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Sunday, December 18, 2016

Stupid is as Stupid Does

I'm feeling particularly stupid tonight.  Duh!  With good reason, as you are about to learn.  I will share with you the embarrassment of my actions this evening.  As a prologue, I'm sure we haven't had a working DVD player for quite some time, since we don't play DVDs these days any more.  I assumed that we had disposed of our old DVD player a while ago.  Gretchen has a DVD that she has wanted to play for a while now.  So I recently ordered a Sony BluRay player from Amazon, which was sitting unopened in our media cabinet.  She has a guest visiting this evening, and they both wanted to watch the aforementioned DVD.  She asked if I could hook up the new player.  I obligingly said yes.

Okay, so I unpacked the box and hooked it up to a power outlet.  So far, so good.  I then went to attach the HDMI cable to the TV.  I assumed I had an extra HDMI outlet on the TV, because I only use HDMI1 for the cable TV and HDMI2 for the Apple TV.  I never use HDMI3.  I thought it was available.  I was surprised to find that there was already a cable attached to the HDMI3 input.  Oh well, I didn't know why that was there, so I detached it and added the new DVD player.  I put the new DVD player over another box in the cabinet which I couldn't remember what it was for.  That box looked strangely similar to the one I just bought, but I didn't think much about it at the time.  I then fired up the player and opened the DVD tray with the remote.  To my surprise, two trays opened!  In the bottom tray was a DVD.  What is this?  Is this a double DVD player?  What is that DVD doing there in the bottom tray?

Upon closer inspection, the bottom box was identical to the new box on top of it!  Both were Sony BluRay DVD players.  And the bottom one had the DVD already inserted that Gretchen wanted to watch.  This was a crushing blow!  I can't tell you how humiliating it was for me to admit to my mistake publicly as I removed the now superfluous new DVD player and reattached the original.  How the Hell could this have happened?  In my defense, I will say that my at least my tastes have not changed, as I bought the exact same DVD player twice in a row.  It's a rather meager defense, I know.

What to make of all this?  I feel like my brain has gradually turned to mush.  Is this early onset Alzheimers?  Oh crap.. maybe not so early?  The fact of the matter is that I often can't remember shit!  Gretchen will sometimes mention something that I presumably said or did, some of them a long time ago.  Really?  I don't remember that.  Fuck!  I'm desperately trying to hang on to my brain and retain whatever memories I can.  In the end, other than your loved ones, all you really have is your memories.  Your life is defined by your memories.  If those leave you, who are you?  Why are you even here?  If I get to that state, somebody shoot me, please!  Enough of this philosophical bullshit.

It has been a particularly long time since I updated this blog.  One of the reasons is that not a lot has happened with my MM situation.  The other is that although a lot has been going on with Gretchen, she doesn't want me to be too personally intrusive in blogging about her situation.

OK, let's start with me.  I had a combined colonoscopy/endoscopy last Monday.  The good news is that the colonoscopy was fine without any polyps.  He said I don't need to go back for another 10 years.  Are you kidding?  If I'm still around then, I don't think that will be high on my list. The endoscopy was a little more complicated.  I have a (supposedly) mild case of Barrett's esophagus, along with some inflammation in my stomach, which might explain my tendency for anemia.  He took some biopsies and put me back on Omeprazole, which I haven't been taking for a long time.  I have a followup with him in early January.  I'm assuming that everything will be OK.

Gretchen is still struggling from her esophagus surgery.  It's been 4 1/2 months, and she still has a problem eating solid foods.  She eats a lot of yogurt, Enshure, and smoothies to keep her calories and protein levels up.  She is slowly improving, but the latest glitch is that she has gall stones.  She is now scheduled to have her gall bladder out on January 17.  In the meantime, that seems to have affected her sense of taste, her feeling full in her stomach, and her continued nausea, all common symptoms of gall bladder problems which doesn't help her appetite for solid foods.  This hasn't been a lot of fun for her (or me either).

Our beloved sister-in-law, Kathy, passed from lung cancer in July.  This is a very sad time for us.  Our family decided that this would be a good time to get away, so we are spending Christmas in Puerto Rico!  John and his family along with all of us (except Brian, Pam, who will stay at home for Christmas with Logan), will be there, 13 of us in all!  We have reserved a villa on the beach as show below.  Una mas cerveza por favor!