Blood Pressure

I take my blood pressure nearly every day. It’s a habit I fell into fifteen years ago when Doctor Halverson said, “Hmmmm, you need a little something to help reduce your systolic pressure. That’s the big number.”

I’ve gone through a few blood pressure measurement devices. My current favorite is the cuff that goes around the wrist. Then you press a button, the device constricts, and about thirty seconds later, you get three readings including systolic, diastolic, and heart rate. Sometimes the readings produce a happy face. Other times I frown.

I don’t like frowning and, in violation of the blood pressure taking rules, wait about twenty minutes and do it again, maybe twice. I find that with each iteration, the numbers are more to my liking, so that’s what I record on my log.

I bring the log to my annual physical and watch Doctor Halverson scan it and then smile at me with his perpetually smiley face. In 15 years, I have never told him my secret; then again, I’m sure he knows and factors it into his calculations.

My routine doesn’t change much. I take my morning supplements, make a mug of Peet’s dark roast in my Keurig, bring the mug to my desktop, and log into the New York Times. If I haven’t already sensed my stress level building, I grab the pressure cuff and do my thing. Today, my systolic rang in at 155; frowny face appeared.

Putting the cuff aside, I scanned the Times home page and found an article titled The Truth About the Internet’s Favorite Stress Hormone. Perfect, I was already stressed so how much worse could it get? I launched into the article. Cortisol was the star of the show.

The pituitary gland, sometimes called the master gland, works with the adrenal glands to secrete cortisol into the bloodstream. When stressed, the amount of cortisol increases to cope with the stress produced by any number of things. Back when cavemen dragged cavewomen home to meet mama, cortisol helped the hairy bastards deal with the stress of hungry neighbors like the 23-foot long Quincana, a relative of the crocodile. Or the 11-ton wooly mammoth.

Except for the occasional stupidity of visitors to illegal animal parks, we generally don’t use much cortisol running away from hungry beasts, even in the middle of Ojai Avenue. But, in natures way, there are replacement stressors to take up the slack.

And that’s where the NY Times shines. Take this morning for example. The market is a mess, Trump is consuming half of the Justice Department’s annual budget, Putin and Xi Jinping are best buddies, Ron DeSantis is expanding his Don’t Say Gay xenophobia to hide his ignorance of foreign affairs, Netanyahu is proceeding with his plan to bury Israel’s supreme court, and a bunch of publicity hungry congressmen want to ban Tik-Tok, making its 150 million U.S. users very peeved. It’s almost too much for my adrenals and cortisol to bear.

But you got to watch your cortisol intake. Too much cortisol has been blamed for contributing to high blood pressure and a lack of sleep, so fighting wooly mammoths just before bedtime is not a good idea. Since cortisol is also blamed for depression and PTSD, it’s probably unwise to dwell on the news, like that offered by the Times (or even the Ojai Valley News for that matter).  As a bonus, some people develop a lump of fat at the back of the neck while others put on weight or feel fatigued.

Reading the article brought on more stress as I mentally tested myself against the reported possible disorders. A second cup of coffee did nothing to alleviate my anxiety while raising my cortisol level. I thought about my occasional sleeplessness, waking at 2am and then failing to fall back to sleep. My unfounded concerns which at the time of night warrant an Emmy, coupled with an extra shot of cortisol are, I’m sure, the cause of my bleary-eyed condition the following morning.

I finished the offending article and as further punishment clicked into Fox News. I occasionally visit this alien site and compare its headlines with the Times. I was rewarded with a gold star as my cortisol soared to even greater heights.

Giving my adrenals a sabbatical, I returned to the Times and was pleased to see that no giant asteroids were predicted today. Feeling like I was on a roll at the roulette wheel in Vegas, I grabbed my pressure cuff and spun it. It said “126 over 68.” Perfect.

I probably ran out of cortisol while scanning the Fox News page. Bet I sleep all night.

What did you say?

Three years ago, I visited the local Ojai audiologist because Jackie said I should.

To get my attention and gain my acceptance, she smiled sweetly, rose to her full five-foot height and said, “It’s enough already. I can’t stand repeating myself. It’s annoying. You need hearing aids. Go see that guy across the street of the hospital.”

I said I would and then conveniently forgot about it.

Jackie has many wonderful qualities, including putting up with me. But, like an elephant, a really big elephant, she never forgets. She also works quickly, completing tasks well ahead of schedule. For example, she takes the garbage cans out to the street nearly two days before their collection, in probable violation of the Andrew Street beautification rules.

In a gentle way, she quizzes me about tasks that have been assigned to me, knowing full well that I have not done them. So, after several nudges over a two-week period, I succumbed to her suggestion and made a date with the ear guy.

I felt confident that my problem was not physical. It was surely, I thought, simply due to my inattention when being spoken to. Just a case of establishing priorities when doing my thing.

The audiologist was nice enough and I was mildly cooperative. I took the press the button when you hear the beep test, confident that my hearing was normal. No old guy hearing aids for me. So, I was shocked when he said, “your high-end hearing is for shit. You need hearing aids, the bigger the better. The expensive ones, not the crap they sell at Costco.”

He sealed the deal by saying, “Now you can tell your wife that you don’t ignore her when she talks to you. It’s simply a case of high-end hearing loss. All’s forgiven.”

Three more years passed. I became an intermittent hearing aid user. I would often forget them and was grilled by Jackie about their absence whenever she felt she had reached her limit of repeating things like, “What time is it.” Or, “There’s a nuclear event scheduled at 4pm, what would you like for dinner?”

My hearing loss became more pronounced and my excuses for not wearing them more pathetic. I realized that I was missing what everyone in the free world was saying, including the real possibility of a nuclear event.

 I didn’t understand that my hearing would, like most of my other body parts, suffer the incessant ravages of old age and become a candidate for significant medical intervention.

There was a new audiologist in the neighborhood with a growing reputation for being pleasant, taking Medicare insurance, and occasionally improving one’s hearing. Pleasantness was the deal maker. I made an appointment.

I arrived at Dr. Nelson’s office 15 minutes early and, unlike most other medical professionals, found him ready to begin our adventure ahead of schedule. Good sign.

I have never had the pleasure of viewing San Quentin’s gas chamber, but the hearing test cubicle seemed to fit my imagined description. Three solid walls and a fourth with a glass panel, much like one that would allow the viewing of the execution by prison officials, reporters, and the public. A heavy thick door muted incoming sounds, much like those that might emanate from the condemned soul.

Examining the contents of my ear canals, Dr. Nelson discovered a motherlode of wax and discarded auto parts in my left one. Using a probe like the one employed by Humphrey Bogart while digging for gold in the 1948 film, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, the doctor extricated the baseball sized debris and displayed it to my eternal wonderment.

In contrast to the single test of three years ago, I was the beneficiary of a battery of them. One involved creating a vacuum in the ear canal accompanied by thumping sounds like Boris Karloff might make chasing people in The Mummy. Another had me repeat words that people like me often mistake for something else. Like bear and beer.

The press the button when you hear the beep test was, like three years ago, the highlight of the morning. Consisting of listening to tones played at varying volumes and pitches, I press the beeper to acknowledge my recognition of them. Missing one indicates the loss of a part of the hearing spectrum, and a candidate for hearing aids.

I tend to cheat when taking the test by pressing the beeper when there really is no sound. Sort of like memorizing an eye chart and pretending I can see. The beep equipment is diabolical enough to thwart these attempts, and the psychology of cheating seems to fly in the face of the purpose of the test. It’s a tool to help me hear better, not to gain admission to Harvard.

We finished the tests and adjourned to Dr. Nelson’s office where we looked at graphs and charts, fiddled with the keyboard, and explained things to me that I promptly forgot or maybe never absorbed in the first place.

In conclusion, I simply needed to turn up the volume on my hearing aids and make a few voodoo adjustments that are known only to a practicing Haitian princess.

And then we entered the magic code, inserted the devices, and tested my hearing. The first attempt produced sounds akin to being inside a half-filled bag of Lays Potato Chips, extra crispy. Fiddling with it produced a sound like being sheathed in two yards of holiday gift-wrap cellophane. Dr. Nelson was patient. Probably learned by having a practice that is largely to devoted to Medicare recipients and other similarly inclined complainers.

He suggested that I take my devices home and try them out. We both agreed that my brain probably needed some adjustments, and all would be well when I got used to my new ears, hopefully before being admitted to hospice care.

I made my way to the parking lot and seated myself in its once friendly confines. The sound of the car door closing was my first clue that this would be a challenge. A large, booming noise rattled me, and I was reminded of an F-16 jet breaking the sound barrier.

I arrive home. Our garage door is made of eight 20-foot-wide aluminum panels. When they roll up or down, they used to make a slight tinny sound. Not anymore. More like the shootout at the OK corral.

Entering the house, I drop my keys on the granite countertop and I hear glass breaking.

My iPhone rings, connected to the hearing aids via blue tooth. A shock courses through my body. I’m sure I’ve touched an overhead power line.

Jackie comes home and deposits a large, stiff brown paper bag on the floor and unloads the contents on the counter.  Breaking glass again and again.

Removing stuff from the countertop she drops a stainless-steel salad fork on the hardwood floor.  A combination of shock and breaking glass.

Enough is enough. I remove the hearing aids and my body relaxes from the military pose that I’ve been in since leaving Dr. Nelson’s office.

Bedtime and I sleep restlessly, thinking I won’t get to see him before our San Diego trip. I’m sure he’s booked, and I’m stuck with these clarion call hearing aids for a week. Or I can take them off and annoy people by asking what did you say? for a week.

Finally, it’s morning. I call. He can squeeze me in. I arrive. He fiddles. I’m happy.

And more importantly, so is Jackie.

Is it just a cold, or…

I’ve been nursing a cold for a few days.

I’m sure it’s my first since moving from the mountain into town, but Jackie insists I had a similar malady two years ago. No matter, I accept the discomfort with the style and grace that is a hallmark of my personality.

In other words, I am a lousy patient.

My colds follow a pattern. First a scratchy throat that I incorrectly label as a post-nasal drip. Then a more pronounced throat discomfort that belies my initial diagnosis. Next, a drippy nose that is held at bay by the multiple Kleenex boxes that occupy strategic places throughout the house.

An added attraction is the concern that this could be a disguised Covid virus cleverly inserting itself in a body already weakened by the trauma of a seasonal cold or flu. So, I check my temperature with the digital thermometer and find it normal. Distrusting the digital read out on the overused device, I seek human confirmation by asking Jackie to “feel my head.”

I am rendered speechless when she touches my forehead and says, “You do feel a little warm. Maybe you’ve been spending too much time on the patio. Drink some water.”

Is that all they teach you in nursing school? “Drink some water.”

My mind is riveted. I take my temperature again, 99.1. This is getting serious.  I take it once more, 99.6. I’m afraid to do it again. I try to remember what one does if they have Covid. Do you stay home, or tear off your clothes and run screaming down the street?

I imagine the ambulance screeching to a halt in front of the house. Loaded on a gurney, shoved in the bowels of the van, and taken to Ventura.

I mentally list all the things that need to be done. The appointments I’ll miss. The people who’ve been exposed to me. Taxes filed late. No pickleball.

I shake it off and remember the Covid test kit that President Biden kindly delivered to my mailbox. I should use it, I think. But then, what if the results are positive? Maybe it’s better not to know; then I could still play pickleball.

My civic pride and the genes borrowed from my parents get the better of me.

I get the test kit from the junk drawer in the kitchen. I open it and find an array of devices all cleverly designed to make it easy to mess it up. Calming myself, I realize there are two kits in the package and feel less challenged.

The instruction packet seems just a bit smaller than the Old Testament. Maybe that’s because it’s written in several languages including Sanskrit and Esperanza.

I read it. And then I read it again. It’s taking me too long, I think. I can hear the ambulance arriving if I don’t get this done soon.

I swab my nose, both nostrils. I am cautioned not to touch the tip of the swab. Why is that I think. Does the manufacturer think I have leprosy or teenage acne?

I go through the rest of steps, convinced I’ve done something wrong. Shoved it too far up my nose, swabbed in the wrong direction, moved it around too quickly, exposed it to some foreign substance. A million possibilities, but not a clue.

After wrestling with the little bottle and its multiple caps, I scoop up the precious liquid and deposit three drops in the test strip portal. It’s in God’s hands now, I think.

The instructions caution me to wait 15 minutes before looking at the results. I wonder if 10 would really be enough. Maybe they bump it up for those people who haven’t got the time to see if they’ve contracted a fatal illness.

Normally, 15 minutes passes quickly. Not this time. I could read Gone With the Wind and still have three minutes to go. I hang around the kitchen but avoid the test strip. I wait.

I can’t take it anymore. After 8 minutes I stare at the test strip. Only one line is visible. Two lines would spell disaster.

I age noticeably. I look in the bathroom mirror and I see Charlton Heston delivering the tablets to the Jews.

The kitchen timer beeps.

I check the test strip. Only one line. I take a closer look. Still only one line.

Well, so much for Covid.

I wonder when I had my last pneumonia shot. 

Taking the Bus

Tuesday is when I drive the Help of Ojai bus.

It’s usually a little nippy at 8 in the morning and Help has hardly enough time to warm the place before my arrival. I stand in my hall closet at home checking the temperature on my iPhone and debating my alternative garb. Shall I wear the sleeveless Patagonia vest, or the one with arms? Is the Cal baseball hat that I stole from my son enough, or should I wear my Carhartt wool beanie that covers my ears and holds the warmth streaming from my bald head, but wreaks havoc with my hearing aids?

I decide to go light this morning and slip on my vest, plop the Cal hat on my head, kiss Jackie good-bye and make the five-minute drive to Help. I could have walked there in 20 minutes, but I had already done three miles on the treadmill. Still recovering from my kettlebell induced back strain, I decide not to be macho and I drive.

Help moved a few months ago from their old location next to City Hall to a building that housed the Ojai Café Emporium for many years. A vacant restaurant seemed like an odd choice, and I sometimes mindlessly drive to Help’s old location, a habit formed over eighteen years of driving the bus.

The Emporium had a separate coffee shop that offered delicious pastries. They had four kinds of coffee but no Splenda sweetener; an odd omission that perpetually annoyed me. But I was particularly fond of their cinnamon rolls and the occasional pumpkin muffin. I wistfully remember the sugary sweets as I turn left off Montgomery and into the parking lot now festooned with a temporary looking Help of Ojai sign, but no muffins. Too bad.

The pandemic has slowed Help’s offerings at the new site. The communal gatherings are limited to avoid mass exposure to Covid. The interior of the building needs some glitz and glamor along with the now silent sounds of people being helped. The staff is getting used to the new digs and doing the good work that makes them a community gem.

My aging eyes take longer to acclimate to dark spaces after being in the sunny outdoors and I carefully make my way to the men’s room. It’s dimly lit and needs more concentrated light over the urinal; wearing a face mask contributes to the obfuscation of doing my business and leaves me wondering if I’ve hit the target. I make multiple prophylactic trips to the men’s room during my shift since I don’t want to be caught without a potty while driving the bus. Other than that, I think the new digs are coming along quite nicely.

I retrieve my rider list from Tina and make my way to Bus 8, a nine-passenger sheet metal behemoth that’s been sitting in the lot since yesterday afternoon. Hoisting myself into the sub-zero driver’s seat produces a shiver. My glasses immediately fog up because of the Covid mask and I find myself blindly searching for the heater controls. Removing the mask results in the loss of one over-priced hearing aid that had twisted itself around the elastic straps that held the facemask in place. I decide to forego the pleasure of the hearing aids until summer.

Settled in, I drive to my first pickup. Ralph is recovering from a stroke and needs a little help boarding. He’s exceptionally happy today, which he attributes to the half-jigger of bourbon that enhanced his morning coffee.

Dottie is my next client. With a tendency toward procrastination, she shuffles to the bus seemingly unaware that she is ten minutes overdue. Her delightful, “Good morning” makes me forget about her being late.

Steve has balance issues that he tries to mitigate with two walking sticks. He needs help loading his groceries from the Vons shopping cart onto the bus. Usually silent, his “thank you so much” brightens my morning.

Stephanie has been physically challenged for many years. Today’s trip to the doctor requires a wheelchair. It takes me awhile to hoist the chair on the lift and fasten it to the floor of the bus. I drop her off at the doctor and when her visit ends, I reverse the process going home. I don’t mind the effort, and I think about what it would be like if it were me in that chair.

Last pickup is Jan.  Her husband died a few weeks ago. It was only a month earlier when I regularly took them both to Swanner for physical therapy. They were like a duet. Now she is alone.

I bring the bus back to Help, hand the manifest and keys to Tina along with the five dollars of donations that hardly cover the gas I used driving forty miles.

I’ve been at it four hours. In and out of the bus, hauling groceries and doing other things that make it possible for people to do what needs to be done.

I should be tired. But I feel refreshed.

Healdsburg

We spent two days in Healdsburg three weeks ago, a town that I had not visited for over twenty years. Located in Sonoma County, it’s about seventy miles from the Golden Gate Bridge and light years from crowds, traffic and other traumas that make my chest tighten up.

We didn’t just wander into Healdsburg. No, it was part of a plan to soften my resistance to an over-60 community that is slowly taking shape two miles from the center of town.

Called Enso, the senior-living project two miles from the center of town will include 220 apartment style units that range in size from 800 to over 2,000 square feet. For a substantial up-front payment and a hefty monthly fee, Enso promises to house, feed, entertain, and take care of us until our minds and bodies call it quits. With Enzo’s close connection to the San Francisco Zen Center, we should be in good hands. I’m already letting my hair grow into a ponytail and will change my name to something like Whoisthisguy.

We were met at the Enso sales center by Leslie, a low key, pleasant woman whose job is to convince us to join the Enso circle. A three-dimensional scale model of the project rested on a table that reminded me of my friend Marty Kessler’s 4×8 model railroad platform. Using her iPad, Leslie lit up the various components of the project, including the last available living units (95 percent of the apartments are committed). We saw the activity center, dining rooms, pool, and exterior amenities. It was so real that I swear I saw a bunch of tiny Lilliputians sitting in the dining room.

In addition to housing our bodies (including assisted living and memory care), Enso will fill our lucid hours with the usual activities that one expects from an adult community, including a bent toward Zen, lessons in mindfulness, a hefty serving of spirituality…and maybe a pickleball game.

Our visit made me feel much better about Enso. Positive enough to select one of the few remaining apartments and plunk down a ten percent deposit. Enso will not open until construction is fully completed, maybe late 2023. Until then, we can change our minds, get our money back, and find a new adventure that also makes our friends wonder if I should be committed. Meanwhile, I’m wearing this silly Enso ring that looks and feels much like the rubber washer that adorns your bathroom faucet. Now that’s what I call commitment.

When I last visited Healdsburg, it was a sleepy town; maybe comatose is a better description. Sporting a little over 11,000 people, it’s about the same size as Ojai. And that’s where the resemblance ends. The town is surrounded by door-to-door wineries and populated with lots of good restaurants, high-end boutiques, and grocery stores that rival Gelson’s and Whole Foods. The usual citizens’ battle to maintain the town’s sleepy, rural character has been waged and lost. Surprisingly, the result appears well planned and, thankfully, underwhelming.

We stayed at the Trio, a new, slick, comfortable hotel. Jackie, my expert in judging hotel accommodations, found our room pleasing, the availability of extra toiletries exceptional, and the fitness center populated with the right equipment. We used the free hotel shuttle to get to restaurants, an especially useful amenity to avoid the intermittent heavy rain. The free afternoon wine tasting at the hotel was a surprise bonus.

Thursday, we got up at dawn and visited the fitness center. No one was there and I could adjust the thermostat to my liking and dial up Netflix on the treadmill screen. The Great British Baking Show was in its next to last episode of its ninth season. I marvel at the culinary creations of these amateur bakers and love the double entendres offered up by the two judges, Paul (intentionally naughty) and Pru (unknowingly). I completed an hour of treadmill marching without getting anywhere, and Jackie did the same on the elliptical and stationary bike.

It was late morning before we were ready for some sight-seeing. Healdsburg is the home of a gaggle of wineries including the Preston Winery, an older establishment that’s taken a lot of my money because of my membership in its wine club. It’s my only wine club membership, delivering six bottles of wine four times a year. I like their wines, or maybe it’s just because of old mushy memories of my last visit.

Ila and I had accidentally stumbled on the winery many years ago and I hadn’t been back since. I asked Jackie, “Could we go to Preston? I’d like to see if it’s changed since I was there with Ila.”

Jackie is very understanding about my memories of Ila and encourages me to express them, “Of course we can,”, she said. “it’ll be fun.”

Siri said we were only five miles from Preston when we began our adventure. My stomach rumbles encouraged us to find something to eat before we had gone very far. The Dry Creek General Store had been recommended by the hotel and appeared before us at the half-way mark. Its website highlighted the following tasty message…

Health & safety: Mask required · Staff required to disinfect surfaces between visits · Safety dividers at checkout · More details

What could be more appetizing, a bagel with Lysol? We stopped, masked up and found the entry. A fully stocked bar met our gaze. A single unmasked customer was nursing a drink of suspicious origin while having a lengthy unintelligible conversation on his cell phone.

We made good use of the restrooms, as though we might never see another before dark. We followed the path leading to the main store and found gold, or at least a surprising array of food. We went with a safe choice, a cheese-less turkey sandwich on wheat bread. I found the cashier behind the web-heralded safety dividers, paid with a contact-less Visa card, and grabbed a relatively uncomfortable high-legged table outside. The cashier promised she would find us there, but I had my doubts.

Five minutes later the safety-first turkey sandwich arrived, cut neatly in half as though the chef had used a laser ruler. More amazingly, it was delicious. I could have told you that it would be if you’d only asked.

Back on the road we were surrounded by wineries, all beckoning us to drive in, taste their wine and join their wine club. But we were on a mission to Preston that could not be altered.

The two-lane Dry Creek highway made an abrupt left and slowed to 15 miles per hour. We followed Siri’s prompts regardless of how silly they seemed, pssed more wineries, and finally found a sign announcing our arrival at Preston.

It was around noon on a weekday, and we were the only customers. Who drinks at noon, anyway? The buildings had changed from my long ago visit. Bigger and more of them, it all seemed grander than the last time. Too bad.

We spotted the entry to the tasting room and found three masked people, apparently employees, behind the tasting bar. One, a young lady, was writing something in a journal. Perhaps it was her memoir, an activity that obviously could not be interrupted to acknowledge our arrival.

A young man, who we later found out was beginning his employment with Preston, was staring into a computer that could have been displaying something forbidden to employees.

A third man stood facing me. I felt that he was waiting for me to say something. So, I did. “Hi, I haven’t been here for many years. But I’ve been a wine club member for a long time.”

Silence. So, I continued. “I really don’t know how many years I’ve been a member. And I’m curious. Could you check it for me?’

He moved in the direction of a computer, a good sign that he was still paying attention. Checking the screen, he said, “You’ve been a member for twenty-one years.”

Expecting some sort of trumpet blast, I waited for him to say something like, “Wow, twenty-one years. That’s amazing. Great to see you. How about a free glass of wine?”

Instead, he said, “Your credit card is expired. You missed getting the last shipment.”

I realize that he must have been a busy guy, what with trying to entertain the only two customers in the place. Or maybe he gets lots of people visiting Preston who have been wine club members for say, forty or fifty years. And I was a relative newcomer with only twenty-one years under my belt.

So, I asked him how much Preston wine I had downed in the last twenty-one years, maybe giving him a kick-start that would recognize my importance.

He said, “Let’s see, six bottles every three months for twenty-one years. That’s 504 bottles. Each bottle has six servings. That comes to 3,024 drinks.”

I thought that would shake him up and generate some atom of admiration.

Instead, he said, “Well, do you want me to update your credit card?”

Starvation Palace…part 2

“Eat. Don’t lose any more weight. You skinny bones.”

Those harsh but loving words came from Jackie’s sweet lips to my floppy ears as we prepared for our nearly four-hour trip to the Optimum Health Institute.

Fifteen minutes from the heart of San Diego, OHI is the last bastion of greenery in a god-forsaken hodge-podge of garbage trucks, big box outlets, and 99 Cents stores. The single-family homes on Central Avenue verge on extinction, yet command stratospheric prices in this overheated real estate market.

Once caring for mental patients, the buildings on the OHI campus have been converted to housing those who seek rest, a spiritual mantra, the elimination of poor dietary habits, and a cleansing of every crack and crevice in your body, abetted by daily colonics.

The rooms are a cut above those found in a Dickens’ orphanage. A bed, dresser, small desk, and a comfy stuffed chair round out the opulent furnishings. Ventilation is provided by the Motel 6 variety of appliance, generating adequate cooling and heating if you can stand the noise.

Two sides of the complex are exposed to unending freeway noise. The other two sides provide entertainment for  maniacal Central Avenue hotrodders who were not paid enough attention to while in the reformatory, and the barking family dog who sounds like he wants to eat, preferably something human.

To maintain the pristine nature of the complex while Covid runs amuck, the institute frowns on anyone leaving the premises during confinement. Periodic spit tests assure the guests of the purity of the other campers. Gates keep people out but can be easily breeched upon entry if one can pass the famous ten questions beginning with “Have you…”. Forehead temperature is taken with a device that Fox News says may inject a microchip in your frontal lobe.

Hiking trails are foreign to this environment. Daily exercise may be had on campus, but Jackie prefers 24 Hour Fitness a mile from it. Not to miss the exhilaration of a daily hike, a brisk walk beginning on Central Avenue substitutes for the real thing. Alternating between cracked concrete, no concrete and asphalt in need of sealcoating, we parade in front of the homes and their blood-thirsty dogs, make a left on Massachusetts Avenue avoiding drivers who never heard of California’s pedestrian rights, and end the first leg of our trip at Walgreens.

 The presence of Walgreens, CVS and Rite-Aid only 500 feet apart attests to the power of the drug cartel and its influence on our daily lives. Chevron, Shell and a No-Name gas station wave flags announcing budget busting per-gallon prices that once were per-tank prices.  McDonalds, Taco Bell, and Chic Filet provide everything else needed for a happy, healthy existence.

We shade our eyes to avoid the temptation of El Pollo Loco and continue our loopy hike up Central Avenue. We arrive back at the OHI gates where Andrew dutifully takes our temperature to be sure we have not acquired the dreaded virus in the sixty minutes since our departure from the campus.

Food occupies much of our thoughts and our conversations with other deprived souls throughout the day. A detox diet that Mother Theresa would be proud of is designed to eliminate the nasties that have taken up residence in the dark shadows of our gut. Stimulants, fats, flour, sugar, and salt are banished for the duration of our visit. Oils are unseen except in the form of an occasional sliver of blessed avocado.

Raw vegetables are plentiful and plainly identifiable on our plate. Other raw vegetables are occasionally disguised as something else (like Kosher bacon) but always fail the taste test. Cooked foods are shunned as anything heated over 105 degrees is declared dead and of little use in delivering vital nutrients.

The affable kitchen staff enjoys a respite during the middle three days of our visit, as our nutrition is solely vegetable juice. Unfortunately, the variety of these juices is limited to green or red. Of course, you can mix the two and produce one that is sort of brown. I’m particularly fond of doing this since it reminds me of my mother who used to mix red and green Jello to produce an interesting dessert.

A cornucopia of spices is available to flavor our juice but except for cayenne powder seem to have little effect on taste. We can have as much juice as we want. A cucumber slice or one cherry tomato often garnishes each serving. Having several glasses can leave the impression that you’ve had a salad. I particularly like the cherry tomato option since it reminds me of the martini stuffed olives that I have sacrificed on the detox altar.

Being somewhat emaciated, I can’t afford to lose weight while prancing around OHI. As a result, I augment the detox regimen with bananas and organic peanut butter purchased clandestinely at the nearby Sprouts grocery. Without this dietary supplement, I’d soon look like Alec Guinness emerging from the Japanese confinement shed in The Bridge Over the River Kwai. I feel guilty doing this but my death from starvation at OHI would surely put a crimp in their public relations program.

When I’m not eating, I attend classes about eating as though this will fill my belly. I really like the one on fermented foods, like sauerkraut and dill pickles. It offers a glimpse of the world of microbes running wild in my gut. Living inside every person are trillions of microorganisms — bacteria, viruses, fungi, and other life forms. And eating sauerkraut keeps them carefree and happy as they munch their way through my colon.

And speaking of colons… OHI’s detox arsenal includes optional colonics. Those of us who were members of the Mickey Mouse Club and watched The $64,000 Question, probably remember that brown rubber bag and hose hanging on a hook on your parents’ bathroom door. That enema of old has been replaced by a more high-tech version with the same objective, complete with an infusion of wheat grass juice. What?

So, I bet you’re wondering, “Why does he spend a week at OHI when he could be anywhere else?”

You might also ask why he’s done it six times.

Or why he’s thinking about doing it again?

And I’d say, “Good question.”

Simplicity

The most obvious is often the most elusive.

Occam’s razor is a hypothesis that suggests we peel or slice away unnecessary things to solve a problem. Largely attributed to the work of the English friar William Ockham around 1300, he said “entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity”. Obviously, this recommendation has had little impact on the construction of churches nor on the proliferation of on-line dating services.

Others have also received commendations for promoting simplicity, including Ptolemy around 150 who stated, “We consider it a good principle to explain the phenomena by the simplest hypothesis possible.”

Not to be outdone, Isaac Newton while waiting for the apple to fall in the 1600’s said, “We are to admit no more causes of natural things, than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances.” Duh?

Variations continued unabated until we simplified the idea by stating, “The simplest explanation is usually the best one.”

I was reminded of Friar Occam while working out at the gym today. Ever since my long-time trainer Robert went on medical leave, I’ve placed myself in David’s capable hands. Their approach to training differs; Robert is a “let’s do everything that won’t kill you” kind of guy, while David is more focused on the things that may really be killing you. I find both approaches equally capable of inflicting pain and I occasionally wonder if I’d get the same results laying on my couch watching Grey’s Anatomy.

Since my bout with vertigo, I’ve focused on improving my stability through odd exercises. For example, shlepping 25-pound kettle bells in each hand and marching around the club’s second floor has brought me stares. Occasionally I feel like a delivery boy from Ojai Pizza.

Following Occam’s advice I start with the simplest yet most difficult balancing routine, standing upright with both feet parallel. Eyes closed, I try to maintain that position for 30 seconds with minimum wobble. No big deal, and I congratulate myself for not falling on my face. 

Then I position my left foot directly in front of the right, heel to toe, eyes closed. With wobbling akin to that experienced during the Northridge earthquake, I struggle to maintain the heel to toe position for 30 seconds; I succeed less than half the time. Then I reverse position putting my right foot in front; I succeed without serious injury most of the time.

David and I wonder why I do well with my right foot in front, and poorly when it’s my left foot in the lead. He believes that a tight muscle may be the problem; I believe it’s just the way I’m built. David wins and begins to experiment, hoping to find the offending muscle.

David has memorized the names of every bone and muscle and always impresses me with his ability to point them out. I have no idea if he’s fibbing since I have never progressed beyond knowing the difference between the ankle and the thigh.

Seeking the answer to my deficiencies often includes a series grabs and pokes looking for a “hot spot”, defined as a place that is more painful than the surrounding area. Working on the hot spot with hand massage, or a wooden dowel that looks suspiciously like my mother’s rolling pin, produces even greater pain.

I think pain excites David and amplifies his sadomasochistic leanings. Thankfully, the pain passes, probably because my brain has had enough and has blessedly injected an organic drug directly on the hot spot. Or maybe David just tires of my screams.

Completing the torment, we repeat the heel to toe routine to see if there is improved stability. In an ahamoment we discover a modicum of success. Wild cheering ensues. But it is short-lived when I wonder if I must endure hot spot torture each time I need to maintain my balance.

Which brings us to the “What good is this anyway” routine. A combination of kneeling, stretching and pulley yanking, this procedure screams for a specimen like me. Kneeling my left leg on a foam pad, the right is stretched on the floor behind me. A rope is attached to a pulley whose resistance can be adjusted from Wussto Don’t even think about trying it. My hands hold the rope in front of me and stretch it side to side while maintaining my balance. I think David made the whole thing up for Halloween.

The hardest part of the routine is switching legs. I try to swing my right leg forward and…nothing. My right leg refuses to move to the front of the foam pad. I’m stuck, so I grab my leg like it was a piece of meat hanging on a hook and sling it to the proper position.

We both wonder why I can effortlessly swing my left leg forward while my right leg balks like a three-year-old throwing a tantrum. David thinks it’s because my thigh muscle is too tight, so he once again begins a series of grabbing, squeezing, and rolling actions like those made popular during the Spanish Inquisition.

Completing the effort, we check for improvement. But there is none. My right leg is still stuck. We repeat the process, reversing the actions. No good. Still stuck. I know what’s coming and search for a way out.

I ask for a five-minute sabbatical so we can do some research without all the grabbing and squeezing. I look at the position of my left leg on the foam pad; it’s about three inches from the edge of the pad. Then I look at the right leg. The right leg is about six inches from the edge. Armed with this knowledge, I move my right leg three inches. I have an aha moment when it swings effortlessly to its proper position.

Three inches. What could be simpler?

Ockham would be proud of me.

Amazon delivers everything…even Vertigo

Two months ago I was working out at the gym under David’s tutelage. Ever since Robert’s illness, I’ve relied of David to guide me as I stretch, bend, and lift myself hoping to retain some of the muscle and other manly components of this once glorious body.

My routine includes grabbing a twenty-five-pound kettlebell in each hand. I walk the length of the gym trying not to fall on my face while gazing at the lovely ladies who make the morning so much more enjoyable.

According to Google…Kettlebell use will cause your forearms to be visibly stronger, upper arms and shoulders more defined, legs and rear tighter and shapelier, and posture improved. You will appear balanced, stronger, and more graceful with a general air of healthy athleticism. Right now I’m working on gracefulness; the rest can wait.

Another component of my Summer Olympics preparation is the weightlifting bar. These come in several sizes including Mini, Midi and Well Beyond My Wildest Dreams. Devoid of added weights, I pump the Mini bar as though I were drawing water from a well. I admire my form in the strategically placed mirrors until I notice that the same lovely ladies are pumping iron equal to their own body weight.

Improving my balance is an important component of my training. I have previously described my balancing mishaps on the pages of this blog. Multiple falls from my electric bike and tripping over two-inch high devil rocks while hiking Shelf Road have taken up much space. Until a few weeks ago, these acts of imbalance happened exclusively outdoors. However, they have now sneakily moved into the confines of the gym.

Get-ups are designed to test one’s balance while delivering a workout that can leave you breathless. Lying flat on the floor with arms and legs raised, I look like I’m hugging Smokey the Bear. I roll to the left while Smokey comes along for the ride. I then lift myself on one elbow, then on one hand, and finish this Cirque du Soleilfeatured event by standing erect, to the applause of those who have taken the opportunity to view the majesty of the maneuver. Try that move six or seven times and you’re ready for a Grande café-latte and a prune Danish.

Until six weeks ago I had regularly conquered Get-ups without any visible calamity. Confidence reigned; I was the master of all I surveyed. And then, as I rose from the last Get-up in the series, my brain decided to take some time off. You probably know the feeling if you’ve stood up rapidly from your comfy chair while watching the Bachelorette on TV. You experienced a moment of light headedness and involuntarily plunked yourself down for another episode of this enlightening ABC network series.

Except, unlike the Bachelorette seconds-long move, my dizziness did not stop. I tried walking and wound up looking like Foster Brooks, the comedian who did a pretty good imitation of a falling-down drunk. It lasted two days.

While the intensity of the dizziness decreased over the next week, it did not end. A trip to the doctor, a couple of tests and some follow my finger exercises resulted in a diagnosis of vertigo and a suggestion that I go home and see how it goes.

Until now, my only vertigo experience was watching Jimmy Stewart play opposite Kim Novak in the Alfred Hitchcock movie called Vertigo. Jimmy’s vertigo stopped him from climbing flights of stairs or looking down at the ground. My vertigo has kept me off my bike…probably a good idea even without vertigo.

The Mayo Clinic has this to say about my problem…Vertigo is the false sense that your surroundings are spinning or moving. Your brain receives signals from the inner ear that aren’t consistent with what your eyes and sensory nerves are receiving. Vertigo is what results as your brain works to sort out the confusion.

Stuck on the road back to full functionality, I visited Kathy Doubleday at Balance physical therapy. My wanderings through the internet had prepared me for her recommendation that we attempt the Epley maneuver. Simply put, Epley loosens up the magic balancing crystals in your head that have become dislodged and moved to wrong place in your inner ear. Named for Dr. Epley who developed it in 1980, the procedure generally corrects the disorder for 90 percent of the afflicted in a single visit. Sure they do.

Lying on my back, Kathy repositioned my head up, down, and sideways. My immediate response was a recurrence of the condition that made my eyes believe that the room was rotating 360 degrees, much like a speeding merry-go-round. The rotation slowed gradually and then stopped. I paid to ride again, and we repeated the process with the same result. And, not satisfied with the nausea that accompanied the ride, did it twice more. It had all the attributes of a stomach-turning county fair ride, without the cotton candy.

Weak kneed and overly cautious, I returned home and gradually recovered without any more vertigo induced rides. The morning ended and afternoon kicked in. Busy writing a blog, I didn’t notice the arrival or departure of that ubiquitous brown van with the upturned penis on its side.

It was mid-afternoon when I emerged from my office, walked past the front door, and through the side glass noticed three brown boxes nicely stacked just outside the entry. Jackie and I are habitual Amazon over users. Ordering independently of one another, we often receive mysterious boxes which only heighten our expectation of what those boxes might contain.

Forgetting about my morning adventure, I opened the door, lifted the two smaller boxes, and took them into the house. I returned for the third much larger box, bent over fully to grasp its bottom, and immediately experienced what Dr. Epley had sought to cure.

I had no time to enjoy the ride. I fully lost my balance and collapsed in a heap, leaving a fair portion of my scalp flapping in the breeze having been detached from my skull by the unfriendly stucco of the exterior wall.

I’ve never seen a pig bleed, so I couldn’t fully appreciate the expression he bled like a stuck pig. But I have a better idea now. The floodgates had opened, and my precious fluid was seeking a new home. I was sure that not even Doctors Bailey and Webber of Grey’s Anatomy could save me. I expected to faint away when I was down to my last quart; Jackie would find me cold and lifeless, still clutching that unopened Amazon box.

David, my neighbor with a Porsche, risked blood-stained seats and took me to the hospital emergency room where I spent four hours, mostly waiting. I eventually returned home with Jackie, my head covered by a bandage bigger than Texas.

I can’t remember what was in the big box. All I know is that Amazon delivered it. With that kind of responsibility, the least they could do is put a warning label on it.

Drops and Pokes

If my eyes were formerly feeling lonely, I have now moderated that condition by letting a horde of strangers in white coats peer into them, flood them with all manner of drops, and poke them as though one were testing the ripeness of an avocado.

In previous episodes, I chronicled the events that precipitated these invasive activities and eventually concluded with my optometrist, Dr. Brockman, announcing that I was now “ripe”, a euphemism that conveyed his conclusion that I was primed for cataract surgery.

Live long enough and you too will experience at least one, and probably two, such surgeries.

In addition to cataracts, I am keeping glaucoma at bay. Once a rampant blindness provocateur, it’s controllable with multiple medications dropped into the eyes one or more times a day. Untreated, glaucoma will damage the optic nerve leading to loss of vision. The malady is precipitated by abnormally high pressure in the eye, called ocular hypertension, that inflates your eyeball like a balloon and squeezes the life out of your optic nerve.

Squeezing drops into my eyes is a hit or miss activity that normally results in much of the liquid dripping down my cheek. I have tried different approaches including tilting my head way back to where it almost touches my butt, experimenting with the distance between the dropper and my eye, and soliciting Jackie’s assistance. Employing Nurse Jackie is the most reliable method, but she often is preoccupied; lately she is focused on watching all 356 episodes of Grey’s Anatomy.

Theories abound as to the causes of glaucoma. Some folks recommend avoiding headstands; however, I have learned that eye pressure is independent of blood pressure. Other soothsayers blame bananas, coffee, and banging your head against the wall (my mother did a lot of that and did not suffer from glaucoma.)

Most eye practitioners put the entire blame on our parents for passing on the dreaded ballooning gene. Thank goodness for that; at least I can continue standing on my head.

Easily discernable symptoms of glaucoma are generally absent. Eye pressure is measured with numbing drops placed onto the eye, and then a tap or two on your eyeball transmits a pressure reading to the observer. I consider myself an expert in evaluating the skills of those who tap on my eyeballs, having been subjected to the process by optometrists, ophthalmologists and retina specialists.

Almost anyone in the doctor’s office, from a board-certified physician (whatever that is) to the newly hired receptionist is apparently authorized to attack your eyeball with a vengeance. Additionally, I have found that occupational status has little to do with the efficiency and comfort attendant to the process. The receptionist in my ophthalmologist’s office gave me the best balloon job I’ve ever had.

Completing the trifecta of eye afflictions is macular degeneration. Like cataracts and glaucoma, the disease runs rampant through my family. My earliest recollection of it begins with my father’s mother who, like my parents, was a Lithuanian refugee. Skinny, just short of five feet, and wearing a sheitel (head covering used by orthodox Jewish women), she moved like a specter through her kitchen, never uttering a sound. Perhaps I was too young to remember but I’d swear she was a mute. Her eyes glistened in a way that made her appear sightless. All in all, I was too frightened of her to ask.

Macular degeneration results in severely blurred or a complete loss of vision in the center of the field of vision. Peripheral vision remains, so that you can spot someone creeping up on you (unless glaucoma is part of the daily double.) Seeing faces, driving, eating and other daily activities are featured challenges in most Mission Impossible movies.

My father, Morris, had macular degeneration. One of my embedded memories is of him sitting sideways on a folding chair in front of the TV, watching a White Sox game out of the corner of his right eye. Glaucoma complicated the process of defining the images and required that the players on the TV screen move very slowly so he could tell what was going on. Baseball easily filled this requirement; watching the Bulls or the Blackhawks was out of the question.

Irv, my brother, suffered from all the aforementioned maladies and, like Mr. Magoo, tended to bump into stationary objects. As I have begun to do, he walked very tentatively in darkened areas, sticking his toe out well ahead of the rest of his body to feel for objects that might be on a collision course.

My cataract surgery was relatively uneventful except for the complete loss of vision in my left eye. My hysteria abated over the next 48 hours as my AWOL sight gradually returned. However, lack of significant improvement in my visual acuity over the next week or two resulted in a follow-up trip to the surgeon. Further drops, pokes and machine games resulted in a highly sophisticated diagnosis of “Looks good to me.” And a referral to a retina specialist.

The retina maven resided in the largest office of the three specialties (who knew that the retina could be so important). I dutifully filled out several reams of forms that asked for everything but my preferred coitus position. I was then interviewed by a young lady who seemed on the verge of asking that question, but I was put at ease when she only asked for my bank account and social security numbers.

The anticipated drops and pokes were accompanied by the largest array of eye testing devices I had seen in any office. One of the devices looked much like the evil storm trooper featured in a Star Wars movie. A human sized, white rectangular device, I half expected Darth Vader’s breathy voice to emerge from it.

My face was squashed into the front of the trooper and my head positioned in ways that were not intended by our Creator. The technician, obviously dissatisfied with my eyelid, lifted and jerked it in order to get really good photos, ones that would no doubt be one day found on a list of Facebook Favorites.

Finished with the activities that were intended to offend my eyes, I was escorted to a nice room that could, in a pinch, be called a home away from home. Several impressive computer screens lined the shelf in front of me displaying the photos taken by the storm trooper.

The door opened slowly and I half-expected to see Darth Vader. Instead, I met the Marx brothers. The first, using his given name, introduced himself as Damien the ophthalmologist and leader of the band. The second, Susan, was apparently the only one who could make the computer screens come to life. The third, who reminded me of my grandmother who could not speak, was introduced as Roberta, the medical student. It almost seemed like an episode of Grey’s Anatomy, without the blood.

Damien was a slap-happy sort who seemed to enjoy giving me bad news. He did, however, display good judgment by starting with the good news. He gleefully announced that my being 81 put me in the pediatric section of his practice; most of his other clients had survived the sinking of the Titanic.

He went on. “You’ve got a lot of macular degeneration. Not enough to be concerned about…yet. And there’s a bunch of other stuff that you won’t understand so I’ll not get into it. Go home, eat olive oil, nuts, fish, and the other things that Italians like…but maybe not so much pasta and watch how much wine you slug down. And maybe take those pills you’ve been taking for the last two years; they’re probably good for you. Ok, we’re done. Come back in six or eight months. Oh, and happy almost birthday.”

I split the difference with the receptionist and made an appointment seven months later. I exited the building with dilated pupils the size of basketballs. Jackie drove up and I plopped down in the passenger seat. “How’d it go?” she asked.

“Not bad, same old drops and pokes. But at least I met the Marx brothers.”

The Eyes Have It

I had cataract surgery on my right eye a few years ago. It was a relatively uncomplicated procedure that didn’t hurt, wasn’t life threatening and, I think, improved my vision.

Cataracts have been around since ancient times, ever since humans began to live longer than their prehistoric ancestors. It’s a disease that afflicts at least half the population by the age of 80. If you have good genes and live to 95, one hundred percent of you will be victims.

Cataract disease causes the lens of the eye to cloud over; eventually you will think you’re in a London fog. If you’ve never been to London, think of driving your car down Highway 99 in the Central Valley through a Tule fog, same thing.

Factors, in addition to aging, that affect the formation of a cataract include diabetes, smoking, obesity, high blood pressure and, sadly, unbridled alcohol consumption. Injuries, like having your spouse fist you out, can also speed the formation of a cataract.

The outpatient procedure is pretty straight forward; under a local anesthetic, the ophthalmologist surgically removes the clouded lens and replaces it with a nice plastic one from Ben Franklin. The best thing about the procedure is that you can watch the doctor stick you in the eye while a glorious light show is playing in your brain. Anxiety reducing Valium pills are an added treat.

Cataract replacement, like LASIK surgery, can also improve your vision and eliminate the need for glasses. I am often reminded of the late comedian, Dick Shawn, who self-billed himself as The Second Greatest Entertainer in the Whole Wide World. His old standup comedy routine included the following prediction, “Ya know, pretty soon you won’t need glasses; they’ll just grind your eyeballs.” I thought he was just being funny, but maybe not.

Eye problems run amok in my family. Glaucoma and macular degeneration are like visiting relatives who don’t know when to go home. Accordingly, I visit my optometrist, Doctor Brockman, every three months to see what else we need to do to protect me from their onslaught. He often delivers a line that would have fit quite nicely into Dick Shawn’s routine, “My job is to keep your eyes working until you die.”

My latest visit to Doctor B included the compulsory reading of the ubiquitous eye chart. I always wear my glasses when reading the chart since we long ago determined that trying without them is a waste of time. Recognizing the inanity of it, I also gave up trying to memorize the lines on the chart; now I only do that when I visit the DMV.

Doctor B has prepared me for the eventual need for cataract surgery.  It was no surprise when I couldn’t find the eye chart, much less read it, that he said, “It’s time.”

Given a choice of ophthalmologists and noting the surprising absence of any Jewish names, I lofted a dart at the presumed location of the eye chart and selected Doctor Shabatien. I guessed that he or his ancestors probably came from the Middle East near Israel, a hotbed of Jewish doctors. Close enough.

Doctor S was very busy and, as I was in no hurry to have my eye sliced, booked an appointment for an evaluation four weeks out. I figured I could just use my right eye in the interim, enlarge the Netflix movie captions, ask Jackie to read the small print on my meds, and have her to guide me through the darkness of the hallway leading to my bed…a place of refuge where eyes are superfluous.

The day of my evaluation came and we scurried to Doctor S’s in Ventura, arriving 20 minutes early. Jackie and I share the same annoying habit of arriving everywhere ahead of time. I’ve tried being late to no avail; the best I’ve ever done is 12 minutes ahead of schedule. I often arrive a day early just to avoid the traffic.

I was promptly escorted to one of Doctor S’s exam rooms. His assistant, Rita, was pleasant and efficient. She began with the dreaded eye chart; I became ecstatic when I actually saw it on the wall in front of me. Reading it was another kettle of fish; I might as well have been blind, a condition that I might have acquired on the elevator to Doctor B’s office.

Rita tried to coax enough vision from either of my eyes to avoid declaring the operation a failure and labeling me as untreatable. Squinting and silent prayer eventually produced enough vision that allowed me to identify two of the four characters on the fourth line of the chart. Rita congratulated me on my perseverance and gave me a cookie.

Other tests were performed; I had no idea why nor how I scored. It seems that Rita was capable enough to perform the tests but was not permitted to discuss the results. As this prohibition was hopefully not life threatening, I did not press it and lamely decided to wait for Doctor S to arrive and give me the bad news.

Rita applied eye dilating drops and then left me to pursue other adventures. I sat in the rigid exam chair designed by Barcalounger rejects and visualized what the world would look like when I ventured outdoors. With pupils as big as Ford F-250 hubcaps, light is unimpeded, and you feel like you have Superman’s x-ray vision.

Time passed and Rita returned. “I’m really sorry but the doctor is going to be late. He went to his Lancaster office by mistake. He’s on his way here, maybe an hour and a half. Would you like to stay, come back later or maybe reschedule for another day?”

I thought about the other times I’d waited for doctors. But never because they went to the wrong office. I thought about his honesty in saying that he just screwed up. No emergency, no my dog ate my schedule, no traffic was a bitch. So, I decided to stick around and think of him as just being a little tardy. And I got a free cup of coffee.