Saturday, July 20, 2024
1961 "Stop The World - I Want To Get Off" premiered
1969 Apollo 11 lunar module carrying Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin lands on the surface of the Moon.
1988 Michael Dukakis selected as the Democratic nominee
In bed at 9, awake at 2:45 with my aching right hip, up by 3, seeing Geri return from letting Lilly out. Walking from bedroom to TV room was very painful. I checked my journal and saw that I first reported the pain at about 5 a.m., on July 12th, 8 days ago: " When I stood up, I had considerable pain in my right hip, a new pain making it painful to stand and walk." It seems much longer but my mind must be playing tricks on me. Chronology: July 9, reduced from 15 mg. to 10 mg.; July 12, pain began; July 13, back up to 15 mg.; July 14, 3x1,000 mgs. of Tylenol and 5% Lidocaine patches unavailing, visit to ER, 5 mg. of oxycodone unavailing; July 15, great pain trying to stand up straight,15 mg. prednisone; July 16, t/c with Dr. Ryzka, dosage increased to 15 mg. + 5 mg.; July 17, 'considerable hip pain,' 5th day of increased prednisone, 2nd day of 15+5 mg; July 18, the hip pain extends halfway down right thigh, but in the afternoon, I was able to drive to Saukville, renew my driver's license at DMV, and shop at Sendik's without crippling pain in hip; July 19, "considerable hip pain'; today/this morning, aching hip while lying in bed, very painful standing up and walking from bedroom to TV room.
Prednisone, day 69, , 15+5, day 5. I took my 15 mg. at 4:15 a.m. with breakfast of cottage cheese, raspberries & blackberries. By 2 p.m., I had less pain and was able both to fix some CBH & eggs for lunch and to fill the bird feeder with seeds.
I'm so grateful for my wife Geri. As I am sure I have before, I told her again yesterday that I love her even more now than on our wedding day. I can imagine some of the thoughts going through her mind as she watches both Lilly and me going downhill.
I'm grateful too for recognizing the importance of maintaining "an attitude of gratitude" but confess that I am not doing well in that department today. I'm a bit depressed over my immobility and the hip pain that causes it. I'm wondering whether the pain is not a recurrence of the PMR but rather something else, tendonitis or a muscle strain, who knows, maybe bone cancer. In any case, it has me in the dumps, Mickey the Mope. I need my dear sister to tell me to SNAP OUT OF IT! I'm feeling down about Trump and Vance, and down about Biden and the Dems.
I'm coming up on the 2nd anniversary of starting this daily journal and I wonder whether I should continue it after I hit that anniversary at the end of the month. I probably will if for no other reason than what would I do to fill the time every night when I am awake and alone and needing something to fill the long hours until daybreak and Geri's rising? But it is getting harder to write original thoughts rather than doing a "copy and paste" job from whatever I read in the newspapers or magazines, or from my memoir or an earlier journal entry. I'm slowing down mentally as well as physically, running out of mental as well as physical energy, and getting less interested in the affairs of the world other than those that distress and depress me. On the other hand, I have a hunch that writing every day, both the mental and intellectual part of it and the physical activity of typing and formatting, etc., may play a role in slowing cognitive decline and in helping me to recognize it as it occurs. In any case, it's mostly the chronic pain that has me down. I've been living with it on and off for a good 15 years, at least since 2009 when I suffered from the Hunner's ulcers in my bladder that recurred last year and required surgery this year. Then the PMR, now the hip. I've had two lengthy periods when I desired death every day, 'suicidal ideation' and all that. I'm not there now, but it gets an old guy down.
Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. I read a reference in a piece by Tom Nichols in The Atlantic today to Donald Trump and" his valet, J. D. Vance." It made me think of Trump and Vance as Don Quixote and his manservant/knight's squire, Sancho Panza. Quixote like Trump (and Biden!) was delusional and Panza was sane. I suspect that both Vance and Kamala Harris are sane enough to know that their Quixotes are badly impaired but they both play their subservient role, hoping for better days ahead in their own lives.
Anniversary thoughts. (1) Maybe my favorite musical, the life of Littlechap and Evie. I Want to be Rich, Gonna Build a Mountain, Once in a Lifetime, What Kind of Fool Am I, and my poltical favorite, Mumbo Jumbo:
Vote for Littlechap! Vote for Littlechap!
Vote for Littlechap! Vote for Littlechap!
For Littlechap!
Girl: Fellow citizens, our speaker for tonight is the Opportunist candidate for this constituency, Mr. Littlechap.
Littlechap sings:
Mumbo Jumbo, rhubarb rhubarb
Tickety bubarb yak yak yak
Mumbo jum red white and bluebarb,
Poor Brittania's on her back.
Mumbo Jumbo, rhubarb rhubarb
Nothing newbarb cha cha cha.
Mumbo Jumbo Castro's Cubarb.
I think someone's gone too far!
Mumbo Jumbo, rhubarb rhubarb
Voulez-vousbarb avec moi?
Mumbo Jumbo entrez-nousbarb
Bridget Bardot ooh la la!
Girl: Ladies of the Book of the Month Guild, it is my pleasure to introduce the Opportunist candidate for this constituency, Mr. Littlechap!
Mumbo Jumbo, rhubarb rhubarb
Has Red China got the bomb?
Velly soon now if it's truebarb
We'll be blown to kingdom come.
Chorus: You've got a bomb, We've got a bomb, All God's children got bombs.
Mumbo Jumbo, rhubarb rhubarb
Give the Democrats more cash.
Helps the nation, stops inflation.
How's your father? Wall Street crash.
Chorus: We wanna be rich with money to burn.
Mumbo Jumbo, rhubarb rhubarb
Prostitubarb off the streets.
We will fight them on the beaches
But we'll lose between the sheets.
Girl: Fellow members of the Motor Scooter Association, I'd like you to meet the Opportunist candidate, Mr. Littlechap.
Mumbo Jumbo, rhubarb rhubarb
Common Market can't go wrong.
Washday Mondays? Send your undies
Chinese laundry in Hong Kong.
Mumbo Jumbo, rhubarb rhubarb
Give the Africans their rights.
Colored people are free toobarb
Though not quite as free as whites!
Mumbo Jumbo, rhubarb rhubarb
Up your flubarb, Liberty Hall.
And, dear friends, if I'm elected,
I'm all right, Jack--screw you all!
. . . . . . .
And the theme song for Donald Trump and J. D. Vance, I Want to be Rich:
Look at me--just take a look at me--
A minute ago, I didn't know
Me elbow from me...
Ask just simply anyone--go and ask anyone--
They'll tell you I was greener than the grass.
Ooh, what I mess I was!
Yes, I'll confess I was!
Like a burbling bloody baby at the font!
You don't know the half of it--
But now I just laugh at it!
'Cause now I know exactly what I want.
I wanna be rich, have money to burn.
A thousand a week, say, would do me a turn.
I'd keep it in oncers in case of a slump.
I'd have stacks and stacks and the Income Tax
Could take a running jump.
I've have all me suits made a dozen a time.
I'd buy all the best shares, provided they climb
Give me half a chance, a small advance,
Me fingers itch to make me dirty rotten filthy stinking rich!
Take a look at me--a quick butcher's hook at me--
Now, a minute ago I didn't know a cockle from a whelk.
Can you imagine it? I mean, just imagine it!
Fancy not knowing a cockle from a whelk!
Oh, what a nitt I was! Yes, I'll admit I was!
Like a sloppy, floppy puppy with a ball.
And then, without reason or rhyme--
I was chatting this bird at the time--
I heard a sort of voice within me call.
I wanna be rich and have a big house,
With hundreds of acres and pheasants and grouse.
An American car as long as the street;
And the local birds'll be lost for words--
It'll knock them off their feet.
(Women drivers!)
I wanna be famous and be in the news,
Go out with a film star whenever I choose.
Gimme half a chance to lead a dance
With some rich bitch
And I'll be dirty rotten filthy stinking rich!
I wanna be rich and mix with the nobs
And sit in the best seats with all of the snobs.
I may go to Ascot to take in the scene.
In me grey top hat and me spats and that,
I'd be comp'ny for the Queen.
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