N, AS IN PNEUMONIA

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(Originally posted on the website Continuum…)

N, AS IN I DO NOT HAVE IT.

Nope. I had an x-ray today and no pneumonia, not a speck, nada.

I went to a different doctor today. There was a world of difference in the attention I got from this doctor compared to the last! With the last one I didn’t find out I had pneumonia until a month after I had my x-ray done. Today, the doctor left me a message about my x-ray results before I even drove the ten miles from her office back to my office.

That’s not all. She was very thorough in her evaluation of my symptoms. She asked plenty of questions. She thought of some possible reasons for the breathing problems I have been experiencing (maybe asthma, maybe allergies). She even thought to ask if I’ve been having any problems with heartburn. As a matter of fact, I was. She explained that acid reflux can aggravate the breathing troubles and interfere with treatment of them. So she gave me a prescription for heartburn medicine. She also gave me an inhaler to use three times a day for this week. At the end of the week she wants to see me again to do further asthma testing.

Receiving the phone message that I don’t have pneumonia was a mixed blessing. It’s a relief to know that my lungs are not filling up with all kinds of gunk that could potentially kill me. However, the prospect of having asthma isn’t very thrilling. Some say it’s highly unlikely for someone my age (29) to develop asthma. But I read on webmd.com that a person can develop asthma at any time.

So that’s the latest from the health and wellness department.

Since we are flirting with the letter N this time, how about some other news?

Yes, that is a Nine Inch Nails logo in the photo above. No, I am not listening to Nine Inch Nails while writing this. I am listening to… nothing actually.

My daughters are here. They arrived on Saturday. It’s amazing how much a child grows in two months when you don’t see them. Of course, it is always so much fun to have them here. Since we don’t see each other for extended periods of time, I think we appreciate being together more. There is a little more intensity involved. Certain shared experiences seem to be ingrained in our minds deeper and remember more vividly than if we spent each and every day together. We have no definite set plans for this summer. We do want to go back to Crater Lake. The girls suggested that we make that a yearly tradition. We might go to the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival in New York State for a weekend with my mom and sister. You know, folk music, camping out for the weekend, drum circles at night, vegan hippies smoking marijuana. I’m sure we will also go to the beach a few times.

While we were on our way to pick up Tim from work around 8:30, Madeline said something funny. We were driving through back country roads past several farms. There were cows in a field, close to the fence by the road. As we drove past, Madeline exclaimed, “Wow! Look at that thing’s GUTTERS!” I laughed so hard I nearly crashed the car! Maybe she thought the utters were called gutters because they look like the cow’s gut. I don’t know.

I think I will keep this as a nice nifty journal entry, not a novel. Let me end on this bit of trivia. This is entry number Ninety-Nine of this journal.

“Ninety-nine writings of Sam on the web, ninety-nine writings of Sam. Take one down, pass it around, ninety-eight writings of Sam on the web.”

“Ninety-eight writings of…”

Oh! Come on! Sing! Sing!

No? You’re NOT going to sing?

You’re No fun. I’m going home.

alphabyteslogo3 An AlphaBytes Project – The Letter N

H

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(Originally posted on the website Continuum…)

H is for “Hannah.” She’s ten years old, sharp as a tack, beautiful, and boy crazy. She wants to be an archaeologist when she grows up.

H is for “happy.” That is what I will be when Hannah arrives in just two days.

H is for “hard.” It’s hard to believe that any woman could look so bored, as Hannah does in this photo, when there is a clothing store right behind her! The issue of women and shopping came up in conversation with a friend of mine at work. She was telling me how burned out she felt. The responsibilities of motherhood have been wearing her down. It’s hard to function on just a few hours sleep after tending to a baby most of the night. I said that maybe she needed to get away from her desk at lunch each day, do something different, go for a walk, or just drive around and explore the area.

Her response was, “Yeah! Where is there a mall around here?”

I said, “Ah yes! Proof that you are a woman indeed!”

I’m telling you, when a guy is stressed out and in need of a break, the first thing that comes to his mind is not shopping! Unless, he thinks of shopping because he is in need of something specific that will facilitate some other form of recreational activity. Maybe he needs fishing lures, or film for his camera, or a new hat for the NASCAR race. But that is different. Men do not do recreational shopping. To men, shopping is a utilitary function in the process of reaching a much higher objective. The mall is a means to an end. The mall is never a destination in and of itself.

H is for “hell.” That is exactly what I am going to get now from a few women who read this website.

H is for “jalapeno peppers.” Well, not really, but by my ears it should be.

H is for “Hopi.” The Hopi are one of many Native American peoples. I am not Hopi.

H is for “Hansel and Gretel,” two German kids. I am German. Hurray for German kids!

H is almost for “Irish.” Hurray for Irish kids! I’m one of them too!

H is for “hullabaloo,” and “hornswoggle,” and “hoodwink.” Hurray for dictionaries!

H is for “Hey! That reminds me!” After writing an article about an old high school girlfriend in April, I received the nastiest email of my life! Wow! Whoever sent it (and I know who it was) was angry, angry, angry! They called me an a**hole. They said that I was “bad news to women.” They diagnosed me as suffering from “delusions of grandeur.” But I had to laugh when they used the word “hoodwink.” Somehow, hoodwink just doesn’t make it in a flaming email. It carries about the same intensity as when an adult swipes their hand over a toddler’s nose, then shows their thumb sticking between their fingers and says to the child, “I got your nose!” It’s a doting kind of word, almost affectionate.

H is for “Howdy Doody,” a freckled marionette who was the star of a TV show that first aired on December 27th,1947. What else would come to mind but freckled puppets after talking about hoodwinking?

H is for “Hurry.” And now that is what I must do because it’s time to pick up my son from work.

Hasta la vista, baby!

alphabyteslogo3 An AlphaBytes Project – The Letter H

Nice Sky

(Originally posted on the website Continuum…)

I couldn’t resist this nice sky on my way to work. I stopped at Point Mountain and took the short hike up the trail to take these photos. (Yes, wearing my tie and all.) It’s not much of a hike, only a few minutes or so, depending on how many functioning lungs you have.

But that was before THIS happened.

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