3/8/2025

 Saturday, March 8, 2025

D+121

1917 US Senate introduced the Cloture Rule, requiring a two-thirds majority to end debate, at the urging of Woodrow Wilson

1934 Edwin Hubble photo showed as many galaxies as Milky Way has stars

2018 US President Donald Trump authorized tariffs on steel and aluminium, excluding Canada and Mexico

In bed by 9:45,  awake and up at 6 a.m. !!!.  27°, high of 46° predicted.

Prednisone, day 321; 4 mg., day 4/21; Kevzara, day 4/14. 2 mg. of prednisone at 6:05 a.m. and 4 p.m.  Other meds at noon 

Geri is sleeping at 6:15 a.m. as I write this.  She is into the 8th week since the knee replacement surgery, she still has not regained full flexion and extension of the knee, nor is she yet without recurring pain.  She is using the  cooling machine again.'  She doesn't complain but notes that in these last 8 weeks and in the almost 11 months since this odyssey started, she has lost some energy or vigor.  She is 6 weeks away from her 81st birthday.   She got up this morning at 7:20 and said she felt "better." . . . She has been diligent about her exerises the last two days.

949 is the number of entries I have made in this journal since 2022.  That number might be slightly inflated since I believe I copied and pasted a few, perhaps several, comments I made to various articles in the Washington Post during the George W. Bush regime.  I also included a copy of my eulogy for TSJ, which made me wish I had retained copies of my eulogies for RJA and Roland Wright.  In any event, when I started making daily entries on this platform at the very end of July 2022, I wondered whether I would keep it up for a full 30 days. I underestimated my 'hypergraphia,' which Wikipedia tells us is "a behavioral condition characterized by the intense desire to write or draw. Forms of hypergraphia can vary in writing style and content. It is a symptom associated with temporal lobe changes in epilepsy and in Geschwind syndrome."😱  I've written something in the journal every day for more than 2 and ½ years, a poor substitute for my years of early morning text message exchanges with Kitty.  On several occasions, I've written about why I continue to write each day, self-analyses subject to all the weaknesses or flaws of any self-analysis.  I thought of another good or probable reason just a couple of days ago but failed to write it down and, alas, it's now forgotten, perhaps forever.   I have started to wonder whether all this writing is just a product of boredom, loneliness, and occupational uselessness, which is to say, having nothing else to do.  I can't read books or magazines anymore, except on my laptop,  because of my failing eyesight, presbyopia, dry eyes, and eye strain.  Would Anne Frank have kept her diary if she hadn't been locked away from the outside world?  I assume Charles Darwin kept his diary on HMS Beagle for scientific reasons, as part of his data collection and record keeping.  What accounts for Samuel Pepys keeping his extensive diary for so many years even though he was very busy pursuing his livelihood every day?  That is a real mystery.  Bob Graham, former governor of Florida and U.S. senator, was famour for his little pocket notebooks in which he recorded not only his activities for each day, but what he ate, what he wore, his weight, his location (down to the room), with whom he met, what they discussed, etc.  Mere eccentricity?  Is it a temporal lobe disorder? Obsessive-compulsive disorder?  Is it a practical necessity in the hyper busy and hyper connected life of a US senator?  A protection against poor memory? One from column A and one from column B?

A reminder.  Years ago, I had an insight that has served me well ever since.  I used to get upset, momentarily at least, when I encountered a driver driving "like a lunatic," wildly speeding, dangerously changing lanes, tailgating, whatever.  But then I thought, "Hey, maybe that guy (it's almost always a guy) is on his way home because his child hurt himself or herself badly and needs to be taken to the hospital."  Or, maybe his wife has fallen down the basement stairs and needs his help.  Don't be so quick to judge the guy as a jerk or an asshole when you have no idea why he is driving like that.  I had one of those experiences this morning as I drove up to the Metro Market to get ice for Geri's ice/water machine that helps her with the swelling and pain in her knee.  A driver on Port Washington Road sped by me, wildly swerved from the far left land to the far right lane, had to stop for a red light at Mequon Road, and then made a jackrabbit start just as the light turned green.  I thought, "I bet he's on his way to CSMO hospital because of some emergency."  No judgment.  A couple minutes later though I saw him pulled into the Shell gas station to gas up or get a carwash, leading me to think 'I guess he's just a jerk, an asshole.'  But then I thought, 'Maybe there was an emergency at the gas station.'  We never know what's going on in the crazy driver's head that leads him to drive like a lunatic.  Be slow to form a judgment, especially one that causes a knee-jerk negative emotional response.

Another reminder.  I drove up to Hong Anh's this evening to pick up our order of sweet-sour shrimp.  There were 5 men waiting for their orders, 3 of them seated.  One old man  noticed the way I walked in, and offered me his chair.

We were canvassed twice today, by a Schimmel supporter at about 3 and a Crawford supporter at 4.