Scattered Thoughts . . .

M y morning started out better than I have experienced since we were in Manhattan last month which was quite a relief for a change.  I was feeling well and I was up an hour before Sheila so I managed to get a few little things accomplished around the house that I had been putting off for more than three weeks because I had been so sick.  I showered and then Sheila got up out of bed. After just an hour of little everyday things around the house that everyone takes for granted without a single thought of how they will accomplish it, that was about it for me. I started feeling exhausted.  I was starving.  Before long, I was dizzy, I was having more difficulty breathing, my vision was narrowing and my peripheral vision was filled with sparkly grayness.  I've experienced this many times, especially in the past year after my previous COVID infection, so I quickly identified it as the cascading symptoms of anaphylaxis.  I grabbed my epinephrine and some of my emergency medications and did

I finally tested negative for COVID and we needed a few things from the market so we headed out of the house tonight.   This was my first time out of the house since we were in Manhattan the week before Christmas so I've been stuck in the house for quite some time.  Tonight, I quickly learned that I'm still not ready to be out and about. I'm definitely exhausted and that was the first thing I noticed while walking down our first aisle at the market.  My breathing isn't great but it has been far worse in the past.  I was breathing more heavily than I should have been simply by casually strolling down a couple of aisles in the market.   I just generally feel lousy and that was very noticeable tonight before we finished our first aisle.  My nose is still running a bit but that is so minor that I typically would not even mention it.  I mention it only to make note, for future reference, that my nose is still running. Overall, I'm feeling lousy and still want to stay ho

While I am still recovering from COVID and a secondary infection, I pulled out one of my film cameras.  This is my Mint TL70 TLR Instax camera. I have sort of lost all track of time but I think I've been in quarantine for three weeks now.  I should be at the end of my quarantine period though as long as I test negative for COVID this evening.  I already went through the Paxlovid treatment and I am just finishing up my antibiotic for my secondary infection.   I'm feeling a bit better than I have been feeling, finally, but I am still quite fatigued.  Actually, I'm quite exhausted by mid-morning.  I'm still seeing signs in my nasal mucus showing that my body is in overdrive fighting this infection but the mucus volume is significantly smaller now which is good.  I've been fever-free for a few days now which is good because I had a fever coming and going for a long, long time.  My joints are pretty painful.  My spinal injuries are quite lousy as well but that might be m

This blog entry consists mostly of photos of windows we saw on Fifth Avenue.  We did some window shopping, however, I should mention that we did quite a bit of shopping in quite a few stores on Fifth Avenue during our stay in Manhattan too.   I'll cover our disappointments in another blog entry but I have to add a bit about our disappointments here in this blog entry since window shopping, in general, is something that left us quite disappointed during this trip thanks to Sak's Fifth Avenue and Lord & Taylor.  (Plus, I'm still a bit bitter about being infected with COVID yet again due to this trip so I'm left with a lot of bad feelings about this trip... a lot of bad, bitter feelings.) First, Lord & Taylor is now gone so their windows and Christmas decorations were sorely missed.  Their Christmas window displays were always among the best on Fifth Avenue.  Sak's Fifth Avenue also used to be among the best but, this year, Sak's seems to have given up on

For the most part, today was yet another rather miserable day. I thought I might get to writing more about our trip to Manhattan a few weeks ago but I'm feeling so lousy today that I opted to avoid writing about the trip.  At the moment, due to getting this horrendous, lingering, debilitating virus during this trip, I have absolutely nothing good to write about this trip nor do I want to travel ever again so it is best that I do not put any of my current feelings into writing.  This sentiment about travel will likely change...  in time...  perhaps a very long time...  but, at the moment, this is how I feel.   I slept most of the day, again, and I generally feel quite miserable.  I had a little bit of energy after sleeping most of the morning but that only lasted about a half hour before I was feeling quite miserable again.  In that half hour, I managed to fix my telephone line in the house and I wrote about that in a previous blog entry.   I have a sinus headache due to a sinus inf

W hen I picked up the telephone to call my doctor the other day, I quickly realized my phone line wasn't working.  I had nothing but dead air and I could hear myself in the handset.  I only exceptionally rarely will touch my phone so I have no idea how long this line has been down!   I put this problem aside until I was feeling a step or two above "miserable".  At the time when I realized my phone was down, I needed to contact my doctor about my worsening COVID infection.  The phone could wait.  Contacting my doctor was the priority.  Besides, my phone line could have been down for months so it could wait another few days. In the meantime, later that day after talking with my doctor, I ordered some parts.   I figured my Vonage unit was okay...  I figured our two-line phone base was working fine...  and, as best as I could tell, the two wireless remote handsets seemed to be working fine.  This meant that there was likely a problem with the line running from the Vonage unit

When I awoke this morning, a photo from the lake that we have hanging on our bedroom wall caught my attention.  As I laid there assessing my health, I was also thinking that I should go back to the file folder that contains the photos from this particular morning on the lake in 2013 to see if there was anything else that was worthy of hanging on the wall.   Although this first photo wasn't what I had in mind when I went looking for this file folder containing old photos, this photo is a rare photo...  a photo of Sheila and me!  In this photo, we are on the summit of Owl's Head Mountain at Lake Groton.  Adam shot this photo... The next few photos are actually the photos I was searching for this morning.  On this early morning in 2013, I had ventured out on my kayak just after dawn, as usual, to capture some photos in the still of the morning.  Everyone was still in bed but this is perhaps my favorite time to be out on the lake.  The lake is always mirror flat with a bit of fog t

I 'm feeling slightly better than yesterday but I still feel quite lousy.  I'm feeling lousy enough that I am dreading going outside to remove snow from the roof and driveway.  I'm still exhausted and my joints ache.  My breathing isn't bad but my head is all congested and I'm coughing up phlegm so I'm still expecting to have some breathing problems when I'm doing something physical like working outside.  We'll see how my breathing really is later today when I do head outside to move snow.  I'm definitely not looking forward to it though.  Just the thought of heading out there is making me more exhausted. I had a fever last night before we headed to bed.  I was fever-free all day and was hoping that the fevers were finally behind me but apparently not.  So far, today, I'm fever-free so that is good. What isn't helping any is the fact that I am still vividly remembering trying to move snow while sick with COVID in past winters.  Saying it was