. 

On a different note, I’ve mentioned last year that I did a walk the Saturday before Thanksgiving that was from USC to UCLA. It was an urban hike and it was almost 15 miles through different areas of Los Angeles and it was really really neat and this year is again the Saturday before Thanksgiving and it’s going to be from one Wilshire to the ocean. I guess there’s a statue in Santa Monica and I think that’s where it’s gonna end. They haven’t posted anything as of yet with details, so I’ve been trying to do some sort of preparation for the walk hike whatever you wanna call it urban hike. I couldn’t sleep this morning so I left my house at about 4am armed with pepper spray, of course and I did almost 6 miles walking, not running but walking and got home about an hour and a half or so it’s not too bad. It was nice cause it was cold and little bit misty out not too hot, but I’m hoping that I can build up to close to the distance that were that we’re going to be doing in November I still have almost 2 months and I think I’ll be able to do it. I just remember feeling really old last year because when we hit mile five you know your hip starts to hurt and then the backs of your knees start to hurt and then you start walking not completely upright so I don’t want that to happen this year. Last year I didn’t do any preparation. I just did it And I think that was a little bit of a mistake but then I found out about it fairly close to the time and date that we were gonna do it so there wasn’t really the opportunity to do anything ahead of time. So hopefully this year will be good. I’ll probably do the same thing, park at the destination and catch a Lyft or an Uber or the bus or train back to the Start of the walk. That way I have a ride waiting for me and I don’t have to try and grab a Lyft or anything back to my car. 

So that’s what’s going on not too much. I’ll try and write later.

Dispatch from the front lines. Things are bleak, rations are holding out for now, but the psychological impact of the situation is dire. Okay, kidding. Sort of.

It’s my birthday season and I wanted to start my next year free of clutter and I’ve only made things worse. I spent this past holiday weekend  bringing out boxes and going thru them, randomly moving furniture and generally feeling overwhelmed. And I’m covered in bruises from all of it. I’m going to Ricky Gervais at the Hollywood Bowl Saturday, but other than that, I’m going to continue the work. I’ve even arranged to work from home Monday and Tuesday so I can try to get more done then. I was going to take the days off, but a member of the team is out of town and I need to cover the clients, plus I have a weekly zoom with management from the western US I have to be on. Ugh.

Changing topics, because of the current leadership here is so horrific and the latest news out of Washington is a change of policy for vaccinations, I was able to get in to CVS and get a Covid shot that was still covered. As I’m not 65 and have no major health issues, my access to future boosters us heavily in doubt. I guess I’ll be out of luck come time for my flu shot in the fall, unless my insurance covers it.

Going to LA tomorrow afternoon to get my roots done. My hairdresser said having blonde hair would be easier than dark hair, but over 2 years in and it seems like it’s more expensive and a pain in the neck. Literally. Plus, when I imagine myself, I still see a brunette with blonde highlights, not a blonde. It’s weird.

Random thoughts- If I haven’t mentioned it, Thunderbolts* was awesome. Saw it twice. 3D sucked, but the movie was solid. Looking forward to Fantastic 4 and Superman!

If you’re in the US and are so inclined, google “no king protests June 14 2025”. There will be nationwide protests in honor of our would be king's birthday. There is one a couple blocks from here and I know they are a few others in So Cal.

Work should be quiet but busy tomorrow, and since I’ll most likely be alone in my area, I packed up my complete MacMillan and Wife set to play on my portable dvd player so I can listen to it while working. 

Oh, send good thoughts to Magda Szubanski. Diagnosed with aggressive blood cancer. That woman is a treasure.

It’s going to be hot tomorrow, BOOOO.

Well, better set my clothes out for tomorrow. More later. 

Ta,

R

Well folks, I got notification that my health insurance has denied my hospital stay. Now I’m going to have to try and see how to appeal. Keep in mind, I got this notice one day after I met with my surgeon and he proceeded to tell me I should have had my gallbladder out 2 years ago and it was a nightmare inside me and a mess to get out. He said it was barely working, huge and the wrong color. On the flip side, my incisions are healing great, two of which are already almost invisible and tests showed no cancer. 

I don’t get it, did I have a choice when I was admitted to the hospital? They told me I wasn’t going home and they were waiting for my insurance to approve my admission then they admitted me. I’m sure the hospital had me sign forms taking responsibility for stuff. I don’t know. Maybe I’ll make some calls once I hear from the hospital. 

I don’t condone violence, but I get how people get very upset about this. I was in the hospital for three days, I doubt I have the means to cover that. It’s scary.

Well, I guess I better learn how to deal with this.