| Week One: |
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If you don't know about my muffins, a
trip to the park, my new bike, or working at Waikems, you might want
to go back to September Week Two and get
caught up.
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My poor little, very
yummy, muffins that I baked up the end of last month went very fast. Richard and DO came over to our house
for a night of cards, and helped polish off some. I sent some home
to Angie and the kids, and then Jim took another dozen to work to quieten down that
clamoring crew, so there aren't many left now.
Here on the kitchen table, on top the remaining muffins is the bagel
cutter I just got for Jim. And isn't that a great inflatable ball?!?
Jim's boss gave it to him. |
Oh, the book in the pix?
It's "From the Palmer Raids to the Patriot Act: A History of the
Fight for Free Speech in America". I just recently finished
"Conservatives without Conscience" by John Dean. Both books, while
not all that long, are heavy and taking some time to plow through.
I'm learning quite a bit about psychology, sociology, and political
science through my recent selection of books over the past few
months. I've also learned two important things. One, that America is
definitely teetering on the edge of no longer being what I thought
the Constitution meant our country to be. But two, our country has
been in worse times and has pulled through. There is hope for
us. |
| As September ended, I told you that I
was pulling out the cosmos. I went through and gathered some of the
best pictures I kept from Driveway Cam to show how the cosmos looked
through the Summer. |
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I waited a couple of days into the
month to put out this update (which actually goes back to
September, Week Two), so that I could
get in the news from my doctor.
As you might know, my viral load had risen a small amount on my last
lab work and my doctor was concerned that this might be a bad trend
(see August Week Five). With HIV
constantly mutating, it's always just a matter of time before the
meds quit working properly. When that happens, luckily now, there
are some other meds available. But as you should know, I've always
had a fair amount of negative side effects and I don't look fondly
at ever having to change my current regimen. Although it's not
perfect, and I still get sick from these meds (and boy, has the last
month been a rough one for me), they are so much better than the
previous meds I have taken.
The excellent news from the doctor is that my viral load has dropped
back down! Although it didn't go back to "undetectable" yet, it did
drop by nearly a whopping factor of 10, from 2,750 to 310.
WooHoo! Even though I have felt like crap more than half of the past
month, I've actually been getting less sick and infected the whole
time. So, there will be no new meds and no more trips to the doctor
until just before Christmas.
 (just
in time for my 15-year anniversary of being HIV+) |
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| I'm nearly finished with my Waikem
webcam project now. Every cam has been recording activities
(like the cleaning crew at night), and all the employees have
learned what to do. I've only had a few phone calls to straighten
out some bugs. I've been quite pleased, on my visits to the
locations, to find that things have been working properly. They have
decided to have me install two more cameras, and then this project
will be completed sometime next week.
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Week Three: |
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| This week started out with a little
bit of work for me again. Not only having two clients to
visit; I also checked in on the Waikem webcams. Everything seems to
be going well, and when I ran into Doug he promised to have my check
in the mail ASAP. I'm having them mail me this "last" payment on the
project. If they have any more problems I'm hoping to handle them
over the phone, so I can't be certain when I'll be back on that side
of town. Luckily the two clients were nearby to Waikems and I was
able to handle them all in about 4 hours. |
| Little by little, Fall is starting to
creep into Ohio. Oh, it's still been well above average; but the
leaves are starting to change colors, and the pampus grass is
forming seed tassels. |
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The rest of the backyard
isn't looking too great though.
There's no sunflowers left, and a big bare spot where the solar
panel laid all summer. |
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Even the morning glories that were just
blooming so well, are starting to wither and turn yellowish in the
Fall sunlight. |
| The squirrels have been
out in the neighborhood lately gathering all the nuts falling from
the neighbors' trees. I'm afraid that this poor little black
squirrel isn't going to find anything worth eating in my mostly
dead, or dying, pansies and hostas underneath the dogwood tree. |
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| I usually don't have such
good luck with indoor plants. I only have one that hasn't died on me
in all these years. It started just a few inches tall in a nice
plant arrangement that US Cargo (my employer back then) gave me when
Randy passed away. Out of the 6 plants in that basket, that tall
leafy plant (the one in front of the door, in the picture below)) is
the only one to still be alive. My "black thumb" killed the rest of
them years ago. LOL |
| Years later that little plant is about
4 ft. tall now. Although it has had one "close call". When I moved
from my old house to Jim's, part of the plant got caught by the door
when it was being load up for the month, and a big chunk ripped off
the top. |
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| I potted up some of DO's pink begonias (in those front 3 pots in the
picture above), and hope to keep them alive throughout the winter.
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A solitary stray morning glory has been
growing out front in the bed where I "hope" my irises come back next
Spring. It finally grew up into this bush, and nearly got a bloom to
be seen on DriveWay Cam (in the bottom far corner of the front
window) |
I still haven't gotten my
last check from the webcam project yet.
 So
I emailed a little reminder, hopefully I'll see the rest of my
earnings very soon. |
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Week Four: |
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| MMM. The house smells good today,
starting off the week. Everyone has loved my lemon/cranberry/walnut
muffins; but I'm getting bored of them. This time half the
batch I made were orange-flavored. So far, everyone is telling me
that they are yummy too!
I think they are good; but next time I need to add some orange zest
to see if I can give them a little more punch. |
| The weather has gotten better this
week too. This is a picture we took from the middle school on the
hill just a few blocks away from the house. The sunset that night
was really spectacular as the clouds were pulling out of the area.
This picture doesn't begin to do it justice, as to how the clouds
were "glowing" that evening. It was really quite beautiful - enough
to be this "Kodak moment".
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Some More Good News:
At the end of August, I mentioned that I was hoping to get a supply
of the anti-smoking medication Chantix. Well, after a long wait, as
I headed out to a client one morning, there was a package from FedEx
at my front door and inside was a 2-month supply of little blue
pills.
Since we both smoke, Jim and I had decided to both take this med .
We're hoping that if we haven't totally kicked with habit within a
month's time, that we will at least have saved up enough money (by
smoking less) to cover paying for the prescription that I doctor
wrote for me.
You're allowed to smoke the first week as the dosage of the med
slowly increased every few days. On day eight, when you begin
taking the full amount per day, you also declare that to be your
first day to not smoke. The bad news is that one day 10 now neither
Jim nor I have completely quit smoking. I'm finding that I'm not
really smoking them because I "crave" them, or really enjoy them
anymore, but because I'm lighting cigarettes up out of habit. I've
been trying to change my habits, but I'm going to have to figure out
some other way because I'm wearing myself out.
Every time I "think" about lighting up while I'm sitting at the
computer, I've been getting up and going away to do something
constructive. So today to try to change my bad ways, I shampooed the
carpets, mopped the floors, played with the dogs outside, did ALL
the dishes and ALL the laundry, swept the leaves out of the garage,
and boy am I pooped. Maybe I'll just go in the other room and read
some to change my habits.
I've been a little slack about reading lately anyway. I currently
have a book about Prince and a science-fiction by a gay author
(although I'm not seeing anything "gay" about the story, it's
actually quite good). I've already re-newed both of these books and
still haven't finished either one. I guess that'll be my next
"constructive" project to tackle when the urge hits.
The ABSOLUTE GREATEST NEWS about trying to give up smoking is how
far we have already come in just ten days. Jim has already gone from
a pack a day down to only 10 cigarettes the last two days. (I'm sure
many of you will be shocked and think poorly of me for what I'm
about to confess, but oh well, here goes..
 )
I have gone from TWO packs a day
to 8 cigarettes for each of the last two days.
 I'm
now finding that I really only crave one in the morning, and one
after each meal, and one before bed. Soon I am sure I'll be down to
ZERO per day.
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| The final payment from my Waikem webcam
project arrived in the mail to help make the rest of the week good
too.
Some of the money went to Jim to help with the house. Some of the
money went into the bank (woohoo! I have an extra $100 right now.
Wonder how long that'll last? LOL). Some of the money I am donating,
for the guy that sent us the Chantix, to
AIDS
LifeCycle (a biking marathon in California next June). Of course
I splurged with some of the money too. As you can see by the
picture, I got a Sansa View, a MP3/Video Player. It's very cool
looking and stores 8 gig of music, etc. My last MP3 player, that I
wear/use all the time, was just too tiny with only 1 gb. I also
picked up a nifty armband to hold the player as I bike or work in
the yard. |
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| I've been dumping a ton of
my favorite music into this player and still haven't filled it up
yet. It really is great to carry around this much of my music
collection with me as I bike every day. |
| My other splurge was very
personal. You all know how close I have been with DO's family for so
many years. One of the many reasons is Ritchie. By the time he was
conceived, Randy and I had known Richard Angie for many years. Then
as Angie got pregnant and the baby started growing, Randy got sicker
and began to decline. Just a little over a year after little Ritchie
made it into the world, Randy left :( Having Ritchie in my life
during that time really helped me to know that even while life was
ending for some, it was beginning and continuing for the rest of us. |
| Too many times to count through the yrs, he has come over to
spend the night at "uncle mikie's" house - which just happens to be
filled with TVs, and computers, and video games, and four cocker
spaniels, with snacks supplied. Every night we "camped" out in the
living room at my old house, watching "The Nightmare Before
Christmas" (TNBC) movie before both of us (and the doggies)
usually zonk out about 3 or 4 in the morning. We've watched that
movie so many times we're on the second VHS tape and it's got four
bad spots time. I ought to burn my digital copy onto a DVD.
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| Years have gone by now and
"little" Ritchie is much taller and 14 already! His voice is so
deep, I still don't recognize that it's him when he speaks.
At a theater outside of Cleveland for a limited time, they are
re-playing TNBC in a new 3D format. Although I've seen the
movie so many times, I only got to see it once on the big screen.
Also the reviews about Disney's 3D effects are quite good. Who
better to take with Jim to see this new edition of the movie but
Ritchie.
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Since Ritchie's parents were going to an adult Halloween party Sat
night, it was easy to get permission for him to sleep over at Uncle
Mikie and Uncle Jim's house. I don't know who enjoyed it more -
Ritchie or the dogs.
After homemade waffles for breakfast, while we were all getting
ready for the trip, I turned Ritchie on to Danny Elfman (music
composer for TNBC) fronting
his 80's band Oingo Boingo. We even talked about the 3D version of TNBC
being out and how he and some friend of his were just "dying" to see it.
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Even while playing the cover songs on the special edition soundtrack
on the drive up to the Cleveland, Ritchie had no clue about where our
Mystery Trip was going to be. We pulled up in front of a huge
Cinemark theater (they have a 3D screen and an IMax, for I think of
total of 15 screens), and it was as we walked up to front that he
read the marquee, and figured it out.
Ah there was the look and the smile that I was hoping to get from
him!
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Ritchie and mIkIE wearing their 3D (not sunglasses) glasses
MouseOverCloseUp |
| As to the 3D effects of
the movie: WOW!
No longer do they give you those crappy cardboard red/green glasses.
You get these nifty plastic polarized glasses, which if your don't
use, only lets you see the movie slightly out of focus. But wearing
the glasses - the effect is awesome! During the opening "This is
Halloween" song, several of the flying ghouls and ghosts seemed only
feet in front of our faces.
As Sally lowers a bucket down from the tower you would swear it was
almost within your grasp.
Finally the ending snow scenes have the most amazing snowflakes that
seemed to be swirling right inside the theater.
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Returning home after the movie, Jim,
Ritchie, the dogs, and I spent some time outside enjoying a gorgeous
Fall day. |
| I had made a sandwich (so I could take
a dose of Chantix
)
before heading out to the yard. Aries immediately smelled my food
and came over begging for some.
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Joxer only cares about chewing on the
latest in a long line of real leather footballs. Each one lasts
about a year before nothing is left but a scrap that I refuse to
touch anymore.
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Poor little blind Gabby, my butt!
Just like Aries, she sniffed out my sandwich and came hopping over,
wiggling and looking oh-so cute.
And it worked. She got a bite. MMM! |
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| Finally, a picture of
everyone (but me behind the lens) in the frame at the same time. It
was hard to get with so much playing going on.
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Jim and Ritchie are the humans
the two red/white dogs are Zeus and Aries
and the two white/red dogs are Gabby and Joxer
(and that's the CLOSED pool in the background
 ) |
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| After such a fun
afternoon, we still had more to go, with FREE food included. Closing
up the house, we headed over to Cliff and DO's for their annual "Hallo-weenie
Roast". It was a perfect crisp cool Fall evening to be standing
around a big fire toasting hotdogs. Somehow, they just taste sooo
much better cooked that way. There was plenty of big glazed
doughnuts for dessert washed down with apple cider. |
 Happy
Halloween Everyone! |
I'm ending this month, not only with a
timely update; but by enjoying some special time with DO. Since
we're still having some nice weather and the leaves are really
changing colors, we decided to spend time outdoors walking through
the Canton City Parks.
The dark green on this map is a stretch of parkland (a total of 6
parks strung together) that runs beside I-77, behind Timken Mercy
Hospital, and includes a monument to President McKinley. |
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DO gets a kick out of watching Rosita
chase the geese into the water. You'd think all those birds would
why up and gang up on such a little dog. |
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I hope you enjoy this
panoramic shot of one section of the park,
along with some still photos from another section. |
Click the picture to stop the motion. Drag left or right to restart and scroll.
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| We also brought along a
picnic lunch of tuna fish salad and egg salad sandwiches for our big
day in the park. |
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| And I leave you this month
enjoying the beauty of Fall and this two-for-one
GBS, as
DO and Rosita stroll through the park.
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( I LOVE your cookies, DO!
 ) |
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