1/1/25

 Wednesday, January 1, 2025

D+57

A thing of beauty is a joy forever.  I start this new year - perhaps my last, perhaps not - reflecting on how much beauty surrounds me, beauty in nature, beauty in things, beauty in people.  In searching for this photo of an exquisite mushroom that I espied serendipitously in our front yard one day, at one moment, I passed hundreds of other photos of things and people of beauty, of Geri, or Geri and Lilly, of Andy and his children, of Sarah and Christian, of Ed Felsenthal, of birds, of trees, and so much more.  As I type this, I also watch a gray squirrel with his beautiful white belly and ear tufts performing an acrobatics show for me on a suet cake holder.  Extraordinary! and common!  I think of Mary Oliver's When Death Comes: "I think of each life as a flower, as common / as a field daisy, and as singular."  My hope is that, despite my cynicism, pessimism, and dejection at the wrongs and miseries of the world, I remember that, as I've told my children and still believe, we are surrounded by saints and miracles.  We just have to open our eyes wide enough to see them.

1946 Emperor Hirohito of Japan announced he was not a god

1950 Ho Chi Minh began the offensive against French troops in Indo-China

1951 Chicago broadcaster Paul Harvey began his national radio program "Paul Harvey News and Comment" from WENR-AM for the ABC network

1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) went into effect

In bed at 10, awake and up around 5:10.      

Prednisone, day 232, 7.5 mg., day 47,  Prednisone at 5:30.   Other meds at 8:15.  

Our New Year's Eve was quiet, as usual.  I managed to stay awake until 10 o'clock watching Random Hearts, starring Harrison Ford and Kristin Scott Thomas with minor luminaries in supporting roles (Edie Falco, Kate Mara, Bonnie Hunt, Peter Coyote, and even the great director Sydney Pollack [Absence of Malice, Out of Africa]).  I baled out at 10, a half hour before the end of the movie because I was already an hour past my target bedtime of 9.  I looked up reviews of the movie and its Wikipedia entry to learn of its ending and found it got pretty bad reviews, surprising for a Sydney Pollack film with a good cast.  Roger Ebert noted that Harrison Ford showed the emotional range of a brick, as usual. . .  Our New Year's Eve dinner was weisswurst, German sauerkraut, and green salad. followed by much Sendik's popcorn during the movie.  I was up and about around 5, Geri at 8, and back in bed before 9.   

Recent history of resolutions: 

2022:   This year I should try. 1. Try not to be a jerk, selfish, self-centered, judgmental, supercilious, intellectually vain,  pity partyer.   2. Try to be kinder, more understanding, more open, more accepting of differences (except for MAGA types and dangerous Republicans.) 3. Try to paint more, be more communicative,  draw more, walk more.  OTOH: Emily Dickinson "In this short life that only lasts an hour  / How much - how little - is within our power?"

2023:  Stay more in touch with Ed Felsenthal and Larry Anderson.  Try to maintain some semblance of the Clausen/Lowe/Goldberg dinners.  Those resolutions (or goals) came to mind quickly but I got to thinking more about the passing year and the upcoming one on the way to Costco with Geri.  The past year saw two good, very long-term friends leave us - TSJ by his unexpected death and DPL by moving far away.  It had me move one year closer to my own death, and all of us marching along the same route.  I'm thinking about my life this past year and my reflections on some of it as reflected in this journal.  How much of this year have I wasted with negativity?  How many opportunities to do some good, both for others and for myself, have I squandered?  How much, by sins of commission and more by sins of omission, have I lived out the words of Yeats' Vacillation?  Things said or done long years ago, / Or things I did not do or say / But thought that I might say or do, / Weigh me down, and not a day / But something is recalled, / My conscience or my vanity appalled.  Today and tomorrow are days for some self-reflection.

2024:  1. Make a new friend or revive an old one.  Why?  Reduce loneliness, improve my outlook on life, mental health, and mood. 2. Try chair yoga again.  Why?  Improve mobility, flexibility, agility, mood. 3. Work on living, not dying before I die.  Why? Why not?  "I'm gonna live till I die! I'm gonna laugh 'stead of cry.  Before my number's up, I'm gonna fill my cup.  I'm gonna live, live, live, until I die!"  Mickey the Mope.  4. Work on kindness and forgiveness, including for myself.  Why?  Kindness and forgiveness make life better, easier, brighter, more tolerable even on hard days.  I can't undo my sins and failures but I can try to atone.

On New Year's Day last year, I wrote:

I'm grateful that 2023 is finished.  It was in some ways a rough year, starting with TSJ's death and the long ordeal of the eulogy.  Considerable pain challenges, IC, CPP, RP, Meijer's parking lot, the 11/25 visit to VA ER and Dr. Uilein, visits to Dr. Chatt, Dr. Cheng in PM&R, Dr. Shankar in the Pain Clinic, visits to the Urology Clinic, PT Jennifer Garrison in Physical Therapy, OT Melinda Matusewic in Whole Health Clinic. LPN Jody Kressin with Healing Touch, Lou and Mary with the Mindfulness Meditation group, etc.  This month alone starts the year with Jody on 1/8, hypnotherapy on 1/9, Eye Clinic on 1/11, Urology on 1/25, acupuncture on 1/29, PM&R on 1/31, plus 5  separate 'video connects', some with Melinda, some with I'm not sure whom.  I'm grateful to the VA for the comprehensive medical care they provide and for Ed Felsenthal's help in enrolling me.  I look at a list like this and wonder if I'm a hypochondriac, a Munchausen misfit, but I don't imagine the pain and discomfort, the failing eyesight, diabetes, etc.  As my Dad used to say, "My parts are failing."  If we were cars, the parts could be replaced.  As it is, they can realistically only be treated, but nonetheless, I'm grateful.

Today is a bit similar, in some ways a rough year, including Ed Felsenthat's death and my inability to attend his funeral, though Tom Devitt flew i.n from California for it.  Again I experienced considerable pain challenges but also considerable relief.  The chronic pelvic pain/interstitial cystitis that has been a recurring challenge for years was resolved, for a time at least, by fulguration of lesions in my bladder on March 5th.  That surgery was followed however by persistent crippling pain in both shoulders, both wrists, and hands that had me sleeping on my recliner rather than in bed for a couple of months  The pain was severe, intense, a 10 out of 10.  It was finally diagnosed as polymyalgia rheumatica or PMR by the VA rheumatologist, Dr. Ryzka,  on May 13th.  He put me on prednisone which finally provided pain relief after about 10 days, but the shoulder pain returned on November 11th and has been with me ever since. I see Dr. Ryzka next Monday and I expect that he will order another blood draw to look for heightened markers of inflammation.   If it's PMR again, I suspect he will increase my dosage from the current 7.5 mg./day, which I have been on for a month and a half.  If it's not PMR, it looks like osteoarthritis.  Last year in January, I had 5 visits to the VA medical center plus 5 video visits.  This year, I have only 2 visits scheduled, Dr. Ryzka and a regular eye exam for glaucoma, macular degeneration, etc.

Our Town, Our Country.  A man identified as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, 42, a native of Texas who had served with the U.S. Army, drove a rented pickup truck into a crowd of revelers on Bourbon Street in New Orleans early this morning, killing at least 10 of them and injuring more than 30.  He also shot 2 NOPD officers and was himself killed in the exchange of gunfire..  The occurrence is being described as a terrorist incident.  An ISIS flag was found on the vehicle and two IEDs were found on the flatbed.  Grover's Corners.  Bedford Falls.  Riverdale.  USA!  USA!  USA! 

Eighteen Questions, Forty Israeli Thinkers.   I watched and listened to Daniel Gordis answering the questions today...  Brilliant, articulate speaker.