I had to wake up early so I could have an early drive to an early doctor appointment that was early.

Color me shocked, there was no traffic down the usually-heinous-especially-on-a-Friday 405 East of Seattle. I anticipated a 40-45 minute commute. I did it in 18 minutes. Which means I was nearly an hour early for my appointment. I was a bit hungry (and finally feeling like eating again), so I decided to grab breakfast. Much to my delight, a Panera was 8 minutes away. Perfect.

Boo! BOOOOO!!!

Boo, Panera Bread!

Instead of the gooey, delicious, egg over-medium that you used to get, they’ve switched to that same gross, spongy, slimy "egg" that McDonalds has! DAY. RUINED. I was all "Guess I’ll just sit here in the parking lot of the eye clinic and cry." AND COULD YOU BLAME ME? LOOK AT THIS! JUST LOOK AT THIS!!!

Argh. And the shit was really expensive too.

Boy oh boy did I used to love being in a city that had a Panera in it.

But back to the traffic (or lack thereof)... what is going on? Roads in Bellevue were practically empty. In Bellevue! Didn’t even have to use express lanes to drive 65 the entire way to the city... ON THE 405, FOR GOD’S SAKE. Did The Rapture happen three days early? Are we in a National Day of Mourning because somebody famous died?!? Please tell me it’s not Skylar Astin! I need more So Help Me Todd!

But anyway... mission accomplished.

More or less.

After the kidney stone nightmare last night (and this morning), I decided to work from home today just in case there was still a fragment left to come. Or my nausea returned. Or whatever.

After lunch I noticed that my right leg hurt pretty bad. I take a look and... yep... I've got a massive bruise on the front of my upper leg and the side of my lower leg. Absolutely no clue how I did it. I was in such a huge amount of pain that I could have gotten hit by a car and barely noticed. Maybe I did get hit by a car!

The good news is that I get to share this awesome drawing of the male urinary system that I drew up in one of my past posts about kidney stones...

I was pretty tender on my right side all day today, but actual pain was minimal. I managed to keep an Eggo waffle down for lunch (no butter, no syrup), get a huge chunk of work done, and drive over the mountains for my appointment tomorrow, so I'm calling the day a win.

As for the drive itself, it was pretty crazy. Roads were clear. But there was a lot of snow assaulting me going up the pass and hardly any visibility coming down the pass. I was excited to post a few photos of it all, but my dashcam cord has gone bad and my camera wasn't on for the whole trip. Maybe if you just picture A WHITEOUT... JUST WHITE EVERYWHERE... and that will be close enough.

And now, for your reading enjoyment, I present... A TIMELIME OF HORRIFIC SUFFERING...

• 5:40pm I leave work to get cleaned up so I can see a friend's photos from a trip he took.
• 6:15pm I have a faux-cheese sandwich for dinner.
• 7:30pm I arrive at my friend's house. Everybody else had dinner earlier (which I was invited to, but skipped, because I don't like to make life difficult for people over my dietary choices) but I did snack a little on crackers, carrots, and hummus that was left over.
• 8:15pm I bow out early because I feel some kind of abdominal distress coming on. From what, exactly, I have no idea.
• 8:30pm I get home, take an antacid, and output some PDFs for work to email out for review.
• 9:10pm Starting to get really uncomfortable now. I decide to call it an early night.
• 9:20pm And now I get it. I've felt this before. Kidney stones. I haven't had one since 2017.
• 9:30pm There goes the contents of my stomach.
• 9:40pm And now I'm in serious pain. I take one of my three remaining Oxycodone/Anti-Nausea combos I have left from 2017. Immediately throw it up.
• 9:50pm The pain is almost overwhelming, so I try one of my two remaining Oxycodone/Anti-Nausea combos. It goes no better. Even the small sip of water was too much and everything comes right back up.
• 10:00pm I have now reached the "Begging for Death Stage." I am very close to calling a friend to take me to the hospital for a pain-killer IV, but all I can think about is how it will cost me thousands of dollars since I'm nowhere close to my massive insurance deductible.
• 10:30pm At this point, I'm crossing my fingers that I'll just pass out from the agony.
• 11:20pm Time has no meaning. Has it been hours? Days? Weeks? I don't know. My cats have abandoned me because I'm pretty much screaming non-stop. It doesn't no good, but I can't help myself. I keep running to the bathroom to throw up, but there's nothing to throw up.
• 12:07am I know it was 12:07am because that's what it said on my clock when I decided to take my final Oxycodone/Anti-Nausea combo. Now I have something to throw up.
• 1:20am According to my Apple Watch, I passed out for 35 minutes or so. I have no recollection of it. According to what I remember, I was awake and screaming the whole time. This actually makes me happy, because it meant my cats had a break from being absolutely terrorized.
• 2:30am Around this time, I am crawling around my house looking through every pill bottle I can find to see if there's another hit of Oxy I can throw up. There is not. I contemplate the hospital again, feeling like the pain will never end.
• 3:30am Around this time, the pain starts to recede.
• 3:40am The pain isn't gone, but it might as well be. I have two soda crackers and a sip of water to celebrate. Nothing gets thrown up, so I guess the worst is over. I drink a full glass of water and try and get some sleep.
• 7:20am I wake up and take a whiz. That wonderful feeling of having a needle stabbing inside my urethra is both painful and a relief, because I know it's now officially over. UNLESS THERE IS A SECOND ONE SOMEWHERE ALL UP IN MY BUSINESS!
• A full day of work followed by a drive over the mountains, trivia night at a bar where I was smart enough to eat very little and drink no alcohol (but not smart enough at trivia), and an early bedtime.

Let's not be doing that again any time soon.

Greetings at 3:45am on Thursday morning!

I have kidney stones!

I figured it out because I've been screaming in pain for the past 6 hours. Still hurting, but I really, really hope the worst of it is finally over, because... holy crap is this unreal. I used to get them regularly. Like clockwork once a year. But then they mysteriously stopped, and I haven't had one since 2017. Probably because I started drinking lemonade regularly? No idea why they're back.

What's bothering me most... other than the sheer agony, of course... is that I really should have had somebody drive me to the hospital. When the pain is so bad that I can't keep down pain medication, I used to go and have them give me an IV so I can get through it. But now? The whole time I was terrorizing my cats with my yelling, I was thinking "I know it will pass eventually... so can I really afford a hospital visit? No. I will just continue to be in absolute agony to see if can get through this on my own."

What kind of FUCKED UP "health care" system is it where somebody has to be screaming for six hours because a hospital visit is off the table for them? I have no fucking clue what we're even doing. Guess I should be glad it wasn't ten hours. Or days.

We'll find out exactly how bad our "health care" is tomorrow (today?) when I go in for a consultation for yet another eye surgery. Where the entire time I'll be thinking "Do I really need to see that badly?"

Over the weekend I started Spring cleaning. Which started with putting out the sonic mole spikes because my underground friends are back, then cleaning out my flower beds (which was no fun for my allergies). And then I progressed into my home, which was neglected most of March while I was working on tons of other things.

The first thing I did was better-organize my freezer. Which, miraculously, always seems to have enough room for new groceries no matter how full it already is. Birds Eye Microwave-Steam-In-The-Bag vegetables were on sale, so I bot a shit-ton of them, then packed them into the bottom of my freezer and put the older stuff on top so I'd use them first...

Oh how I love how economical frozen vegetables are. I'd buy fresh, but frozen (particularly on sale) are so much less expensive, taste amazing, and don't go to waste from spoiling.

From the kitchen I decided to move into the garage. Since the frost is gone, I'll be parking outside so I can set up my wood shop. My goal is always to try and organize things in a way that I can move my tools out of the way and still park indoors at night, but I'm never quite able to get there. This year, I can finally donate all my old kitchen cabinetry, which will open up a heck of a lot of space. So... maybe.

It would be easier if I were the kind of person who can throw stuff out. But I'm just not. I might neeeeeeed it some day. Which is so stupid, but here I am... saving every scrap of wood. But at least I got it organized nicely...

Next I have to organize my tools (yet again) and clear off my work bench. After that... it's tool time.

I need to rebuild my entry closet, build some shelves for my office, and figure out how to build a cat run for Jake and Jenny so they have something new to explore. After that there's no less than 18 projects on my list, which should make for a fun Spring and Summer.

I have a very large denim collection. Partly out of necessity, because my weight fluctuates radically depending on what diet I'm having to be on.

Sometimes I have to eat low-carb in order to regulate blood sugars, and that results in rapid weight loss. When that happens, I'm in a 32-inch waist. When I'm on my regular diet, I'm a 33-inch waist. If I am having mobility issues due to my joints being screwed up long enough, then I'm a 34-inch waist. And... for those rare times I've been on a medication that's escalated weight gain and affected my mobility, I have a three pair of 36-inch waist jeans in a bottom drawer. No idea why I don't have any 35-inch.

So I have jeans with 32, 33, 34, and 36 inch waists.

But it doesn't end there. For each size I have multiple styles.

For the longest time I wore "relaxed" fit jeans because I'm skinny and I thought they made me look not-so-skinny. And it happened to be the style of the day, so Levi's 550's were my go-to.

Then the wider leg jeans went out of style, so I switched back to the straight-leg jeans of my youth, Levi's 501's and 505's.

Then I was traveling and lost my suitcase. I stopped at a store to get some new jeans and shirts and the clerk helping me put me in a tapered leg (Levi's 502's) and slim fit models (Levi's 511's and 513's) because they were popular and she thought the fit was better on me. I never in my life thought I'd buy these kind of jeans, but I ended up loving them. I didn't ever drop down to "skinny jeans" (not at my age!), but I've been wearing slim-fit jeans for over a decade.

But now slim-fit jeans are lumped in with "skinny jeans" and they are very much NOT in style.

And so...

All my slim-fit jeans are going into storage. And my straight-leg jeans are coming out of storage. I have loads of them in good shape with a 33 & 32-inch waist, which is perfect (unless I ended up gaining weight). It doesn't matter that some of them are twenty years old, they're back in style now, so I'm really happy I held onto them.

And this is the reason why I'm holding onto all my slim-fit jeans. In another ten years, who knows? Maybe they'll be back in style and I won't be too old to wear them.

I should donate all my relaxed-fit jeans. I don't picture me ever being able to wear those again. Old guys in baggy jeans doesn't really work in any era.

It always amazes me how people think that the entirety of a country wholeheartedly believes in their government and supports them in everything they do.

And it's like... do YOU wholeheartedly believe in YOUR government and support THEM in everything THEY do?

No?

So why should it be any different in other countries?

I've never found this to be true in any place on this earth I've visited. Yes, some countries have a government that better represents the majority of the people they serve, but even then there will be those who don't agree with what's being done in their name. But here's the thing... no matter where I've been, I've always been able to find a way to relate to my fellow earthlings, at least in general.

I have been warmly invited into the home of a man who hates America. Literally. Would not cry a single tear if the country would implode after the way our government meddled in the affairs of his country. And I'm not imagining things here. He actually said it to me with a smile on his face. But he doesn't hate Americans. At all. Just our government (for which I think he pities us)... and, to be fair, he has justification for it.

But, once invited into his home, the politics of our countries never came up. We talked about our lives, our work, our families, where we live, and a dozen other topics that resulted in smiling faces and laughter. Because, at the bottom of it all, we are both human.

Too many people in too many countries are losing sight of this very basic fact, and it doesn't bode well for humanity. There is history which makes relations between some peoples difficult... very difficult, even... but it's never impossible.

Person to person, anyways.

I drank tea and had a great chat with a guy who despises my country with fervor. I guess miracles can happen. When governments are left at the door.

Facebook memes are often more amusing to me than they probably should be. What can I say? I'm easily amused.

I especially like those memes asking you to score yourself on all the debauchery, danger, and mishaps you've had in life. Partly because people assume that I'm some kind of choirboy or something, but that's never been the case. Not necessarily because I seek these things out... but because they somehow find me.

The latest I ran across asks you to score a point for each thing you haven't done...

I end up with a whopping total of... two points.

1. Skipped school. I skipped school more times than I can count. And it wasn't because I was "hanging out with the wrong crowd" or whatever... it was because school was so boring to me. So some days I just wouldn't go. Which was easy because both my parents worked. And because I got pretty good grades nobody really found out or cared.
2. Broken a bone. Never have. I did saw into my thumb bone with a hacksaw though. And because I had frostbite when I was a kid, I couldn't feel pain. I only knew what happened when I saw the hacksaw blade covered in blood. Oops.
3. Fired a gun. I was raised in Redneckistan and got my NRA Gun Safety training and everything. Haven't touched a gun since 1986 though, because I decided to try and live my life more in accordance with Buddhist precepts, and it's forbidden in the traditions of the Buddhism I follow.
4. Done drugs. Marijuana is legal in Washington State. As to whether I did drugs before that? No comment.
5. Been in a limo. Several times. My sister is fond of hiring them when a group of us is going out... and I was in them often with my work.
6. Gotten a tattoo. I have nine now. Want more. Will probably get more.
7. Ridden a horse. I've ridden horses, camels, and elephants at one time or another.
8. Sung karaoke. I used to work in Japan. It's a very common group activity there. I'm terrible at it, however. And then there was the serious karaoke accident I had in Stockholm where I fell off the back of the stage and cut my chin open.
9. Gotten a ticket. Four speeding tickets. AND I DESERVED NONE OF THEM!!
10. Been arrested. I've been detained, but not arrested. And it was over something that had nothing to do with me, I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Seriously thought I was going to be arrested based on how I was treated though. Guilty until proven innocent, and all that.
11. Gone zip-lining. I've been a few times. It can be fun, depending on the location. I think my favorite is the one down Vegas Old Town under that lighted canopy they have.
12. Been on TV. I've been interviewed a couple times to comment on a project the charity I worked with was involved in.
13. Been on a cruise. My mom loved them. So I've been on a half-dozen.
14. Gotten a piercing. Had my ear pierced in college for years. One day it fell out and got lost, so I left it out.
15. Smoked. I smoked because I was in a crowd that smoked. But after six months or so, I just couldn't do it any more because I felt sick more than anything else.
16. Met a celeb. I've met many. Several band members from bands I like. A lot of TV and movie celebrities at conventions. Occasional random encounters from when I was working in L.A. But it's not like we ever hung out or went shopping or anything.
17. Been skydiving. I went tandem skydiving with a friend. I liked it, so I went back for lessons. Got my certificate after my graduation dive and never felt the need to jump out of an airplane again.
18. Had a one-night stand. And each time I had a one-night stand, there ended up being a pretty good story attached to it. Except once. Which was one of my very few regrets in life. I was a tool for revenge and didn't even know it. Had no way of knowing it. Even so, I still feel like crap because of it.
19. Skinny-dipped. In the Ocean off Maui at night.
20. Been drunk. BWAH HA HA HA HAAAA!

My birthday weekend with family was really nice. Riiiight up until today when I had to drive back over the mountains and The Real World.

One of the things we did was go bowling. Something I haven't done in decades. I used to love it (it's how I met my best friends in college), but as my body started falling apart, it seemed like less and less of a good idea. And though I completely sucked at it (being woefully out of practice and trying not to be too physical lest I throw my back out) I had a great time...

And now that I'm home, I want to sleep.

Except I need to clean up my house since I didn't do it before I left.

Always a mistake, but I'm too old to do the smart thing now.

This morning I was looking through some photos posted by an old friend. Among the photos was one which included a woman I dated for a bit. She looks... incredible.

Meanwhile... I look like what happens when sour cream sits out too long. And then explodes.

Whatever that gene is which causes people to look better with age is the gene that I have the opposite of. Which wouldn't be so bad if I didn't feel like I'm falling apart. Except I totally do. Yesterday morning I bent over to pick up some toys that Jake dragged downstairs and almost didn't make it back upright. I think that if I hadn't taken a couple Advil, I probably wouldn't have made it through the rest of my day. At all.

A part of me thinks that I should take up yoga or pilates or something. Except that may very well be the death of me, so maybe sitting on the couch and watching TV while eating potato chips is the better move?

I'm thinking yes.

At least until I throw my back out reaching for a chip.

Which may be painful, but at least I get a potato chip out of the deal. The same can't be said for yoga or pilates.

Today at my doctor appointment, I asked for ALL THE VACCINES! I figure science has given us these gifts from God, so I might as well accept them. Alas, all he had for me was the TDAP blend update, which I am very happy to get, seeing as how whooping cough is making its way through the valley. Again. Other than that, my doctor said I should get the shingles vaccine even though I never had chickenpox. So I am absolutely doing that.

Sadly, I have everything else he recommends. Which is a bummer given how many people are skipping vaccines, and I'm sure polio and all that other crap we had virtually eliminated are most certainly coming back. God. How stupid are we as a society?