“Diseases Desperate Grown…”

The fireplace is getting done, slowly. When we got the estimate, it sounded like a reasonable deal – but now I see what it’s taking, and it seems that I’m paying the mason and his helper something like $200 per hour. Of course, he lives in Pagosa, so that’s probably minimum wage.

So – I had a talk with the electrocardiologist the other day, and she told me to back off on my workouts so that I only go up to the low end of Zone 3 in my heart rate, and she told me to “listen to my body”. So this morning, I backed off to 80% intensity in my Sweet Spot ride, and then had to admit that – if I’m being honest, which I have to do according to page 58 – I don’t feel up to going skiing after that workout.

So – I’m really in bad shape, cardiovascularly. I was saying “Well, I can’t run, but at least my bike and swim are still strong”. Well, my bike and swim aren’t strong anymore.

And my prostrate is acting up. My PSA has gone up in the last few months, so that now they want an MRI. When this prostrate cancer thing started off, it was “No worries, mate. It’s cancer lite. We’ll just monitor it”. Well, they’re monitoring it, and it’s not good.

So – I’m in awful physical shape – the worst ever – and my medical problems are getting worse.

I’ve always said that, if I can’t ski, I might as well move back to Panama. But, if I have all these medical problems, then I can’t live in Panama because I’ll need medical care.

SO HERE’S THE PLAN – I “move” to Texas. I reckon I’ll rent a room from my childhood friend in Dallas (no, I haven’t asked him about this) just to establish residency. Then I’ll move back to Panama. Then I can fly “home” easily to top-notch medical care in Dallas, and I won’t have state income tax.

To quote Jacopo in Count of Monte Cristo, “tell me why this is not a good plan”,

However, Ethel isn’t going for it just yet. So I’ll leave her to sit with it for a while, until she suddenly realizes that it’s actually her plan. To quote Jubal Harshaw, “once [she] pees in it, she’ll like the flavor better, and she’ll buy it”.

In the meantime, I’m resting, and hoping that tomorrow morning I feel up to going skiing. Before I “move” to Texas.

Nothing Ever Settles

We got back from Alabama last night, and unpacked, and even watched a movie. Time to settle back into a routine, right?

Wrong again. Nothing ever seems to be settled down.

Here’s the living room right now:

For some reason, Ethel didn’t like the fireplace surround – apparently, it didn’t surround the fireplace correctly – so now we’ve bought stone and timber and hired a mason and a carpenter to put up stone and a new mantle. During all of the prep and discussion, the stonemason has been responsive and on time. Now that it’s time to start the job, he’s late.

And we can’t sit in the great room, for at least a week, during the day. We’re great room people – this is where we sit. Where I nap. It’s pretty much the center room of our lives, but we’re now exiled from it, because the fireplace surround didn’t work, and the mason ain’t working, and everything is covered with sheets.

I had to go to the local clinic this morning to get lab work done; I had to get my truck moving outside, at 16 F, with that hard, crusty, thin frost that forms on the windshield and that won’t scrape off very well. Then, when I got home, I got tagged to sit around and wait on the mason before I can do my VO2Max ride, before I can do the rest of the day. Fuss and bother. It was a PSA test, to see if my cancer is acting up. I had to not work out for three days prior, and now it’s time to get on the bike, but I can’t, because the mason isn’t here yet.

We’ve taken the skis in for the first tune of the season. The nice ski techs told me that my Rossignol Soul 7s, that I bought 5.5 years ago, have been worn down too much, and that I’m going to need new skis by the end of the year. Well, gee – Rossignol has quit making Soul Sevens. And there’s nothing out there to say what to replace them with – I mean, if I ask, Google AI is really ready to make suggestions. But Google AI has been so wrong so many times that I really don’t want to trust it.

I hate this. I love those skis.

We’ve got to either put the Thule box back up against the garage ceiling, or put it on Ethel’s car. It looks like it will fit under the garage door, but I know that she doesn’t like the whistling noise that it makes at highway speeds. But we moved to a place that charges $2000 for a double ski locker (the last time we paid rent, at Big Sky, it was $200; we belonged to the Big Mountain Club in Whitefish for about $3500/year) and we didn’t do due diligence – no, wait. That’s not true. We knew that Wolf Creek was going to be building out a locker room, but they couldn’t tell us then how much it was going to cost. Goofed up again. I reckon that I didn’t think “probably seven times the cost of the last locker rental” was a reasonable assumption.

I have a call with my electrocardiologist’s PA today at 11 AM. I’m going to tell her that I can’t run anymore, so I’ve given up on life, and if the doc wants to recommend elder euthanasia, I’m cool with that. But nobody ever wants to do things the easy, simple way.

And now I’m through typing this, and the stonemason hasn’t arrived, or called. So it looks like things are going to be up in the air for a while. – actually, Ethel just called, and he’s going to be a couple of hours, so I’m going to get on the bike.

(UPDATE – Apparently, I didn’t post this yesterday, when I wrote it. Posting it now, a day late).