Carol Archives - Page 4 of 19 - Ramblin' with Roger

The family that COVIDs together…

Also, four hours in the hospital

What IS that old saying? “The family that COVIDS together…” I’m not remembering the rest of it.

As noted, my daughter developed COVID c. Wednesday, August 24, just as we were about to head off to college.

Friday, August 26, we were all going to get more substantial COVID tests at the urgent care place. But my wife opted out, deciding she had no symptoms. I chose to get one because I had a bit of a sore throat. Truth is, I often have a bit of irritation from allergies or whatever. My daughter was still positive, but I was negative.

My doc asked a bunch of questions, such as if I had chest pain. I had more pain in my right shoulder than in my chest, but she ordered an EKG. She discovered a variation from what she was expecting. Now, I was born with heart arrhythmia. My primary care physician calls it a regular irregularity.

A change in plans

The urgent care doc suggested that I go to an emergency room to get further tests. I called my wife to pick me up – taking the bus after I’d taken a COVID test didn’t seem sage – and got some lunch. Then she drove me to Memorial Hospital because it would likely be less crowded than Albany Med or St. Peter’s.

Everyone was very nice, a couple of doctors, a physician’s assistant, and the nurse. The nurse was great, actually, and I was distressed to discover that one of her other patients had tried to assault her while I was there. The hospital ran a bunch of tests and found me A-OK. My calcium was low, and some other minor things were discovered.

By Monday, August 29, I was feeling achy, and I was coughing, sometimes uncontrollably. More rapid tests. I was positive for COVID, and my wife was likewise, even though we were fully vaxxed and doubly boosted.

I can say that I have felt worse, such as when I had the flu a dozen or more years ago. But it is difficult to focus on much of anything. (This blog post of 420 words I had to do in two shifts.) I feel addled. I bollocked my Wordle on Tuesday – I got it in six – because I couldn’t focus. The word, coincidentally, was ONSET, some cosmic joke. My wife, from her activity level, seems to be feeling better than I am.

My daughter won’t get to college until Sunday, three days after classes begin. Whatcha gonna do?

My wife: adjusting to retirement

theater

Carol My wife has started adjusting to retirement. She said that on her first day off, she would turn off the alarm clock; she did, and I was pleased. And she would do her Wordle earlier in the day, which usually happens.

There’s a bit of an adjustment for both of us, especially in the morning. When she went to work or church, she’d take a shower early, and I would go downstairs to do the attestation of my blood pressure and pulse. But she tends to watch a morning news show, which is contrary to the calm I seek when taking the readings. As a compromise, we’ve recorded programs to watch 15 minutes later, which allows zapping through the commercials.

She has a different process for her day. I like to read my emails, post that day’s blog on Facebook, et al. She likes to do chores early. Left to my own devices, I’d write a blog post, or at least a draft, then have breakfast, exercise, and write some more. Emptying the dishwasher I could do after lunch. So when SHE empties the dishwasher, I feel an imbalance in The Force. This is an example of how we will eventually Figure Stuff Out.

Busy, busy!

Since our daughter graduated from high school, we’ve been busy. We’ve gone to the theater thrice on successive Wednesdays, and are scheduled for at least twice more this summer.

The first show was A Chorus Line, a show I’ve watched the commercials for since the mid-1970s but haven’t seen since the actual production until now. A great review in Nippertown hits on the expanded physical stage at the Mac-Hadyn Theater in Chatham, NY since we were last there in 2019. The next show was Ain’t Misbehavin’ at the Barrington Stage in Pittsfield, MA. It was reviewed here. Then Urinetown at Mac-Haydn noted here.

My wife and I have attended two family reunions, both sides of her family. Getting our daughter ready for college is important and occasionally tedious. Plus the usual stuff.

I said at the point I retired three years ago, I was too busy to work. My wife seems to figure this out early on in the process. I just hope she doesn’t think she has to complete all of her ever-expanding to Do list by the end of August because it just won’t happen.

Oh, it’s my wife’s birthday today!

Running hot and cold

avoiding the sun

Kelly wrote about hot and cold. Specifically: “Every couple I’ve ever known, of every combination of people, has a hot one and a cold one.

“This isn’t about looks, but about reactions to temperature. Every couple has one person who always thinks it’s on the cool side, while the other always thinks it’s on the warm side.” And for the most part, I think he’s correct. But he’s NOT right about my wife and me.

It’s because my wife has a far greater tolerance for the extremes than I do. I’m the temperate one. In the house, I need it warmer in the winter AND cooler in the summer than she does, by about three degrees Fahrenheit. So I HATE it when she bakes in the summer, but LOVE when she does so in the winter.

The first floor has, thank Allah, air conditioning. When I climb the stairs, it feels like another climate. Why doesn’t she have the fan on in our bedroom? The fact that we aren’t currently IN our bedroom is not a reason.

The GREAT outdoors?

It is even more true outdoors. She is NOT a sun worshipper, but I actively avoid direct sunlight if possible. Partially, it’s the vitiligo, but I also fear heat stroke. I almost ALWAYS have a cap on, preferably white or a light color. Long sleeve shirts may seem counterintuitive, but I can’t afford to burn. And, if I can find them, sunglasses.

I LOVE sunglasses. And that applies to the winter as well, with the glare of the snow. Because I got frostbite when I was about 15, my feet are particularly susceptible to the cold. If my head, ears, hands, or feet are cold – and this is true, indoors or out – I’m pretty miserable.

My wife can tolerate about 20 to 85 F, but I’m more of a 25 to 80 F guy. Or maybe 28 to 77. My tolerance for the cold outdoors has definitely lessened. I remember riding my bicycle when it was 20F; now it has to be 35F.

The extra Paul McCartney tickets

passion

As I have noted, my daughter and I saw a certain musician at the Knickerbocker Arena* in Albany on July 5, 2014.

I really wanted to see this show, so I went to some secondary seller online site to get Paul McCartney tickets. It wasn’t until the transaction was complete that I realized that I had made a purchase for the Pittsburgh show two days later. The layout of the Consol Energy Center looked quite similar to the Albany venue. I don’t know why I had it in my mind that the Albany performance was on the 7th; I even initially wrote that in my review.

A month later, a friend of mine gave me a lead to get better tickets for the Albany show, and at a cheaper price. I bought two MORE tickets for the 5th. I figured my wife, my daughter, someone else and I would attend.

But when I offered my wife the opportunity to go, she seemed rather indifferent. “Yeah, I guess so.” It wasn’t really the enthusiasm I was looking for, whereas my daughter was psyched. I suspect the amount of money I had now spent might be driving my need for more passion.

In the end, I gave the more expensive pair to a couple at church. They have had season tickets for the Albany Symphony Orchestra for several years. When they couldn’t go, they would offer them to my wife and me. This seemed like a way to pay them back.

Steel City

But what to do with the pair of tickets for the July 7 Pittsburgh show? At first, I contemplated going, but I didn’t want the expense of flying there or taking the time required to ride the bus. I attempted to sell them online without success. Yeesh, I couldn’t let them go to waste.

Finally, on either July 3 or July 5, I searched for a radio station in the Pittsburgh market that I thought had the right playlist; don’t remember which one. I called them up and asked if they could give away two Paul McCartney tickets for the July 7 show. Naturally, they were suspicious that this was a ruse. But they said that if I had them, they could and would give them away. So I emailed them the electronic tickets.

That was my story that I needed to share on the eve of Paul McCartney’s 80th birthday.

* The arena in Albany has had a few name changes. After the Knick, it became the Pepsi Arena, then the Times Union Center, which it was in 2014, and now the MVP Arena. So I just call it the Knick.

My wife is retiring from her job

Taxing

The big news is that my wife is retiring from her job as a teacher of English as a New Language at the end of the school year.

You’d think since I retired three years earlier, I would have had time to get used to the idea of her being home too. Well, not exactly. Of course, she’s often home in the summer, though last summer she taught in August.

I was home alone from September 2019 until early March 2020. Then my wife and my daughter were doing the education thing at home for over a year because COVID.

I’ve mentioned this before, but I believe it’s vitally important: early on, she converted the spare bedroom into her office, pretty much at my insistence. Previously, she was teaching from the dining room table, which meant I was invading her teaching space regularly. That was not working AT ALL.

Money

Am I anxious about the economics of her retiring? Er, yes, since she had been making more than I had been – I was grossly underpaid – for a number of years. But she does have a pension and other resources.

It’s impossible to know whether she would have left at this point if COVID hadn’t happened. No doubt, students suffered educationally but, at least as important, socially and emotionally from remote learning.

Now she’s musing on what the next phase of her life will be. I’m hoping that she’ll not take on another job for a time. Recently, she suggested we do “spring cleaning.” I’d be happy just doing something with the boxes and bags that have cluttered the living room and dining room, some since my mother-in-law moved from Oneonta to a place near Albany last summer.

Taxman

It’s our 23rd wedding anniversary today. I’ve determined that there are certain actions that help us to get along. One major one is not trying to decipher her filing system. When we get documents she believes are important, she files them away. And she retrieves them because, for whatever reason, I can almost NEVER find them.

This became an issue when she emailed me that the accountant needed to know how much I made in 2021 from Social Security. She emailed me, “I think those forms are in the tax file folder. Look in the drawer in the kitchen under the toaster for the folder.”

OMG, no, no. I know had received the document, and had promptly put it in her mail drawer. The document was NOT in the folder, which I, remarkably, located.

Now, I was able to find the amount of interest we paid in 2021 on our home equity loan, a paper we had likewise received. But because I’m the one who tends to access the electronic info from our bank’s online system, I could recreate the 1098.

Deductions

I called the accountant and told him I could find the monthly net amount I received, but not the gross. We’d been working with their firm for several years since some debacles my wife and I had in filing on our own. He said that he thought this was the first time he had spoken to me, and it was probably true.

(Prior to being married to her, I NEVER itemized our deductions. I still find it exhausting but it’s important to her, so I keep track electronically of my charitable contributions.)

I always found the title of a Paul Simon compilation album a true path for keeping a marriage intact: Negotiations and Love Songs.

Thanks, dear, for the full-body hugs every night.