January 5 – Restaurant Summary
January 8 – Snow, VISTA post, and Harry Washington
January 19 – Pre-Inauguration Anxiety
February 3 – Harry Washington, Ancestry.com, moves and more
March 31 – Birthday catching up
January 5
Notes on 2024 restaurants: Within Howard County I had 148 meals from 65 establishments. Outside the county, I had 23 meals from 19 establishments, for a grand total of 171 meals from 84 establishments. I spent about $11,000 on dining for the year. All of these numbers are down about 10% from 2023 levels, meaning we were either becoming more selective or less adventurous in our dining choices (mostly the latter). Also, thanks Wegovy!
Our top restaurants by frequency were: Cattail (13), Medium Rare (6), Mimi’s Kabob (6), EC Diner (5), Hunan Legend (5), Oscar’s Ale House (5), and Katana (5). Cattail retains the top spot because we are required to eat there for our membership, not because it’s our favorite…although, to be fair, we haven’t had any really bad meals there, just few particularly good ones, either. We visited 7 other restaurants four times: Grille 620, Dumpling District, Asian Court, Facci, Tony’s Pizza, Beyond Ramen & Kabob, and Pipilinka.
The bottom line is we still enjoy eating out and are thankful for the wide variety of restaurant choices in Howard County and the region. Despite a decline in the number of meals dined out, I would say we rely even more on leftovers for the rest of the week. I’m cooking fewer meals for myself than in previous years. Barb and I more often resort to choosing our own smaller meals or leftovers than in the past. These are not necessarily good trends, but it’s where things are headed.
One nice counter to the trend is that I’m more regularly having lunches out with the neighborhood “boys” (or Romeos, as Marv noted we are: retired old men eating out), Mark, Ron and Marv. We informally get together about once a month to try out new places in the county, particularly spicy meals that we wouldn’t otherwise go to with our respective spouses.
January 8
We had a proper dumping of 6-8” of snow two days ago, our first real snow this winter and more than we had all of last year, I believe. Most of it came down overnight on Sunday into Monday morning, so on Monday afternoon I started shoveling, even though a bit more snow was forecast for that evening. I used my little electric snowblower and a regular shovel but it was slow going. I kept hoping for our neighbor Mark to come by with his snowblower but he elected to wait until Tuesday to do his driveway. I had to get ours done so Barb and I could get out for errands and appointments Tuesday morning so I plugged away for at least 3 hours on Monday. I was seriously sore on Monday night and Tuesday morning but at least the job was done.
Barb and Allie wanted to toss Manny in the snow but I have discouraged it so far. I think it’s a somewhat cruel tradition and I don’t like having to chase him back indoors. Also, since it’s going to stay very cold for the next 10 days, the evidence would linger in the snowpack for weeks to come.
We’ve had some nice Scattergories calls in the past month or so. Every once in a while Laurie’s dog Luna joins us and seems quite fascinated. I brought Manny into the picture but he was not quite so attentive.
I finally finished a first cut at my post about being a VISTA for FIRST in 2009-2010. It took me longer to write it than to live it. I sent it to Jenny for an initial review and she kindly provided comments which I will incorporate as I continue to polish the post. It has been difficult for me to decide how much detail to include and how deeply to discuss specific individuals and incidents. I’m still grappling with it and trying to come to grips with who my audience is. Fundamentally, I want to produce something that feels honest to me but doesn’t deliberately offend potential readers. It is, I suppose, a writer’s dilemma.
My “reading” nowadays consists of watching a Great Courses class on African American History. It’s quite informative and I’m learning a good deal even if I continue to doze off and have to replay segments multiple times. As I noted in my December 20 journal entry, the course gave me greater insight into the African side of the early transatlantic trade. It spells out the shifting nature of slavery and resistance in colonial times, offers context during the American and Haitian Revolutions, and perspective on the questions of emigration/colonization in the 1820s-30s. I haven’t made it to the Civil War yet. I’ve found interesting linkages to my research into Harry Washington and also to our ancestor Robert Goodloe Harper’s role in the American Colonization Society (Professor Alexander cuts them no slack for being “White racists who did not want to extend equality and citizenship to free Black people”). In general, the course is helping me tie together a number of threads from previous reading and research. Now, what to do with it?
I’ve been revisiting Harry Washington’s life. He provides a window into so many compelling aspects of American and world history: his time growing up in West Africa, capture and being sold into slavery, the Middle Atlantic passage, sold in Norfolk to a white planter, subsequent sale to George Washington for the Great Dismal Swamp Company, being selected to come to Mount Vernon, his role as an horse groom for Washington, his first escape attempt, his second escape following Dunmore’s Proclamation, his time with the British Army in New York and Charleston with the Black Pioneers, evacuation to Nova Scotia and 8 years (and marriage) as a farmer there, emigration to Sierra Leone to a problematic British African colony and years as a farmer there before final exile “across the river” where he died. I discovered that some of the links in my 2022 post on Harry Washington no longer worked so I’ve decided to start a new post, Harry Washington, Take Two to incorporate updated information. It may take me a while to complete.
January 19
Tomorrow is Inauguration Day for Trump 2.0 and we’re all in a bit of suspended animation waiting for whatever will come. We know the next 100 days…two years…four years…maybe longer will be an assault on our senses and a test for the nation as well as the world. At the moment there seems little to do but hope for the best. There doesn’t seem to be much point in preparing for the worst because the worst is largely unimaginable and unlikely, though a little less unlikely than most days.
I thought I might comfort myself by referring back to my journal entries from Trump’s first inauguration but quickly realized that I hadn’t started doing journals back in 2016. I certainly remember being worried at the time but also reassuring myself (and Allie) that the nation had suffered fools in the Oval Office before and would likely do so again. And so we did, aided by the first Trump administration’s incompetence, infighting and short attention spans. It also took a global pandemic and a few million unnecessary deaths to convince the nation not to re-elect the clown.
But now we’ve gone and done it again. The conman-clown is back with vengeance and sealing his place in history on his mind, and a new set of more committed acolytes. They could do some real damage this time. I find it debilitating and depressing to run through the possibilities. The biggest test I foresee is whether we actually have a “normal” open set of midterm elections in 2026. If we can get that far, we can probably get back to true normal (for all that’s worth) in 2028 and beyond. Otherwise, all sorts of paths are possible, some worse than others. I’ve long thought the time was ripe to rewrite the constitution and explore a better form of governing the world. Be careful what you wish for.
Avoiding the headlines these days is made easier because they are either about Trump (skip), the fires in LA (tragic but no direct link to us), the Israeli-Gaza cease fire (good news for the moment until it breaks down), American football (Commanders win! I could care less), TikTok going dark (never used it, won’t miss it), general editorial worrying over any number of existential crises (yeah, I can do that myself now, and none of your opinions/prognostications have proved any better than my own).
A worrying sign for myself is that I actually took a close look at Viking’s email advertising new world cruise itineraries and found one somewhat appealing. What’s six months and a few hundred thousand dollars for those of us ready to throw in the towel and knock off most of life’s bucket list in one fell swoop? As I sit huddled in the cold at home I find myself longing for some of the comforts of our cruise ship, endless buffets and sailings in and out of ports. It may be the afterlife’s antechamber but it has its pleasures. Must resist.
With all that said, our day to day living is more directly dictated by the weather, which is unseasonably cold, and our entertainment options which veer toward anything that distracts us from the headlines. The inauguration events have been moved indoors thanks to the impending arrival of a polar vortex blast arriving overnight. There was supposed to be snow all day today but so far it is slow developing, which is some solace. With luck, I may not have to shovel much this afternoon or tomorrow morning.
Barb and I are reasonably well prepared to hunker in for the next few days. We are both recovering from colds last week which slowed us down. It’s given me lots of time to watch unending revolving coverage of the Australian Open, one of the great meaningless spectacles of American television. The matches are covered live for nearly 12 hours overnight, then replayed the whole next day. If that gets to be too much, there are meaningless Premier League soccer games to watch. Plus, I’ve been on a real winning streak with Wordle and other games to allegedly keep my mind nimble. Life is full.
In even happier real world news, Allie got the keys for her new apartment in Quincy and gave us a facetime tour yesterday. It looks very nice and Allie is excited which is fun to see. Perri is going to love having a view! Allie’s plan is to move small stuff over the next week or so and get in permanently by the end of the month. We wish her all the very best and much love!
February 3
There’s been a fair amount of activity in and around my little world the past couple of weeks to report.
It took several weeks for me to write up Harry Washington, Take Two and I was glad to get it done. It felt like something overdue that I needed to get out of my system. Coincidentally, I took a history lecture at the community center on the Southern campaigns of the American Revolutionary War which overlapped with activities of Harry Washington and James Lafayette. I was able to recount both lives for the class – it seems to have been appreciated. Suddenly, I’m an expert!
Once I wrapped up Harry Washington, I decided to plunge into Ancestry.com to update our family tree and see what else I could learn from that site. I was happy to find much of the research that Susan Rech did a couple of decades ago, much of which I hadn’t seen. I pulled the Duncan family history out of the Goodloe Genealogy post where I had it originally and started a separate Duncan Genealogy post. I’ve been able to add a fair amount of new detail and context to our forebears’ lives.
The Ancestry.com membership is free for a few weeks then $25/mo after that. I think I will pay that for the next several months at least but don’t want to be on the hook for it forever. I don’t think there’s a convenient way to export the interactive tree and some of the nice features of the site. I just hope the work I do doesn’t disappear once I stop subscribing. I suspect not, based on the fact that Susan’s research is still there…but I’m not entirely sure.
As I sift through the material, I slowly uncover new questions and connections which spur me to further research and insights. I’m also learning a lot of historical background that’s new for me, such as the early settlement of Tennessee. It’s a useful but slow process. It’s like a 3000 piece jigsaw puzzle at times that leaves me cross-eyed, but I feel like it’s a marginally productive use of my time to dig into these lives, even if they are not people of special historical note.
Last Friday we discovered a leak in our water heater. I was able to shut down the heater to stop the leak and wet vacced the puddle in the basement without much harm. I consulted with the neighborhood guys for plumbing recommendations and decided to call National Water who also takes care of our water filtration system. They were able to send someone early Saturday morning to diagnose the problem. Fortunately, they determined the heater is still under warranty (it was installed in 2021) so I don’t have to pay for a new one, but I do have to pay for installation. Today is Monday and I’m waiting for the crew to show up. In the meantime, Barb and I took showers at Ron and Janice’s. They were very nice to host us; we had wine, cheese and pizza with them on Saturday.
Saturday was also Allie’s main move day into her new apartment in Quincy. We were happy to get frequent updates and all seemed to go well. Perri seems to like her new surroundings which is really what matters most.
We also got an update from Betsy and Joe who closed on their new home in Denver. Joe quickly put a fancy sealant on their garage floor and built some shelves for containers to help Betsy manage the move-in inventory process. We’re happy things are going well for them and look forward to seeing the results in May.
Ready to move in!
Keri’s and Susanna’s crews got together for a ski weekend in North Carolina and sent a bunch of pictures. It’s getting to where I’m not sure which Shinn is which, but it looks like they all had fun.
Laurie took a week to teach English somewhere in Spain and then scouted out a potential new home/neighborhood between La Losa and Madrid (but hated it). She and I are gearing up for her musical visit in April. We will attend the Baltimore Old Time Music Festival, Rhiannon Giddens’ new Biscuits and Banjos festival in Durham, pop by Asheville to see Susanna, then see Allison Russell in DC. It will be a busy and hopefully fun three weeks.
Barb, Allie and I are looking forward to taking a short 4-night break in Punta Cana next week. Allie is particularly eager to have some downtime after the stresses of her move and all the other goings on in her life. We are eager to see her and some sunshine.
Last week was Chinese New Year; we had a nice lunch with Larry and Ashley at Dim Sum Palace.
All of this activity distracts us from the miserable goings on in Washington and the world. A plane crash at National Airport in DC was an unwelcome tragedy, but the real worry is what Trump and First Buddy Elon Musk are doing. They are running roughshod, sending threatening and confusing memos to all government employees, firing all sorts of people, precipitously (and probably illegally) trying to shut down USAID and all DEI programs, gaining access to the Treasury Department’s computers and payments systems, deporting “illegal” immigrants against their will to places they don’t want to go, imposing blanket tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China for vague offenses, and who knows what else. It’s been a mere two weeks of mounting chaos and recriminations with no end in sight. Trump is delighted.
In the midst of all that, the egregiously provocative and obnoxious Steve Bannon resurfaced with a long interview in the NY Times with Ross Douthat. I didn’t want to read it and wished the Times hadn’t given him any oxygen, but ultimately I did read it and have remained agitated for a week or so, which was precisely what they wanted. It’s a reminder that folks like Bannon, Steven Miller and the like remain on a permanent, high energy war footing, with twisted views of the world, absolute certainty, little care for consequences to peoples’ lives…and direct access to Trump and the levers of power. I have a hard time articulating how frustrating it is to even ponder these views and people that are so antithetical to my world view. How do they even define terms like populism, nationalism and “deconstruction of the administrative state”? And yet, these guys now have their hands on the wheel. Arghh!
One of the things in the interview that agitates me is the casual reference to transhumanism and “chipping”, identifying it as a major issue for the coming decade and then gliding onto other topics. It’s a reference to The Singularity is Near, Ray Kurzweil and a whole school of thinking that I encountered twenty years ago but have not kept close tabs on, other than noting that we do seem to be marching along the predicted timeline pretty closely. I (hate to) agree with Bannon that it’s a big deal and deserves much more considered thought – but how do we even begin to have that kind of discussion in this fevered state of agitation? Are transhumanism and its implications about to enter mainstream circles? Is it ready for prime time? No, but it’s most likely coming, ready or not. And maybe we should think a bit more about the practical implications of a population collapse over the next century. Maybe we should just leave it all in Elon Musk’s hands after all. I’m sure he’ll take care of us.
So that’s what keeps me up at night sometimes, when I’m not worried about when I can take a hot shower at home or what to have for dinner.
March 1
So, it’s a little hard to get motivated to write when things are so distressingly disturbing in the outside world. Actually, everything is reasonably fine in the world except for Trump and his cronies relentlessly inserting themselves into the news cycle.
We had a nice little break in Punta Cana with Allie. I finished the Great Courses African American History series and felt a sense of accomplishment as well as learning more than I expected. I’ve made some pretty good headway on a more detailed family tree and Duncan Genealogy post having joined Ancestry.com in the past month. I had a nice email dialog with the siblings about Susie and Pop Pop, eliciting some memories from Len, especially.
Spring flowers are trying to poke their heads out of the ground and I’ve been able to take a couple of walks outside though there’s still some cold weather on the horizon.
Allie is chugging along: she and Perri are pretty well settled into her new apartment. Now Allie is on her way to a ski week in Steamboat, Colorado with Jimmy and then a bridesmaid weekend in Nashville.
But then there’s Trump and Musk and the rest. Yesterday Trump and Vance ambushed Ukraine’s Zelenskyy at the White House, blowing up whatever relationship was left between them and handing a psychological and maybe an actual victory to Putin. On neighbor Mark’s recommendation, I watched the Netflix series Turning Point about the atomic bomb and the Cold War. It was a well-done retrospective but emphatically makes the point that the Ukraine war is a continuation of the Cold War. The nuclear threat is very much alive which is a decidedly unpleasant thought.
Meanwhile, Musk is still rampaging through the Federal workforce, including thousands more layoffs planned at HHS. Resistance so far has been futile and minimal. Barb is fielding calls from all sorts of people, offering an ear and condolences but there’s not much else she can do but fret. Otherwise, she spends a lot of time volunteering at the community center to keep herself distracted. It’s only partially successful.
I finished my taxes early and got them to Tuttle in record time. I’m hoping to have sorted out our income and withholding enough to not have much of a tax bill this year and maybe even a refund but time will tell. I think we’re doing fine retirement-wise but the taxes have been a wild card the last couple of years. I await Tuttle’s judgement.
Similarly, my doctor wasn’t happy with my blood test results in January and sent me to a kidney specialist who recommended a series of further tests including an ultrasound. I’ve done the tests and will see the doctor again in a couple of weeks, as well as my GP. I’m hoping for better news in March from both of them but who knows. Until then, I’m sort of stress eating but trying to keep it under control. I haven’t gained weight but am not losing any either…but I’m spending more money on restaurants than I probably should. Just another thing to worry about for the moment.
To a large extent, I guess I’ve just been in a February funk. Now it is March and with luck things will be better in a few weeks…in terms of weather and health news, at least. I’m grasping for things to look forward to. I’m certainly looking forward to Laurie’s arrival in April and our trip to North Carolina for Rhiannon Giddens’ festival and to see Susanna. I’m also looking forward to our trip to California and Denver in May. We just have to get from here to there.
March 15
A few weeks have passed and the weather did get better for a bit, which was helpful. There were a few nice signs of spring.
Otherwise, the news has been generally negative and frankly has me a little depressed. My anxiety levels are up and I can’t stop checking the news frequently for the latest outrage. There is always at least one.
Trump thunders on, smashing through the federal government, tossing tariffs around like Monopoly cards, tanking the stock market, messing with our allies and generally making a daily nuisance of himself. And loving it. I decided to attend a couple of quasi-political events this week in search of some ideas of what we as citizens can do, or at least to find some like-minded people. The first was a Howard County Town Hall led by our Democratic Maryland legislators: Sen. Chris Van Hollen, Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, Rep. Sarah Elfreth and County Executive Calvin Ball. The event was oversubscribed and had to be moved from the community college’s auditorium to the gym. There were 1,200 attendees and more in overflow rooms and online. The speeches were decent but not newsworthy; I’m generally impressed by our Maryland delegation but there’s not a lot they can do and they didn’t have many real suggestions for us other than to contact friends and relatives in red states to try to open their eyes. Good luck with that. I hardly know anyone in a red state nor do I know an actual Republican that I can think of. Maybe Debbie and Jay in Pennsylvania. I will play tennis with Debbie next week – think I will bring politics up with her?
I also decided to attend a rally in DC yesterday with Ron and Janice. Our neighbor Marv also tagged along. The rally was ostensibly to support veterans but more generally was simply anti-Trump and anti-Musk. There were several thousand of us gathered on the Mall between the East Wing and the American Indian Museum. Most of the crowd was in some sort of costume with homemade signs, some clever, many vulgar. The one I liked best was “It’s so bad even the Introverts are here” which everyone thought was directed at me. The sign lost some of its appeal when Janice said she’d seen it at other rallies.
The speakers were earnest but not very inspirational – the only one I recognized was Harry Dunn, the former Capitol Cop who was injured at the Jan. 6 insurrection and went on to run in the Maryland primary for senate…losing to Alsobrooks. The organizer of the rally was a group called NowMarch. It turned out to be led by a comedian (I’d never heard of), Cliff Cash, and several leftist non-profits. There was more coverage of the rally than I realized onsite – see articles from Stars and Stripes, Military.com, USA Today, WTOP, WUSA9, News4DC, DCNewsNow (nothing in the Washington Post or New York Times that I’ve seen, by the way).
With all due respect to the organizers and attendees, it was a pretty amateurish affair and a little disheartening. In the moment, it was good to see several thousand folks gather to protest, and the signs and cosplay were kind of fun. The small, low stage, sound system and two video screens were still being constructed as we arrived on site about an hour before the rally. The speeches themselves were mostly uninspiring, especially Susan Schnall from Veterans for Peace who droned on way too long. There was no particular call to action other than to “Fuck Trump” which was not very helpful. There was clearly no national Democratic support or organizing for the rally – this was the kind of low-grade grass roots protest that the Democrats seem to want for the time being. But there was very little point or effectiveness other than low-grade political theater. We played our role for a while and lost steam after two hours of speeches before heading home. Barb and I celebrated Pi Day with Ron and Janice over pizza that evening – that seemed to be a more productive and certainly more enjoyable use of our time.
So, my tentative foray into political activity yields next to nothing. The situation around the country and around the world is intolerable. I’d like to say I did something to fight against it but I feel powerless until the next election cycle. And even then there’s not much to do other than give money which seems futile in the face of billionaires.
Meanwhile, in the nearby Capitol Building, Chuck Schumer led a small group of Democrats to vote with Republicans to keep the government in operation for another six months. It was seen as a cowardly move reviled by most other Democrats. But Schumer felt it was better than going into a shutdown and giving Trump and the Republicans even more authority to sabotage the government. I think maybe he was right but it’s a bitter pill to swallow either way.
Speaking of pills to swallow, I met with my kidney doctor and received several new medications to take for the next few months. I now seem to officially have low-grade Chronic Kidney Disease. The kidney doctor suggested I go off Wegovy for a couple of months, take these other medications, and see if my blood work improves in one or three months. I will see my regular GP next week to discuss the Wegovy. I’m not especially inclined to stop using it – fiddling with two variables seems better than three – but we’ll see what he says. The news doesn’t help with my general frame of mind but the disease appears to be manageable over the long term. Just something else to watch and worry about.
In other family news, Allie had a successful ski trip in Steamboat Springs, Colorado with Jimmy, followed by a bridesmaid weekend in Nashville. She arrived home to Perri tired but had a good time.
Betsy reports they are moved into their new house in Parker and expect Sarah and family to join them this weekend. Good luck to all!
In entertainment, Manny and I enjoyed watching the movie Flow and the Tom Hanks nature documentary, The Americas. I’ve also started into the second season of Severance which does little to ease my anxiety. Fortunately, baseball spring training is in full swing which offers daily relief.
March 31
Belated Happy Birthday to me! I’m now officially 67, it’s the end of the quarter, a fine Spring day, and I’m overdue in writing. There hasn’t been a whole lot to specifically note but I don’t want to get too far behind in this journal. At the top level, life goes on reasonably enough – Trump and the general news of the world bear down on us all but things in my immediate sphere poke along without too much to complain about. In a glass half full kind of way, this is happiness. In a darker mood, this is depression. I feel a little guilty if I let myself get too excited about just gliding along and enjoying the present state of affairs, and I also feel guilty that I’m not doing much to change things for the better. Such is life, at the moment. I’m trying to enjoy the ride but not feeling too great about it.
My birthday was pleasant enough. I went out with the neighborhood boys to a relatively new local Korean restaurant, Ugane – not officially for my birthday but because Marv found a Washingtonian article (who reads the Washingtonian anymore? Who knew it was still publishing?) about Korean places in Ellicott City. I was able to expand the boys’ horizons and my own as well by trying tteokbokki, kimbap and rice balls for the first time. I will be happy to go back. Barb took me out to Medium Rare for dinner and I still had an appetite, even for the free birthday dessert with sparkler. And we had a nice talk with Allie the evening before.
The next day, I went to see The Penguin Lessons at AMC Theater mostly to get my free bucket of birthday popcorn. The low-key Steve Coogan movie about an English teacher in Argentina in the 1970s was marginally better than I expected, which was a bonus, and the popcorn has been an ongoing snack for several days. What more can a boy want?
I’m still highly anticipating Laurie’s visit in a couple of weeks and the slate of music festivals and concerts we have on tap, though I’m still waiting for the actual schedule for the Biscuits and Banjos Festival to appear. Barb and I are also looking forward to our California and Denver trip in May, and we just added a short road trip to Savannah and Charleston in early June.
The road trip is with Barb’s colleague Susan Lyons, whom I know only tangentially, and her husband Charlie whom I don’t know at all. We are ostensibly doing it so Susan can see Gerard in Savannah (though Barb and I will have just seen him in California). I’m also looking forward to visiting the newish International African American Museum in Charleston. Plus we will get some nice meals, I’m sure. We just found out the Spoleto Festival will be going on in Charleston but I don’t think there are any shows for us. We’re squeezing a lot of driving into just 5 nights because we didn’t want to leave any earlier and Susan needs to get back for some other family business. I’m not sure how well it’s all going to work out but it seems like a good experiment to travel with some folks even if it doesn’t seem likely we will do any more with them – Susan and Barb don’t seem to be all that close. Time will tell.
We’re excited about these three trips over the next few months and we’re also looking forward to our Rhine River cruise with Mary and John in October. We haven’t decided about any summertime trip to Boston but that remains a possibility still to be determined. It would be nice to see Allie, certainly, but otherwise I think Barb would be more inclined to stay home and be at the pool.
I’m starting to get itchy about making further travel plans in 2026 or beyond. Barb and I haven’t discussed much and there’s honestly very little that excites either of us on our bucket lists. Barring anything else, I’d like to be in Spain in summer 2026 for the full eclipse but I’m not sure about Laurie’s plans that far ahead. Other than that, I consulted my Vacation Ideas document and nothing really jumps out. I’d like to get another visit to Nova Scotia on the books sometime but who knows when? This ennui over travel is a symptom of my general malaise over making plans for the future and my overall outlook at the moment. It’s hard to get excited about the possibilities. I blame Trump…but also myself. I need to find some other things to occupy my time and mind.
Speaking of which, I remain wrapped around the axle of my Duncan Genealogy plunge. I still put in several hours at a time trying to sort through the various generations to make sense of things, but in general I feel like I’m veering further into fiction and wishful thinking than actual productive research. I need to put a bow on this effort and move on pretty soon.
I attended a Lafayette lecture last week at our Miller Branch library by Dr. Richard Bell which was largely a recap of his presentation I saw last fall in Baltimore for the Lafayette celebration tour. It was a fine evening and Bell mentioned a book by Laura Auricchio that I will try to read. In general, though, I was disappointed by my experience with the American Friends of Lafayette. I did not renew my membership.
Today is the home opener for the Baltimore Orioles which is always a boost. The O’s opened the season by splitting a 4-game series in Toronto. I’m already sort of setting my schedule around watching the games and letting myself get a little too involved in their outcomes. It’s a great time sink, for better and worse.
Healthwise, my regular doctor and I agreed to stay on Wegovy for the next few months and see if the new medications prescribed by my kidney doctor make a positive difference. More blood tests to come and a check up in June. We’ll see where things go. For now, the new medication has no ill effects…just a couple more pills to take every day.
I’m happy to stay on Wegovy to help control my appetite. I’ve lost more than 40 pounds in the last year and would like to drop another 20 in the coming year if I can. The biggest issue for me now is that I’ve become overly reliant on restaurants for meals. I hardly ever cook anything at home other than leftovers. I don’t even want to make a sandwich. Today, for example, I went to Tea Horse Sichuan Bistro by myself to get some lunch and got enough to bring things home for leftovers for tonight and tomorrow. I can make the economics work, stretching out a restaurant meal into several more at home, but it seems kind of silly to only eat out. It seems like I ought to be able to cook something for myself. Of course, it complicates matters that Barb and I have very few meals we can actually eat together. It’s hard enough to decide on a restaurant we can both agree on.
Likewise, we have devolved into very separate viewing habits. We get together most evenings to eat and watch an episode or two of TV, typically Abbott Elementary lately. Then Barb toddles off to the bedroom and I settle in with baseball or a variety of other shows. I’ve recently binged the latest season of Severance and I’m working on White Lotus, neither of which were worth the hype that surround each. I’m quickly catching up on Slow Horses, the British spy series starring Gary Oldman. Barb watches a lot of Hallmark movies and other shows she tapes while she works on puzzles.
That pretty much catches you (and me) up. Pretty soon I’ll be out mowing the lawn, worrying about weeds, seeing what breaks down next in the house, and playing pickleball outdoors in between restaurant meals and baseball games. Life marches on.
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