When in doubt, write the May 2026 health report.
Mind: As I mentioned, having my cellphone downstairs overnight is a tremendous benefit to me.
I’m finding the monthly story time to be therapeutic. Part of it is the exercise to come up with five or six minutes on a topic without notes. Can I make it interesting, even entertaining? This is not particularly in my comfort zone. I don’t memorize it as such, but I have to create mental bullet points.
I really enjoyed Free Comic Book Day, which I ALMOST forgot about, even though I wrote about it. Fortunately, I put it on my phone calendar.
There was a FantaCo reunion of sorts at Earthworld. Of course, John Hebert, the featured artist, worked on the comic book Sold Out, which he was working on four decades ago; John said that I “launched” his career no more than six times in my presence. Bill Anderson worked at FantaCo, inked Fred Hembeck and Raoul Vezina, and performed other artistic tasks. Joe Fludd did some writing and illustrations for the Chronicles. So I’ve known all of them for at least 40 years.
Hearing: I had a hearing test, and the results were pretty much the same. I’m missing some sounds at the extreme ends of the range, but I don’t need an aid yet.
DDS: I had a tooth pulled, and I was going to get it replaced last month. But it didn’t “take.” So it will be postponed until July.
The funny – not ha ha funny – thing that medical providers often say is, “This is just going to be a pinch.” But the eight-year-old in me was feeling OUCH! OUCH! OUCH! Actually, the pain over the following 24 hours was quite exhausting.
The cane
I often carry a cane, but I don’t always use it. When I’m on a flat surface, it’s not necessary unless I’ve been either walking or standing for a substantial amount of time. Then my knee, usually the left one, locks up on me.
It’s generally not necessary to go up a set of stairs, but going down is more treacherous, especially stepping off a bus from the rear exit.
And the cane is definitely required on uneven surfaces – rolling lawns, bad sidewalks, and gravel driveways, for example.
But I also use it to propel myself when I’m trying to walk faster in order to catch a bus. The CDTA app says it should take three minutes to get from my house to the nearest bus stop; that was never true of me, even a quarter-century ago.
I do note that, in the main, people are much nicer to the old man with the cane. If I ever get my knees fixed, I may STILL carry the thing around.