I've been remiss

We've had a couple of good days after the difficulties of Thursday and Friday last week. Mary decided to go to the full adult dose for the fentanyl on Friday evening and since then her stomach is handling it while the painkiller is taking care of the back pain. It seems like she needs to ramp up the narcotics so her tummy can tolerate the narcotics in her system.

Mary came out with me on Saturday running errands, albeit briefly. On Sunday, we made it to Farmers' Market followed by a visit with MaryR at the Onion. Today we ran a few more errands and Mary came along with me for those too. I must admit, she sent me to the supermarket for groceries--alone--and I managed to find and buy everything we needed without calling her once for instructions. Of course, the butcher started the conversation by saying "Its my job to keep you out of the doghouse" and he did!

As for the daily errands, we get back to the house mid-afternoon and Mary then takes a late afternoon nap. She wakes up about 5PM and has a snack to keep her tummy happy. Shortly after that, I start prepping dinner. The short form is that we had ribs (takeout), salmon and cube steak for dinner the past three nights.

Today was my first day of shutdown so that was pleasant. One of our errands was to deliver a Christmas present to the UPS Store. Turns out that Mary ordered a gift for her oldest granddaughter and managed to ship it to herself. Nothing like the effect of a good narcotic to turn someone around while on the web! There is a reason we don't let her drive.

We do have a new name for Idjit Dawg. ID was looking me the other morning and I realized she had a ethereal but evil look on her face which leads to her new name. "Cujo-ette!"

My annual physical was this morning. All my tests and metrics are perfectly normal. That is good news! For those keeping track, I am on blood pressure medicine (HCT), baby aspirin and vitamins. The only thing amiss in my medical situation is a lack of exercise. I'll start the treadmill this week and build up over time. Start easy, go slow but get off my a_s and do it!

We've chatted with all the kids the past couple of days: Mary's daughter in Pasadena, son in Tucson and another son in El Paso. I talked with my daughter in New York City and did a text chat with my son in Denver. As most of you know, none of our offspring are here in Silicon Valley so its good to have a good chat now and then. Christmas season will do that! We are lining up video chats for Christmas. My son suggested they have the grandkiddies open the gifts we sent while we are on video chat so we can see the reactions. I think that is a superb idea and should be a lot of fun!

All in all, things are progressing nicely.